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[Marcus316]

Here's a game I lost last night: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120123-212908-3f31223a.html

Kingdom: Adventurer, Apprentice, Border Village, Fairgrounds, Fishing Village, Grand Market, Menagerie, Moat, Moneylender, Watchtower

I'm pretty sure I know where I went wrong in this game, and I'll outline my thoughts. I'd appreciate any feedback, either on the game itself or on my analysis.

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Those who don't want to read my wall of text below, the TL;DR version: I decided to rush provinces instead of fighting for GM, had the lead, then lost the game on what I believe to be a number of play mistakes. Also, my choice of strategy might be wrong as well.

The main questions:
1) Was the turn 7 Province buy alright in this case?
2) Turn 14/15 Duchy - mistake?
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So, I opened 2/5. Four (ok, five) cards stand out to me on this board: Apprentice, Grand Market (and Moneylender to try and gain an early GM), Fishing Village and Menagerie. With a 2/5 split, I'm torn about whether I should take the fishing village or go for the Apprentice, especially as my opponent will definitely go for the FV and aim for those Grand Markets. In the end, I decide that Apprentice is the card I want. I pick up Moat/Apprentice, while my opponent picks up Fishing Village/Moneylender (his strategy is apparent).

I get lucky on Turn 3 and my Apprentice draws my Moat and I buy an early Gold. My opponent picks up FV on turns 3 and 4 (I grab a FV on turn 4, too), then decides on turn 5 that he wants Border Village and Apprentice instead of Gold. I opt for a 2nd Gold on my turn 5, and ANOTHER one on turn 6.

Turn 7 is when I stop and have to make a choice. I have $8 to spend. Do I buy the early province? I know typically, the early province buy is not a good idea, but I'm confident (maybe too confident) in my Apprentice and my slim deck. I have 3 Gold already that I can work with ... so I bought the province.

Turn 8, 10, and 11 I buy Provinces, so I have 4. However, I also trashed a Gold on turn 10, significantly reducing my deck's buying power. Obviously, this is not a great state to be in, but I thought I had a good chance to stay ahead, as my opponent's deck was only just getting off the ground.

Turn 14/15 seems like another mistake. I should have bought a Gold at least once to help increase my buying power. One more province would break my opponent's chances in this game, I think, and that extra Gold instead of a Duchy would have been nice (or maybe Fairgrounds, if I had been paying attention ... see below).

Turn 17 I saw an opportunity, as I had 8 different cards in my deck so far, and the VP race was going to be close ... so I bought a Fairgrounds ... and, what do I do on Turn 18? Do I buy Any of Silver/Menagerie/Moneylender to push my Fairgrounds to 4VP? Nope, I buy an Estate. I would still have lost (by 1 VP instead) ... but it still bothers me that I counted, knew I needed one more ... then made the sub-par Estate purchase ...

Anyways, let me know what you all think. Sorry for writing so much.

[sjelkjd]

So, here's the problem.  You race up to 4 provinces, and start buying duchies.  Normally that is awesome - you're totally ahead, and if you can snag half the provinces and duchies it's basically impossible for your opponent to come back.  However, this game has fairgrounds, and it's obvious your opponent is building an engine that will have massive +buy turns.  He turns out to catch you by getting duchies, but he could have just as easily bought 15 different cards and started buying up fairgrounds, in which case he would have blown you away.  At turn 12 your deck just doesn't have enough buying power to keep going, unless you do something crazy...

Play apprentice on your province.

You have a big lead, now you just need to end the game.  You're not going to 3 pile in time, but if you apprentice a province, it should give you enough for another province buy.  He hasn't finished his engine, so either he buys provinces(which accelerates the endgame), or buys duchies, which dilutes his deck and keeps you ahead, or he just loses.

Also, I would not buy moat on this board.  Moneylender and watchtower are way better, given the fishing village.  Yeah, it got you an early 6, but you can also dead draw your actions with moat.  Another point - if you're not going to buy actions, fishing village really isn't that great.  Fishing Village/Watchtower is a good combo, fishing village gives you money and empties your hand, while watchtower fills it up.  Same with Fishing Village/Moneylender(also helps you get to grand market).

[dondon151]

I played this solitaire (opening Apprentice / nothing) and managed to empty the Provinces in 18 turns, keeping 6 of them in my deck. Even with a firing Grand Market engine, your opponent would have been hard pressed to compete with that solely on Provinces.

EDIT: Throwing a Grand Market in there or 2 got me to empty the Provinces in 16 turns or faster.

[DG]

The fairgrounds add a lot more points to the kingdom and you should have looked to build a stronger deck that would last into a tough endgame. This means the grand market engine for the extra buys. This would push you into trashing the copper, moneylenders do that better than apprentices, suggesting a border village/moneylender purchase on turn 4 or 5.

