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Author Topic: Engine or Money or a hybrid?  (Read 3681 times)

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vsiewnar

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Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« on: March 25, 2016, 12:47:01 am »
+1

Supply cards: Fishing Village, Tunnel, Herald, Ironmonger, Navigator, Nomad Camp, Walled Village, Embassy, Hunting Grounds, Prince, Copper, Silver, Gold, Estate, Duchy, Province, Curse


This game was recently played and it made me think for a while. The main source of doubt was whether Embassy-BM is fast enough to collect more than 50% of the VP. Maybe the question is trivial.

I think that if you choose to play more engine-like here, you have to commit early (I think I did with a Nomad Camp Turn 1). I was slightly in favour of the engine mostly because there was a pile of Tunnels to get extra points.

In retrospect there are a couple things that make the engine slightly more viable. An overpaid Herald can pair useful cards together (Prince/anything or Village/draw). This is an aspect of the card that I feel is underused (by me, anyway). The second thing is that Embassy can get you to 6 and 8 coin somewhat reliably even if played dead.

The log itself isn't really that important. I would just like to hear people's thoughts are on the most optimal way to play this board.


Log: https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160325/log.0.1458878612994.txt
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dedicateddan

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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2016, 04:54:48 am »
+1

I like the engine here. Fishing Village/Hunting Grounds is pretty strong draw, Prince and Herald add reliability, and Embassy with a single tunnel builds up to double and triple province quite quickly.

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faust

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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2016, 06:24:12 am »
+1

I like the engine here. Fishing Village/Hunting Grounds is pretty strong draw, Prince and Herald add reliability, and Embassy with a single tunnel builds up to double and triple province quite quickly.

I don't think the engine really wants to tread into Embassy/Tunnel territory. There is enough payload in form of actions. Note that Navigator is actually a pretty decent card here, since it combos with both Ironmonger and Herald, and you have enough actions available.

The main problem for the engine here is lack of trashing. That combined with Embassy's on-gain attack can slow the engine player down a bit. Considering that Tunnel works very nicely within Embassy-BM, I do think this has a fighting chance against the engine.
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Awaclus

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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2016, 06:33:34 am »
0

Whenever you find yourself considering an engine/money hybrid, the answer is no.
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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #4 on: March 25, 2016, 10:03:44 am »
0

I like the engine here. Fishing Village/Hunting Grounds is pretty strong draw, Prince and Herald add reliability, and Embassy with a single tunnel builds up to double and triple province quite quickly.

I don't think the engine really wants to tread into Embassy/Tunnel territory. There is enough payload in form of actions. Note that Navigator is actually a pretty decent card here, since it combos with both Ironmonger and Herald, and you have enough actions available.

The main problem for the engine here is lack of trashing. That combined with Embassy's on-gain attack can slow the engine player down a bit. Considering that Tunnel works very nicely within Embassy-BM, I do think this has a fighting chance against the engine.
You can deal with having extra cards pretty well with FV and Hunting Grounds.

Princing a Nomad Camp or Navigator seems good.
I think I would open FV/Navigator on 4/3 and curse my luck on 5/2.
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Seprix

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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #5 on: March 25, 2016, 01:03:25 pm »
0

Fishing Village, Tunnel, Herald, Ironmonger, Navigator, Nomad Camp, Walled Village, Embassy, Hunting Grounds, Prince, Copper, Silver, Gold, Estate, Duchy, Province, Curse

Tunnel is 100% skippable here. Seriously. I don't like Embassy/Tunnel here at all. Engine is just way too fast. I'd open Nomad Camp/Fishing Village and aim to win the FV split. Princing Nomad Camp is probably the best thing to hit, though Ironmonger or Herald isn't bad either. I would get Hunting Grounds draw, and that would be huge, especially on a lucky Herald hit. I don't care that there's no trashing, really. Engine would flat out beat Tunnel/Embassy for sure.
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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #6 on: March 25, 2016, 01:39:43 pm »
+1

Fishing Village, Tunnel, Herald, Ironmonger, Navigator, Nomad Camp, Walled Village, Embassy, Hunting Grounds, Prince, Copper, Silver, Gold, Estate, Duchy, Province, Curse

Tunnel is 100% skippable here. Seriously. I don't like Embassy/Tunnel here at all. Engine is just way too fast. I'd open Nomad Camp/Fishing Village and aim to win the FV split. Princing Nomad Camp is probably the best thing to hit, though Ironmonger or Herald isn't bad either. I would get Hunting Grounds draw, and that would be huge, especially on a lucky Herald hit. I don't care that there's no trashing, really. Engine would flat out beat Tunnel/Embassy for sure.

I think you are underestimating embassy here
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Seprix

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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #7 on: March 25, 2016, 01:57:35 pm »
0

Fishing Village, Tunnel, Herald, Ironmonger, Navigator, Nomad Camp, Walled Village, Embassy, Hunting Grounds, Prince, Copper, Silver, Gold, Estate, Duchy, Province, Curse

Tunnel is 100% skippable here. Seriously. I don't like Embassy/Tunnel here at all. Engine is just way too fast. I'd open Nomad Camp/Fishing Village and aim to win the FV split. Princing Nomad Camp is probably the best thing to hit, though Ironmonger or Herald isn't bad either. I would get Hunting Grounds draw, and that would be huge, especially on a lucky Herald hit. I don't care that there's no trashing, really. Engine would flat out beat Tunnel/Embassy for sure.

