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Author Topic: Back to Engines 101  (Read 3004 times)

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theJester

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Back to Engines 101
« on: April 18, 2015, 11:59:43 am »
+1

Hello, I'd like feedback on following two games:

I. The game that inspired the title: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150417/log.515c0c7ce4b093d38b19b125.1429279117344.txt



Code: [Select]
Moat, Pawn, Fishing Village, Masterpiece, Bridge, Coppersmith, Farming Village, Outpost, Stables, Vault
Here I was soundly and utterly beaten. Plan here is obvious: mass Bridges, have many Fishing Villages to support them, and Stables to draw your deck. I had 5/2 and went for Stables/Moat (I thought with many FV around, draw from Moat will be useful). However, despite making some suboptimal decisions in the start, my opponent was ahead from the beginning, was in control the entire time and finished the game on 3 piles when it suited him. I obviously did something wrong, and I'm eager to learn what. What were my mistakes?

II. Money-ish game: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150418/log.516e5d7fe4b082c74d7d6bc6.1429371123429.txt



Code: [Select]
Workshop, Feast, Island, Monument, Throne Room, Treasure Map, Baker, Bazaar, Cartographer, Rogue
No real +buy (Workshop and Feast being inferior substitutes), no trashing and no draw - looked like a money-ish board to me. I decided to try Island+BM, while my opponent opened with Workshop/Baker, which seemed too slow to me. I had misfortune of his Rogue hitting my Gold on turn 5, but still I managed to amass solid Province lead. When it seemed that game might slog out for a while, I bought Baker for tokens. Game ended on 3-piling (Islands, Estates, Duchies), as neither of us wanted to break the PPR. I won barely (2 points), although I thought my strategy should be much better. Is this assumption wrong or was my execution bad?


edit: posted wrong log



« Last Edit: April 18, 2015, 12:02:15 pm by theJester »
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-Stef-

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Re: Back to Engines 101
« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2015, 12:35:12 pm »
+6

game 1:

You have to play engine because if you give your opponent all of the cards in all of the cool piles it's just too much. Also in the engine-vs-BM match the engine can easily play around 3-piling long enough to get some big bridge turns going. However, it isn't a very strong engine without trashing and very mediocre draw. When both players go for it, it will certainly end in a 3 pile before anyone ever really gets his deck going. With draw being the main problem, and the best draw card being non-terminal, fishing village isn't near as good as it can be. I'd get "regular" (farming) villages on $4 for sure. Some Fishing Villages is fine but they're not great. Much worse is your outpost this early. That certainly should be Stables; that's a very important card to have. You'd rather have one double bridge turn then two half-baked turns with 1 bridge each.


game 2:

You could go more engine-y here, you could also play BM-ish. No +buy is certainly no reason to skip the engine, workshop on throne room is easily enough gains to make that work. But there is no draw, barely any trashing and also not an impressively mean attack. If you go BM-ish though you should really go Monument-BM. That's much much stronger then island-BM.
Only when your opponent is trying to get his "engine" to a consistent deck by using island for pseudo-trash, you can decide to deny him some islands.
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theblankman

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Re: Back to Engines 101
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2015, 04:06:59 pm »
0

Is there some way to just get all your points of throned Monuments in the second game, or does that lack of draw make that too slow? 
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Throwaway_bicycling

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Re: Back to Engines 101
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2015, 07:26:20 pm »
0

Is there some way to just get all your points of throned Monuments in the second game, or does that lack of draw make that too slow?

That was exactly my first thought, especially since you can use Workshop to gain as many Thrones and Monuments as you can stand. The issue here is not just lack of draw, but also lack of villages or cantrips costing less than $5 that you could Throne...you just don't ever get that many VP from this.

It pains me even to suggest this, but it's a Baker board, but on 4/3 you could just roll the dice and open Treasure Map/Treasure Map, with the "support" of being able to buy Workshop for $3 to buy more T-maps or Monuments, once you hit, and buy a third T-map on your first $4. But I think this does end up basically being BM/Monument, one way or another.
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enfynet

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Re: Back to Engines 101
« Reply #4 on: April 19, 2015, 03:22:31 pm »
+1

Is there some way to just get all your points of throned Monuments in the second game, or does that lack of draw make that too slow?

That was exactly my first thought, especially since you can use Workshop to gain as many Thrones and Monuments as you can stand. The issue here is not just lack of draw, but also lack of villages or cantrips costing less than $5 that you could Throne...you just don't ever get that many VP from this.
You can pick up a Cartographer or two for support with the coins generated by Monument.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Back to Engines 101
« Reply #5 on: April 20, 2015, 12:33:57 pm »
0

Is there some way to just get all your points of throned Monuments in the second game, or does that lack of draw make that too slow?

That was exactly my first thought, especially since you can use Workshop to gain as many Thrones and Monuments as you can stand. The issue here is not just lack of draw, but also lack of villages or cantrips costing less than $5 that you could Throne...you just don't ever get that many VP from this.
You can pick up a Cartographer or two for support with the coins generated by Monument.

Cartographer somewhat helps counteract the lack of trashing by dealing with your deck top, but you can't do anything about the junk already in your hand. So you can't really hope to get much more than like 3VP per turn on average.
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theJester

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Re: Back to Engines 101
« Reply #6 on: April 21, 2015, 11:47:13 am »
0

Thanks for answers all :)

For those who suggest engin-y approach to second board - how would you go about it? What would you open? What's the payload (Throned Monuments? ). Is it competitive with e.g. Monument + BM ?
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