The game is a little bit like an onion though. As soon as you peel away one layer you see another. There are many little things that could be done to balance the trashing, spending, drawing, card variety, and so on.

[Marcus316]

Hey, thanks for the replies!

Fairgrounds is definitely a card that I'm going to need to give more attention. I obviously did not give it enough consideration until WAY too late.

The Apprentice/nothing vs Apprentice/Moat is an interesting thought. I figured I could use the early +2 Cards terminal with minimal risk to drawing my Aprentice dead and later trash it to apprentice like an extra estate. Perhaps that as the wrong thought.

[DStu]

Fairgrounds is definitely a card that I'm going to need to give more attention. I obviously did not give it enough consideration until WAY too late.

Basically you have to pay attention to ALL alternative VPs, including Monument/Goons/Bishop. They all push the point where you win the game to a state where you're deck is greener than in a standard game. This is not much for Great Halls, it' still not much for Nobles/Harem/Island/Farmland and usually Bishop/Monument, but these already buy some time, and 5 Provinces might not be a save place with these in the kingdom. All the others (Vineyards/Gardens/Duke/Goons/Silk Road/Colony/Fairgrounds) can easily change the game in a way that even 6 Provinces are not enough to win it, even if you are not rushed on some of them.

[Anon79]

The Apprentice/nothing vs Apprentice/Moat is an interesting thought. I figured I could use the early +2 Cards terminal with minimal risk to drawing my Aprentice dead and later trash it to apprentice like an extra estate. Perhaps that as the wrong thought.

I think Moat is fine. Since you are likely to be picking up Fishing Village at some point, Moat isn't that bad at all.

[sjelkjd]

I think Moat is fine. Since you are likely to be picking up Fishing Village at some point, Moat isn't that bad at all.

Well, that's the thing.  You need to buy fishing villages.  My guess is that 1 moat + some fishing villages + apprentice is weaker than just plain apprentice and money, since the OP never bought more actions.  I think the best strategy is building a deck based around grand market, fishing village, apprentice, with border village to help gain apprentice fodder, with an endgame plan of buying fairgrounds.  But if you're just going to buy money + apprentice, not sure how much the FV+Moat helps.  It's not bad.  But I'd rather buy watchtower or moneylender if I'm only going to buy 1 terminal on this board.

[Marcus316]

I think Moat is fine. Since you are likely to be picking up Fishing Village at some point, Moat isn't that bad at all.

Well, that's the thing.  You need to buy fishing villages.  My guess is that 1 moat + some fishing villages + apprentice is weaker than just plain apprentice and money, since the OP never bought more actions.  I think the best strategy is building a deck based around grand market, fishing village, apprentice, with border village to help gain apprentice fodder, with an endgame plan of buying fairgrounds.  But if you're just going to buy money + apprentice, not sure how much the FV+Moat helps.  It's not bad.  But I'd rather buy watchtower or moneylender if I'm only going to buy 1 terminal on this board.

I did buy more actions, actually, including some Fishing Villages. The Moat was bought because I opened with 2 Copper, otherwise FV/Moneylender/Watchtower looks interesting aiming for a GM engine.

[sjelkjd]

Well, here is my point.  You should either commit to an action heavy deck or you should trash provinces with Apprentice.  What you can't do is go big money with Apprentice, use the Apprentice to trash coppers(and some cheap actions you bought), stall with too much green, and let the action deck pass you up.  You need more money in your deck for your strategy to work.  You can see even after the turn he wins that you had a hand of all green cards.

[Anon79]

Well, it's non-trivial because of the presence of Fairgrounds; it's a breeze to get Fairgrounds to 4VP, and some concerted Border Villaging might even get them up to 6VP. On such boards where the game *might* drag a little longer than I expected, my instinct is to go for a little more control; in an Apprentice strategy that means a little more fuel, and since Border Villages are on this board (which I *will* get for the fuel sometimes, in place of Gold) then that also pushes me more towards buying that Moat.

Oh, and Watchtower doesn't conflict with terminals.

[dondon151]

in an Apprentice strategy that means a little more fuel, and since Border Villages are on this board (which I *will* get for the fuel sometimes, in place of Gold) then that also pushes me more towards buying that Moat.

I think going for some Menageries is probably a lot more reliable than matching up Apprentices with your BVs. The one issue that I see with spending $6 for BVs is that the primary money cards in this kingdom are also at $6, and you'll really want to stock up on those Golds and GMs if you want to empty out the Fairgrounds swiftly, since you're taking a bit more time to build up to that point.

EDIT: Managed to get 8 Fairgrounds (15 unique cards), 1 Province, 1 Duchy in 17 turns. Probably could have optimized it better...