Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[AdamH]

So as for your buys, particularly with Villages, one general piece of advice I can give you is to divide your situations into two categories:

First, where the village split matters. If there's only one stack of Villages and it's important to win the split, then usually you just build your deck early on where winning that split is a priority, so overbuying is not as bad here (but don't pass on early trashing or junking or anything crazy just to win the split).

Second, where the village split is less important. Let's say there just aren't that many terminals you need to play, or there are multiple villages on the board so denial isn't a huge deal. In this case, you'll often hear me ask myself "what is the best card for my deck right now?" Now what this really means is "what are the best cards to put in my deck before I shuffle again?" and you'll want to track your deck to see what you're likely to buy on your other turns before you shuffle, but this is much more a short-term decision. You should have an idea of what you want your deck to look like, yes, but you'll want to add cards to your deck that get you there as quickly as possible.

If you're drawing your deck, it's a simple decision -- increase your payload as much as you can while still being able to draw your deck. You can actually plan a few turns ahead in these cases and get some extra benefits. It's pretty clear in this case that you don't want extra Villages, because extra actions at the end of your turn don't help you at all. If you are on your way to drawing your deck but not quite there, this still mostly holds, but you can't be as precise about your payload and planning ahead usually isn't profitable.

If you aren't drawing your deck, but plan to some day, then maaaaaybe you want like one extra Village for reliability, but this depends on a lot of things and will usually not give you a super-huge benefit. Certainly if you're properly balanced now and you can only get one card before you shuffle, Village is probably better than payload, but again this is not always the case.

If you don't plan to draw your deck, well, you should think pretty hard about whether you want Villages at all. Maybe you still do, but a lot of my advice doesn't apply anymore in that case.

As for not triggering the shuffle, I mean I've gone through a progression of stopping myself before playing all types of cards and making sure it's a good thing. And yeah it's really hard. There are still tons of things I realize I did wrong right after I clicked it. It will probably take a while to get used to it, but the right answer is to think before you play your cards always.

Yeah this takes forever, so I've developed some habits. Like I just try not to click the "Play All Treasures" button when Farmland is on the board (and Save -- Iso bailed me out several times on this one but MF Dominion probably won't) and other assorted things. You can just try to put them into your mind when the game starts along with other strategic points (think about gaining Inn at all times, etc.) It's a slow process, but I think it's a good way to get better at the game.

[Mic Qsenoch]

The main purpose of splitters is to let you play more Actions after your terminal draw. You don't need any splitters as long as you don't have any terminal draw, but you do want more splitters than terminal draw. I usually buy two Swindlers before my first Village, but two Villages before my first Smithy.

This is terrible advice. It's trying to make a generalization that isn't at all widespread enough to be useful. Lots of decks without terminal draw want Villages. Almost all the Villages do things besides give +actions so that's reason enough right there to consider many of them. Sometimes your draw is nonterminal but you have several terminal actions you'd like to play. Sometimes you trash enough that you can expect to play two terminals on many turns.

"two Villages before my first Smithy." What? This is awful, there's no way this is your typical build order.

[doesitgoboom]

Last night in a league match I was able to track my deck with a little reliability. I was at the end of a shuffle with one card left to draw. I remember on instant that ended up in a one point victory. I already had a Providence buy in hand for the current turn. I was able to realize that I had a Draw card sitting there and knew to make sure to leave it there. In the end it gave me the ability to hit 8 again the next turn and pull off the last Providence for the win.

[werothegreat]

"two Villages before my first Smithy." What? This is awful, there's no way this is your typical build order.

I wouldn't go that far, but I definitely try to pick up a village and a terminal draw in the same shuffle, unless it's attack terminal draw, then that shit gets picked up asap.

[Awaclus]

This is terrible advice. It's trying to make a generalization that isn't at all widespread enough to be useful. Lots of decks without terminal draw want Villages. Almost all the Villages do things besides give +actions so that's reason enough right there to consider many of them. Sometimes your draw is nonterminal but you have several terminal actions you'd like to play. Sometimes you trash enough that you can expect to play two terminals on many turns.

"two Villages before my first Smithy." What? This is awful, there's no way this is your typical build order.

There are obviously edge cases, that's why I said it's the main purpose, not the only purpose.

Yes, two Swindlers, two Villages and then a Smithy is my typical build order. I don't think it's awful.

[Mic Qsenoch]

There are obviously edge cases, that's why I said it's the main purpose, not the only purpose.

Those aren't edge cases! They are all quite common. You can't wave them away. The Villages are not just about +actions for terminal draw, they do a million other things. There are lots of nonterminal drawing decks that want Villages.

Yes, two Swindlers, two Villages and then a Smithy is my typical build order. I don't think it's awful.

I read the original sentence as saying you buy two Villages before buying any Smithies in general (totally separate from the Swindler part), just so you know your sentence could be parsed that way.

As to whether your clarified build order is awful, well now you're advocating some specific order which is not useful in general. It could be correct of course but it isn't something worth remembering or following on boards with Swindler/Village/Smithy. I still consider it bad strategy advice.

