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Author Topic: Article Request: Stopping the Rush  (Read 5263 times)

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Davio

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Article Request: Stopping the Rush
« on: January 04, 2012, 05:57:03 am »
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I would like to see an article about how to deal with rushing opponents.

I often find myself wondering whether I should join in on the rush with a deck that is not as specifically tailored to the rush or whether I should just try to grab as many Provinces as I can to grab a quick VP lead.

I played a couple of games against Michael Harris that have me confused.

In this one I fail to combat his Duke/Silk Road strategy in time and even though I steal the most of the Dukes it was too late. I wonder whether I should have grabbed Duchies instead of Provinces earlier. I chose Bank because I originally chose to just grab Provinces with a BMU+-style deck for which my Banks would usually be $3+ and coupled with Nomad Camp (but no draw) I could maybe sneak an extra card in here and there. But I switched to his rush strategy, but it was already too late.

In this one I succesfully beat his Island/Silk Road rush due to grabbing an equal share of Islands and having a way better economy to outlast his rush. I think he ended the game, because he knew he probably couldn't win anymore.


I am a big fan of IGG-rushing myself and had very good results with it, but how does one deal with being rushed? The main question I find hard to answer is whether to join the rush (which may be too late) or stubbornly go for the Provinces still... This also applies to Gardens of course.

How to stop the rush?
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WrathOfGlod

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Re: Article Request: Stopping the Rush
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2012, 07:02:21 am »
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I think that the key to beating rushes is to have a robust deck which can grab provinces even after it has picked up several green cards.
Unless you can build an exceptionally powerful engine (and on those boards there probably won't be a rush) an engine deck  will not be able to snipe enough green cards while staying strong
However a good BM based deck can handle the green and continue after the snipe

(I have the opposite problem of being way too cheesy and going for all those rushes)

Michael Harris
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Davio

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Re: Article Request: Stopping the Rush
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2012, 07:36:20 am »
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I think that the key to beating rushes is to have a robust deck which can grab provinces even after it has picked up several green cards.
Unless you can build an exceptionally powerful engine (and on those boards there probably won't be a rush) an engine deck  will not be able to snipe enough green cards while staying strong
However a good BM based deck can handle the green and continue after the snipe

(I have the opposite problem of being way too cheesy and going for all those rushes)

Michael Harris
Hehe, I noticed you like rushes which challenged me to see if there was a way to beat them. In that last game, I had a Courtyard which helps me to line up my buys exactly. I wonder if you had been better off postponing the rush a bit (it was clear I was going for Provinces anyway) to buy a Silver or 2 and score some Duchies. That could have made the game a bit closer.
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DG

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Re: Article Request: Stopping the Rush
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2012, 08:56:34 am »
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With duchy/duke you need to move fast and get the duchies. If you think the dukes are going to sell out then the duchies will end up worth more than a province, once you consider the potential score for both yourself and your opponent.

The rush question is very difficult to answer. You keep getting questions such as "will buying this card score me vital points or bring me closer to 3 pile loss?" and if you play the same kingdom twice you might get different answers.
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kn1tt3r

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Re: Article Request: Stopping the Rush
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2012, 09:24:15 am »
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The rush question is very difficult to answer. You keep getting questions such as "will buying this card score me vital points or bring me closer to 3 pile loss?" and if you play the same kingdom twice you might get different answers.
And, more importantly, there are so many different types of rush strategies that it's almost impossible to write one article about it (IGG rush is so much different from Gardens for example). Actually this should be a part in each article of the specific "rush cards" instead, which I think is also the case.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Article Request: Stopping the Rush
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2012, 09:50:02 am »
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I agree. I feel like often there's a Duke on the board, which I have no care to pursue. But then my opponent buys a Duchy... and as soon as he does, I feel like I have no choice but to start buying Duchies, because if I don't, my opponent will end up more points from Duke/Duchy than I can get from Province.
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ehunt

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Re: Article Request: Stopping the Rush
« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2012, 10:51:42 am »
+6

I agree. I feel like often there's a Duke on the board, which I have no care to pursue. But then my opponent buys a Duchy... and as soon as he does, I feel like I have no choice but to start buying Duchies, because if I don't, my opponent will end up more points from Duke/Duchy than I can get from Province.

1. So, the question to ask yourself here is: why do you have no care to pursue the Duke? If it's a board where Dukes are going to beat provinces, then this was a mistake to begin with - it doesn't become a mistake when your opponent buys the first duchy. If it's not such a board, then you should relax! Your opponent has chosen the non-dominant strategy, and you'll probably win.

