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[vulturesrow]

Hi all,

Been lurking for a while and mostly restricting myself to playing the game with my kids (base set only at that). Ive gotten back into the game after a hiatus due to military deployment and decided to see what isotropic was all about. I think I played decently in this game but I'm sure there are things I couldve done better.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/09/game-20120109-194635-c015b5f7.html

[philosophyguy]

The first thing I notice is that you have a lot of terminal actions (2 Smithy, Milita, Witch), and 3 of those 4 are terminal drawing cards. That means you are probably drawing dead a lot of times.

I would suggest buying a Witch instead of Lab when you first get 5. Militia is an ok opening buy (although Silver may be preferable), but I would definitely skip the Smithy if I already have a Militia.

[dondon151]

Silver / Silver is probably a slightly better opening than Silver / Militia with Witch on the board, and you'll probably only want 2 Witches with no other actions.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

Okay, the first thing thing that stands out to me is that Smithy has no place in either of these decks.  Smithy, and cards like it, should be used primarily in decks that are almost all treasure and secondly in decks that have trashing and villages.  Kingdoms that have important terminal actions, like Witch and Militia, and useful non-terminals, like Laboratory but no Village-types are really only hurt by adding Smithy.  Using Smithy in the deck you built will usually not only fail to improve the buying power of the hand more than the $2 Silver would have  but will also cause those important other cards to be wasted when you draw them blind with no extra actions.  You already have a Witch, which is a must-buy here, and by playing that card you risk drawing the Militia or Laboratory dead.

Also, the Witch should be the first priority for both of you, and frankly your opponent blew it by opening Market/- instead.  Opening Market is usually a pretty weak thing to do and with a Witch available it is just plain stupid.  So you lucked out there.

The other thing that stands out is that you bought a Province on turn 8 with one Gold in your deck.  This isn't always a bad idea but in the cursing situation you were in your economy wasn't nearly robust enough to start greening.  Indeed, after buying a second Province on turn 13 you had a very long stretch before you could begin to try to close out the game, and this tells me that you started greening too early.

On the plus side, you obviously understand the importance of attacking early and often.

[Titandrake]

This is more general, but I think improving at Dominion mostly follows these steps, not necessarily in this order.

1. Learning not to underestimate the basic Treasure cards. They're good. They're pretty much always a good buy until you get to ~lvl 20, where some games start to turn them into not as good buys, Silver in particular. This also includes learning how many actions you can fit in a deck. If your action doesn't give +1 or +2 Action, it's going to make missing an action play happen more often. And this should be obvious, but if your action draws cards, the chances of you drawing cards you can't play skyrockets. This is why people are recommending you only get 2 Witches and skip Smithy, even though Smithy is a great card. If you get all of those terminal +Cards, you're not going to play them enough for it to be worth it.

2. Learning which actions are generally worth buying and which ones are not. This comes with practice/playing the game enough and noticing what people who win tend to do. From this game, I don't see any big issues.

3. As an extension of 2, learning which actions fundamentally change the game. One example being Witch: giving out Curses is a drastic change. Once again, no major issues.

Starting from here is the growth that begins to happen concurrently.

4. Learning not to overestimate money. In this game you want all the money you can get. But sometimes, not so much. If there's a strong combination of actions out, money makes hitting your action chain more difficult. But you do need to buy some money to buy the action in the first place, and so on.
 
5. Learning general rules of thumb. For instance, "In a game where Cursers exist, you want to get 2 of those Cursers." I think this is the longest step, and with new expansions coming out it takes longer and longer. This isn't a step so much as a thing you constantly learn. Rules of thumb almost always comes from experience, either by experimenting or by getting utterly destroyed by someone 15 levels above you.

6. Learning when to break the rules of thumb. Definitely the hardest step to learn. Opening Silver/Silver on this board with Militia isn't something you'd normally see. But with Witch taking up the terminal actions slots your deck can support, skipping Militia could be worth it.

7. Deck control. shark_bait has a nice article on this. Essentially, if your deck has 3 cards left, you have a Smithy in hand, and you have not played a Witch yet, skip the Smithy because your deck has a Witch in it, and it's more important to play the Witch and hand out curses.

[ackack]

Good post; now for the nitpick patrol!

7. Deck control. shark_bait has a nice article on this. Essentially, if your deck has 3 cards left, you have a Smithy in hand, and you have not played a Witch yet, skip the Smithy because your deck has a Witch in it, and it's more important to play the Witch and hand out curses.

In this particular instance, unless the Curses are nearly run out, I think playing the Smithy would often be better. This is because you'll pull the Witch through the shuffle this way anyhow, whereas with exactly 3 cards left in the deck playing the Smithy won't do that AND will also result in any purchase you make this turn being included in the new shuffle as well. Thus you are not costing yourself a play of Witch, you are merely delaying it for a turn or two. added: okay, there is a small probability that you'll draw it dead next time around too. In terms of expected Witch plays, you might be giving up .1 here.

