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[Limetime]

This is the topic for reflecting on your loses and deciding what you could of done better.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160121/log.0.1453349740857.txt

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Haven, Stonemason, Cutpurse, Treasure Map, Band of Misfits, Rogue, Soothsayer, Stables, Treasury, King's CourtHis king's courted cutpurses totally rekt me. I was behind after the second shuffle having missed hitting stables. His turn 7 Kinged cutpurse prevented me from hitting five. After my opponent duded with two KCs in hand I got my first king's court. After turn 16 he can't dud because of kc haven shenanigans. I am not sure what I should have done better. Before turn 17 I hoped to pile out with a bunch of stone masoned golds into dutchy stonemason. but I couldn't. Any thought?

[faust]

Well, you certainly had bad luck. Not reaching $5 on the second shuffle was pretty bad, and your opponent's early KC does not make things better. Chances of getting back from that are slim. That said, I don't particularly like your T9 Soothsayer. To win this, you have to hope for dud turns from your opponent, and giving him an extra card will make that harder. He should be able to play Stonemason often enough to get rid of the Curses, and you don't really have much use for the Golds (once your engine is running, the Gold-gaining is nice because you can SM them into useful $5s, but you were not at that point yet).

[SCSN]

I like the Cutpurse/Silver open, but after that I'd get Havens over additional Silvers. I'd also get at least 1 and possibly 2 Treasuries before getting any Stables. Early on they give a nice economy boost every turn that makes it easier to hit more 5s and then 7, and later on they protect against Cutpurse and are readily available KC targets.

Edit: and with you being this behind, I'd seriously consider getting Rogue as my first 5.

[Davio]

I'd probably get 1 extra Silver before Havens.

[Limetime]

Well, you certainly had bad luck. Not reaching $5 on the second shuffle was pretty bad, and your opponent's early KC does not make things better. Chances of getting back from that are slim. That said, I don't particularly like your T9 Soothsayer. To win this, you have to hope for dud turns from your opponent, and giving him an extra card will make that harder. He should be able to play Stonemason often enough to get rid of the Curses, and you don't really have much use for the Golds (once your engine is running, the Gold-gaining is nice because you can SM them into useful $5s, but you were not at that point yet).

I got the soothsayer to try to give him a bunch of curses at once by getting lucky and kc the soothsayer. That said I really should have been focusing on drawing my deck before playing the soothsayers.

I like the Cutpurse/Silver open, but after that I'd get Havens over additional Silvers. I'd also get at least 1 and possibly 2 Treasuries before getting any Stables. Early on they give a nice economy boost every turn that makes it easier to hit more 5s and then 7, and later on they protect against Cutpurse and are readily available KC targets.

Edit: and with you being this behind, I'd seriously consider getting Rogue as my first 5.

I agree that the silvers weren't doing much except being a cutpurse immune stables target. Like davio I think that one more silver would have been good. Haven would have been really good to try to align my kc with stables and treasures. THe rogue seems like it might be better later.

[Davio]

The first $5 is a tough call for me. Stables looks enticing, but getting stuck with less than $5 really sucks on this board.
On the first $7, getting Stonemason + 2 $5s looks good.

[Limetime]

I played a game against adam.
This is the stream from his point of view.

In this game I feel like I built a lot faster than him because of my spice merchant opening. It was in the endgame that I lost. I dudded turn 13 which put me back somewhat but I still could have won/tied if I had been more carefull with my buys. I had at least 4 mistakes that could have won/tied me the game. On turn 14 If could have gotten a duchy/fairgrounds instead of a catacombs I could have won. If I had bought a secret chamber I could have double discarded on my final turn. On turn 15 I could have discarded the silver to my secret chamber for 1 extra coin and i could have trashed the catacombs to get an estate and take the tie.

[AdamH]

So I'll stand firmly behind my Trading Post open here. The reason I was so slow to build was for two reasons: first, I neglected to buy a Spice Merchant on T4, which was pretty stupid. The Trading Post needs to be pretty quickly followed up by a Spice Merchant (Why can't I open with both? Man, Dominion is hard.) and probably more significantly, my Trading Post missed two shuffles the first two times I saw it (if it had been a Spice Merchant I would have been just as screwed). I really like the way you build up this game but I think it could have been better with a Trading Post in there. It probably isn't a huge difference.

I said this in the video, but I think you needed a Catacombs or two before you ended up getting yours -- also, I think you needed that unique card for your Fairgrounds, so I don't know if Duchy would have worked for you there. Maybe it would have?

In any case, you were for-sure a favorite to win once the GMs were out, I was playing to my out that you would stall (could that have been prevented/mitigated with some more Catacombs? Doesn't look like it but it probably would have been preventable if you hadn't started to green that turn, I think) and it came through for me so that was pretty lucky. The interesting thing about this is that I was in a favorable "endgame dancing position" every time I had a turn.

What does this mean? On T12 you buy a single Province, which allows me to leave 6 Provinces in the supply and add a Catacombs that my deck desperately needed. Double Province would have been a fine move for me there too to leave 5 Provinces in the supply. Why are these good numbers to have? Well look at the situation it puts you in -- you really want to triple Province with your deck, but you give up win equity if you do because at that point I can threaten to triple myself and you have to play around that.

Because you stalled on T13, I'm able to leave 4 Provinces in the supply and have a decent lead, which is a huge asset for me. You don't really have any good moves at this point.

Have you ever played that really old game, where there are 13 pins in a board and each player takes a turn removing either 1, 2, or 3 pins from the board; then the person to take the last pin wins the game? The first player can force a win by always leaving a multiple of 4 pins in the board at the end of his turns. Now that helps you have the last turn of the game so Dominion is a little more complex, but this analogy has really helped me to understand favorable endgame positions in Dominion.

I should stop rambling, I don't know if I'm going anywhere.

[Limetime]

I think you needed that unique card for your Fairgrounds, so I don't know if Duchy would have worked for you there. Maybe it would have?

I did not need an extra unique because I could have just bought a copper. Remember that copper didn't up my fairgrounds.

I agree with the rest of your post except the trading post opening. Man, cycling is so good.

Endgame is something I really should work on. Thanks for the analogy.