The following is a simple heuristic, so forgive me if you've already thought of it! I find it very helpful, you might think it is a tautology:

A good question to ask yourself in these circumstances is: "why did I decide that provinces are better than Dukes in this game?"

The answer is usually of the form "I worried that if I went for dukes, he could do x."

Now, when you see your opponent buying an early duchy, do x.

2. On similar grounds: try playing some rush strategies, especially when you're not sure whether they are dominant. Even if you think, OK, IGG + duchies is boring, and I would prefer never to go for the rush when possible, you still need to learn how to defend against the rush. The best way to learn defense against a strategy is to execute the strategy yourself and pay attention to what your opponent does and, more importantly, to what you're worried about your opponent doing. For instance, try going for workshop/gardens on a colony board or for IGG with watchtower on the board - corner cases like this.

3. A general Dominion principle (which doesn't always hold) is: go down with your ship. Maybe it's a board where the opponent's vault + duke strategy has a 60% chance of winning over your, I dunno, fishing village festival watchtower deck which aims for provinces, and you don't realize what's gone wrong till he's bought the first duchy. OK, whatever, sucks that you made the wrong choice, but a 40% chance of winning isn't so bad. It's probably better than a non-strategy which buys some watchtowers and not enough festivals and then freaks out and has to repeatedly decide between buying a duchy with $12 or buying a province and losing.  [this principle is not meant to imply that you should not buy duchies - you have to prevent his dukes from being worth 6+, but only that you should not jettison your original strategy in the course of doing so]

4. I agree with everyone who said the different rush strategies are fundamentally more different than they are similar. Still, I think my bullet point #2 above is the best advice for defending against all of them (and against every other type of strategy).
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GendoIkari

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Re: Article Request: Stopping the Rush
« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2012, 11:44:46 am »
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I agree. I feel like often there's a Duke on the board, which I have no care to pursue. But then my opponent buys a Duchy... and as soon as he does, I feel like I have no choice but to start buying Duchies, because if I don't, my opponent will end up more points from Duke/Duchy than I can get from Province.

1. So, the question to ask yourself here is: why do you have no care to pursue the Duke? If it's a board where Dukes are going to beat provinces, then this was a mistake to begin with - it doesn't become a mistake when your opponent buys the first duchy. If it's not such a board, then you should relax! Your opponent has chosen the non-dominant strategy, and you'll probably win.

The following is a simple heuristic, so forgive me if you've already thought of it! I find it very helpful, you might think it is a tautology:

A good question to ask yourself in these circumstances is: "why did I decide that provinces are better than Dukes in this game?"

The answer is usually of the form "I worried that if I went for dukes, he could do x."

Now, when you see your opponent buying an early duchy, do x.

2. On similar grounds: try playing some rush strategies, especially when you're not sure whether they are dominant. Even if you think, OK, IGG + duchies is boring, and I would prefer never to go for the rush when possible, you still need to learn how to defend against the rush. The best way to learn defense against a strategy is to execute the strategy yourself and pay attention to what your opponent does and, more importantly, to what you're worried about your opponent doing. For instance, try going for workshop/gardens on a colony board or for IGG with watchtower on the board - corner cases like this.

3. A general Dominion principle (which doesn't always hold) is: go down with your ship. Maybe it's a board where the opponent's vault + duke strategy has a 60% chance of winning over your, I dunno, fishing village festival watchtower deck which aims for provinces, and you don't realize what's gone wrong till he's bought the first duchy. OK, whatever, sucks that you made the wrong choice, but a 40% chance of winning isn't so bad. It's probably better than a non-strategy which buys some watchtowers and not enough festivals and then freaks out and has to repeatedly decide between buying a duchy with $12 or buying a province and losing.  [this principle is not meant to imply that you should not buy duchies - you have to prevent his dukes from being worth 6+, but only that you should not jettison your original strategy in the course of doing so]

4. I agree with everyone who said the different rush strategies are fundamentally more different than they are similar. Still, I think my bullet point #2 above is the best advice for defending against all of them (and against every other type of strategy).

Thanks, that's very helpful! Especially #2; I will definitely try that. In terms of when it's safe to ignore Duke, I guess what I meant was that it seems like no matter what the board or my strategy, I fear I will lose if my opponent chooses Duchys. Of course, I'm sure this isn't true, and implementing your #2 will help show me why. The other part is that I may have a great strategy that will work well as long as my opponent doesn't buy Duchys/Dukes, and in that case it's something of a gamble, just hoping from the beginning that he doesn't choose that route. But perhaps in such cases, buying Dukes/Duchys is just what I should do from the start.