[DStu]

In this particular instance, unless the Curses are nearly run out, I think playing the Smithy would often be better. This is because you'll pull the Witch through the shuffle this way anyhow, whereas with exactly 3 cards left in the deck playing the Smithy won't do that AND will also result in any purchase you make this turn being included in the new shuffle as well. Thus you are not costing yourself a play of Witch, you are merely delaying it for a turn or two. added: okay, there is a small probability that you'll draw it dead next time around too. In terms of expected Witch plays, you might be giving up .1 here.

And it might miss the next shuffle if you draw it dead now, while it can not* miss the next shuffle if it misses this one.

[vulturesrow]

Thanks for all the responses; crazy day at work and just now got a chance to reply. I wish I could respond to each one individually but Id never finish. I'll respond to some of the comments.

Opening: Honestly Silver/Silver never crossed my mind because I thought Militia was good enough even with Witch on the board too. As for only buying one Witch, my thinking (obviously flawed) was that since I already had one attacking card that I didnt want another Witch. LEsson learned.

Buying Smithy: I actually regretted buying this right after doing so. I bought because I knew it was a "good card" but when I started thinking about how it would fit what I had I realized it really didn't.

Early Province: It seems like knowing when to start buying victory cards is something you just have to learn by experience, so for now Im trying to err on the side of too early rather than too late.


Followup questions:

1. What would your ideal deck be with the cards on our board?
2. Would buying a couple mines have been worthwhile? What about a source of +Buy?

Thanks again for the responses, I really appreciate it.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

I'll start my answer with the +buy question.  I do not think it is needed here.  You need a +buy either when you can mass a large amount of coin in one hand or if you want to buy a bunch of cheap cards.  This Kingdom will likely never present you with $16 in a hand, so +buy is superfluous.

I think Lab in this Kingdom is superior over Mine.  I think the Witch makes the Mine a bad idea; putting many Labs, a couple Markets and one Mine together does pretty good in Base but it performs better when you do not add more than a couple Silver and instead concentrate on winning the Lab war, cycling through the deck as much as possible each turn and by improving the economy by upgrading the starting treasure.  The curses throw a wrench in the works and weaken the hell out of Lab.

If I were playing this hand, I think I would try my damnedest to win the curse war primarily by not over-investing in silver, if that is possible, and getting as many Labs as I could.  Or you could go heavier Silver and more Witches.  Where are the simulators on this?

[Anon79]

The other thing that stands out is that you bought a Province on turn 8 with one Gold in your deck.  This isn't always a bad idea but in the cursing situation you were in your economy wasn't nearly robust enough to start greening.  Indeed, after buying a second Province on turn 13 you had a very long stretch before you could begin to try to close out the game, and this tells me that you started greening too early.

I would have bought that Province on Turn 9 like OP did. I don't agree that the greening is too early, just that after Turn 9 there were maybe a few more missteps along the way.

For example: Turn 10, since you'd started greening, buy that Silver. Turn 11, hard to say, but usually Militia is a better play than Smithy especially with your deck composition what it is. Might be a tricky decision if it doesn't get you to $5?

Nearer end-game: Turn 17, okay now you've gained Gold a few turns in a row, consider Laboratory or throw in a single Market now... Turn 18, ditto.

[DG]

Where are the simulators on this?

The simulators say "buy double witch with a 5/2 start and you win 66% of the games against 4/3". It's so clear cut that buying silver/ militia/smithy, lab/silver, market/lab, makes little or no difference and the game is won with the witches.

I'll add a comment about the mine here. Unless you're doing something clever with your treasures a mine needs to be played at least 3 times to be better than silver. It is still taking a terminal action to do it as well. A mine needs to be carefully managed and put into the right deck. Silver is the card you put into an average deck when you want some ready value.

[vulturesrow]

Where are the simulators on this?

The simulators say "buy double witch with a 5/2 start and you win 66% of the games against 4/3". It's so clear cut that buying silver/ militia/smithy, lab/silver, market/lab, makes little or no difference and the game is won with the witches.

I'll add a comment about the mine here. Unless you're doing something clever with your treasures a mine needs to be played at least 3 times to be better than silver. It is still taking a terminal action to do it as well. A mine needs to be carefully managed and put into the right deck. Silver is the card you put into an average deck when you want some ready value.

I assume they say something similar about a 3/4 start like I had? If had drawn a 5/2 I definitely wouldve taken a Witch to start. The 4/3 start muddied the waters for me.

[DG]

Simulator says buy militia, buy 2 witches then take labs/market, treasure, vp. The variance from the militia and witches makes it difficult to gather many more conclusions than that.

[vulturesrow]

Simulator says buy militia, buy 2 witches then take labs/market, treasure, vp. The variance from the militia and witches makes it difficult to gather many more conclusions than that.

Im glad I wasnt totally off the mark with how I played then.