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[GendoIkari]

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111230-155421-6dbf0b40.html

In this game, I thought that because my Apothecaries were running through my deck so well; I would be able to get half of the points before my opponent managed to grab all 10 Cities. Obviously, I was wrong. My question is, should I have been able to take a look at that board and just known that I would have to buy Cities to win? Are Cities always dominate in a Colony game? Or could I have done something else differently? Once my opponent bought a couple Cities, I didn't want to start buying them because I knew he'd be ahead, and I would just help him run out a pile faster.

[DG]

You should be looking for 5 colonies in 21 turns yourself, at least forcing your opponent to work with provinces. That means you can concentrate on how you managed your deck and I suspect the watchtower just doesn't do enough for you.  You can probably do something better with apothecary and courtyard, inns, mining villages, horse traders, maybe even harvest.

[ehunt]

No, you don't have to buy city. Even your opponent's level 2 cities aren't very good - they might as well be laboratories; he has one terminal action in his deck! Now, laboratory is a power-five and nothing to sneeze at, but it can't be the case on this board that the dominant strategy is to spend ten turns buying - nothing - so that you can eventually have ten laboratories.

The watchtower doesn't seem to help you very much; of course, you can't anticipate your opponent going for the city pile, but even absent that, watchtower doesn't play well with apothecary. Other than that, I don't think you make many serious mistakes, but you do make a couple. Your opponent is attempting to empty the city pile, so you want the game to end quickly. You should trash your mining village turn 7 - given your hand, it's very reasonable to expect the apothecary to net you two coppers, as it wound up doing. The turn 11 platinum should be a colony. The turn 15 silver might hurt you more than it helps; it's unlikely ever to be enough money to push you over the edge to a colony and it's bad for the apothecary. I wish I could say something more concrete! I'm surprised you lost based on the initial strategies.

[Smartie]

I think you have made three right decision not to buy any cities, otherwise you might just lose even faster! However, as there are no card draws, and no thrashing options available, I think I would have just pursued for provinces straight, and apothecaries will do just the job to acheive this

[cherdano]

On this board, I would have gone for Minions (opening Silver/Horse Trader). I am surprised noone else suggest this - what do you guys think?

[Geronimoo]

Horse Traders counters Minion's attack quite nicely.

Oh, and the Village idiot got very lucky here. Just a simple Courtyard or 2 will outrace any City-idiocy easily.

[dondon151]

Just wondering - would Harvest work with Apothecary? Apothecary tends to leave some junk on your deck that are otherwise not usable as money anyway, and a Harvest would burn through all of that.

[sjelkjd]

At first I was going to post just to agree about Mining Village and Watchtower being bad buys in this game(I still think they are), but it got me thinking about whether Apothecary is good for Colony games.  You have to build up your buying power more to be able to generate 11, which means Apothecary will be less efficient(worse ratio of copper to other cards).  If you just go for provinces, he probably outraces you in Colonies and your deck will bog down before buying all 8 provinces.  I wonder how Courtyard + big money plays on this board, maybe with a Harvest thrown in if you end up with 5.

[WanderingWinder]

Courtyard+Money looks good, though there is the potential for some minion/HT dancing and/or shenanigans at some point. Also, there might be a HOP deck in here somewhere...

[ddubois]

(If you are offended by a necro'd thread, I'm sorry that you are offended, and perplexed why you would be.  I was searching for City threads trying to answer another question and found this, and had something to say about it.)

I think you should compete for Cities, and use Apoc/HT to get them.  Your opponent got cities on turn 6/8/12/13/15.  I just solitaire'd a courtyard/potion open and had half the cites by turn 10.  Even on a bad draw you can have half the cities and half the Apocs by turn 12.   City/Courtyard put back a copper/Apothecary it back is a great line.  Get a Horse Trader as soon as possible, and you should be able to crank our some Apothecary + City turns while your opponent is derping.