Then again, there's always my fallback option... veto Dukes! A horrible way to learn, I know.
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timchen

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Re: Article Request: Stopping the Rush
« Reply #8 on: January 06, 2012, 02:02:35 am »
+1

1. So, the question to ask yourself here is: why do you have no care to pursue the Duke? If it's a board where Dukes are going to beat provinces, then this was a mistake to begin with - it doesn't become a mistake when your opponent buys the first duchy. If it's not such a board, then you should relax! Your opponent has chosen the non-dominant strategy, and you'll probably win.


3. A general Dominion principle (which doesn't always hold) is: go down with your ship. Maybe it's a board where the opponent's vault + duke strategy has a 60% chance of winning over your, I dunno, fishing village festival watchtower deck which aims for provinces, and you don't realize what's gone wrong till he's bought the first duchy. OK, whatever, sucks that you made the wrong choice, but a 40% chance of winning isn't so bad. It's probably better than a non-strategy which buys some watchtowers and not enough festivals and then freaks out and has to repeatedly decide between buying a duchy with $12 or buying a province and losing.  [this principle is not meant to imply that you should not buy duchies - you have to prevent his dukes from being worth 6+, but only that you should not jettison your original strategy in the course of doing so]


I found this overall argument unconvincing. You are basically saying, you should either join him (if it is the dominant strategy), or follow the dominant strategy.

Sure on general grounds this is quite true; the problem is what is the dominant strategy? It is quite possible that the dominant strategy given the Duke/Silk Road/Whatever card is on the table and given your opponent is going for a rush is different from a dominant strategy which ignores them completely. A classic example is the Bishop counter towards a Garden strategy; if you are not playing against a garden player there is no way you are going to buy the Gardens then eat them.

That is the heart of the problem; the dominant strategy on such board, when your opponent is going for some VP strategy often involves getting a few pieces of them to block, and then win on your high VPs. Apparently this kind of strategy lies between; and if your opponent is not playing the VP strategy, the dominant strategy may not need to touch those kingdom VP cards.
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ecq

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Re: Article Request: Stopping the Rush
« Reply #9 on: January 06, 2012, 11:31:37 am »
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I think alternate VP strategies, Duke/Duchy included, are more complicated than people are suggesting.

There are really 3 strategies to consider: (1) Duke/Duchy, (2) Racing opponent for Provinces, (3) Buying all Provinces.

There may be a faster strategy for gaining all provinces than for winning with Duke/Duchy, however that strategy may lose in a pure Province race, since it probably requires more build-up to cope with later greening.  If you start by racing for Provinces and your opponent buys a Duchy, you may need to change what you're doing.  It's usually much harder to buy 8 Provinces than 4-5.
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DG

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Re: Article Request: Stopping the Rush
« Reply #10 on: January 06, 2012, 11:42:41 am »
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Quote
I think alternate VP strategies, Duke/Duchy included, are more complicated than people are suggesting.

I'll suggest that they're the most complicated strategies in Dominion. We haven't even considered multiplayer yet and that's a nightmare.
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dondon151

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Re: Article Request: Stopping the Rush
« Reply #11 on: January 06, 2012, 09:52:37 pm »
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Every time I'm in a multiplayer (particularly 3 player) game with alternate Victory cards, I always feel like I'm in a lose-lose situation - do I rush Silk Roads and compete for the cheap Victory cards, risking losing to a Province-buying opponent? Or do I compete for the 12 Provinces, letting a Silk Road-buying opponent have his way with the cheap Victory cards?

Obviously I'm not actually in a lose-lose situation, since that would mean that no one wins, but I rarely ever win 3 player games when alternate Victory cards are in the kingdom. And sometimes there's that 3rd player who has no chance at winning but just empties out the piles when my Duchies are worth 6 VP but I only have 1 Duke.

I also recall a notable game where I went DoubleJack and lost to my friend, who got 8 of the Fool's Golds. I remarked that I should have competed a bit harder for the FGs (only bought 2 of them), and realized that FG's reaction kind of allows it to "block" itself - decks that rely on FG for money tend to choke on green if the FG density isn't high enough, and the player blocking the FGs would rather trash the FGs for Golds.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2012, 10:00:03 pm by dondon151 »
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