I think you are underestimating embassy here

Double Province every turn > 1 Province a turn

Embassy will buy the first Province, but Engine can easily catch up and buy Duchies too. Engine can squeak out a win.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2016, 01:58:38 pm by Seprix »
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faust

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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #8 on: March 25, 2016, 05:01:42 pm »
+4

Still not convinced that the engine is better. But something else: Some of you have argued for Princing Nomad Camp. That seems really like the worst possible choice here (well, excluding FV). What you want out of a Princed card is reliability, and that extra buy does nothing for you if you have a dud. Both Herald and Ironmonger set you up to kick off your engine and are thus much preferable IMO. You can always play the Nomad Camp when you've drawn your deck.
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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #9 on: March 25, 2016, 08:26:35 pm »
+2

Engine is a no brainer here. Super powerful draw, villages, power 4s, and workable +Buy. You'll kill it here.
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Seprix

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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #10 on: March 25, 2016, 08:40:11 pm »
0

Still not convinced that the engine is better. But something else: Some of you have argued for Princing Nomad Camp. That seems really like the worst possible choice here (well, excluding FV). What you want out of a Princed card is reliability, and that extra buy does nothing for you if you have a dud. Both Herald and Ironmonger set you up to kick off your engine and are thus much preferable IMO. You can always play the Nomad Camp when you've drawn your deck.

You may very well be correct in the Princing regard, though I'm not so sure. You obviously Prince whatever you have on hand ASAP, and all three choices are completely fine. However, I don't think BM wins here at all. I think you underestimate the engine, overestimate the BM, or possibly both.

When in doubt, go for engine.

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« Last Edit: March 25, 2016, 08:41:53 pm by Seprix »
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vsiewnar

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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #11 on: March 25, 2016, 10:22:20 pm »
0

In the game, the first Prince was used on Nomad Camp because there was no other choice at that time (and I felt like waiting for it to pair with something else would be wasteful, could that be wrong?). With the second Prince, I had more choice and chose Ironmonger.
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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #12 on: March 26, 2016, 12:18:01 am »
0

If you ever get a prince, prince the Navigator. There is no advantage gained by princing nomad camp while Navigator sets up your heralds (and maybe ironmongers)
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markusin

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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #13 on: March 26, 2016, 01:55:42 pm »
0

If you ever get a prince, prince the Navigator. There is no advantage gained by princing nomad camp while Navigator sets up your heralds (and maybe ironmongers)

Sounds good.

I'd be skeptical of going for Prince against someone going straight for Embassy Big money unless you spike the Prince early enough. Against another engine you can probably get away with it a lot easier.

If you do get an early Prince, well there are a lot of good targets. Navigator still stands out I feel.

Also, this notion of "2 Provinces per turn > 1 Province per turn" is unfounded without specifying when each deck begins greening. Getting two Provinces a turn isn't all that great if you only start doing it when there are only 3 Provinces left while the other player has 5 Provinces and can still gain a Province every couple of turns, at least on this board. Not saying that will happen here. I'm just providing an extreme example.

Also consider that there is no trashing, so the player using Embassy/Hunting Grounds is going to be cycling a lot faster than the player dabbling in Fishing Villages and Ironmongers/Heralds. That is, unless the engine player is aggressively discarding hands with Navigator. I think the engine player really needs to make sure they get at least one Embassy/Hunting Grounds or at least a Navigator early on to go along with Fishing Village in order to cycle and shuffle in their buys sooner.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2016, 01:59:53 pm by markusin »
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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #14 on: March 27, 2016, 09:36:56 am »
+1

Ironmonger, Herald and princed shenanigans are lovely engine playground, but I don't think there is time for these guys. Example given, we get two Embassys and two HG for draw, and a nomad camp for + buy, we will need at least four fishing villages to support these. And if our opponent gives us two silver, we are already at $17. Time to green; also, whenever I have a bad move (quite likely with that many stop cards), i prefer to increase draw or get a reliable village instead of speculative stuff like ironmonger or herald.
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Seprix

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Re: Engine or Money or a hybrid?
« Reply #15 on: March 27, 2016, 10:12:25 am »
+1

Ironmonger, Herald and princed shenanigans are lovely engine playground, but I don't think there is time for these guys. Example given, we get two Embassys and two HG for draw, and a nomad camp for + buy, we will need at least four fishing villages to support these. And if our opponent gives us two silver, we are already at $17. Time to green; also, whenever I have a bad move (quite likely with that many stop cards), i prefer to increase draw or get a reliable village instead of speculative stuff like ironmonger or herald.

You might be very well be right. There probably isn't much time for Prince on this board. Ironmonger and Herald could probably be skipped as well. But I still think engine should be completely superior to Embassy BM.
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