I find almost all the discussion in this thread strategically useless when it's divorced from example game logs and real in game decisions. Everything is too vague and basically assumes the reader already knows how to play well, it doesn't teach. Most of it is tautology ("just do the best thing!") and much of the rest is wrong.

[Awaclus]

There are obviously edge cases, that's why I said it's the main purpose, not the only purpose.

Those aren't edge cases! They are all quite common. You can't wave them away. The Villages are not just about +actions for terminal draw, they do a million other things. There are lots of nonterminal drawing decks that want Villages.

Yes, two Swindlers, two Villages and then a Smithy is my typical build order. I don't think it's awful.

I read the original sentence as saying you buy two Villages before buying any Smithies in general (totally separate from the Swindler part), just so you know your sentence could be parsed that way.

As to whether your clarified build order is awful, well now you're advocating some specific order which is not useful in general. It could be correct of course but it isn't something worth remembering or following on boards with Swindler/Village/Smithy. I still consider it bad strategy advice.

I find almost all the discussion in this thread strategically useless when it's divorced from example game logs and real in game decisions. Everything is too vague and basically assumes the reader already knows how to play well, it doesn't teach. Most of it is tautology ("just do the best thing!") and much of the rest is wrong.

Not wanting terminal draw is already an edge case. Then even more conditions need to be true before you actually start buying splitters for other purposes.

The specific order is just an example. I'm actually not sure how often I do it myself, probably not very. The point is that you want non-drawing terminals before your first splitters and your first splitters before your first terminal draw, which is obviously not always correct, but I think it's a useful mindset to have even when it's not correct.

The discussion in this thread might not be very useful for teaching a new player what plays they should make in order to win more games, but I think a lot of it is useful for teaching how the game should be approached to become better at it. Which is probably a lot more useful than "strategically useful" advice — in Dominion's case, it's always either too vague to be of much use or too specific to be of much use.

[Mic Qsenoch]

I will remember in the future that every board without terminal draw is just an edge case and dismiss them as irrelevant. Thanks Awaclus!

[DG]

Villages are not so straightforward to work out. The first thing to realize though is that you generally need a hand with two terminals and a village to make the village worthwhile. When you start thinking of the possible different draws you can get from a big deck, whether it's villages and no terminal, one village and one terminal, two terminals and no village, etc, you will probably find more draws where the villages are not useful than draws where they are useful. As soon as you move to smaller deck, or have larger hands, or can improve the quality of your draws with a warehouse type card, you will find that the villages and terminals come together better. The more that you can control your draws, the more value you can get from villages.

Another thing to consider is how important the alternative cards will be. The typical alternative to a village is just silver and sometimes silver is itself a poor card.

[sudgy]

On the other hand, if it's not an engine game, you don't necessarily want any Nobles at all and if Nobles/big money is the best strategy on the board, then you want a couple, but not more.

I'm not so sure Nobles would be better to get than Gold in a BM game.  Gold is pretty good.

[faust]

On the other hand, if it's not an engine game, you don't necessarily want any Nobles at all and if Nobles/big money is the best strategy on the board, then you want a couple, but not more.

I'm not so sure Nobles would be better to get than Gold in a BM game.  Gold is pretty good.

3 cards should net more than $3 on average in a BM deck (granted, to get to that density, you might need to buy a Gold or two first). And these 2 VP come in pretty handy in the endgame if there's no +buy.

[eHalcyon]

@Awaclus, pretty often you should be getting terminal draw before splitters, e.g. when the non-drawing terminal is stronger later in the game, or too expensive to buy early.  These aren't edge cases.

[sudgy]

On the other hand, if it's not an engine game, you don't necessarily want any Nobles at all and if Nobles/big money is the best strategy on the board, then you want a couple, but not more.

I'm not so sure Nobles would be better to get than Gold in a BM game.  Gold is pretty good.

3 cards should net more than $3 on average in a BM deck (granted, to get to that density, you might need to buy a Gold or two first). And these 2 VP come in pretty handy in the endgame if there's no +buy.

Shouldn't you not get another Smithy for a bit in a Smithy-BM game because, while the second Smithy is good, a bit more Silver is better?

[Awaclus]

On the other hand, if it's not an engine game, you don't necessarily want any Nobles at all and if Nobles/big money is the best strategy on the board, then you want a couple, but not more.

I'm not so sure Nobles would be better to get than Gold in a BM game.  Gold is pretty good.

3 cards should net more than $3 on average in a BM deck (granted, to get to that density, you might need to buy a Gold or two first). And these 2 VP come in pretty handy in the endgame if there's no +buy.

Shouldn't you not get another Smithy for a bit in a Smithy-BM game because, while the second Smithy is good, a bit more Silver is better?

No, you should get another Smithy. Not right away, but a bit later it's good.

@Awaclus, pretty often you should be getting terminal draw before splitters, e.g. when the non-drawing terminal is stronger later in the game, or too expensive to buy early.  These aren't edge cases.

True. And it's still a beneficial mindset.