I had my first game on isotropic against a lvl 40+ player (papaHav). I think it's good example of how luck can turn what could have been a very lopsided game into a win for the more average player.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120124-213337-cb06a980.htmlI want to first and foremost thank papaHav for the game. I thought it was an interesting board, and it was quite fun and instructive to see the choices that a high-level player makes.
My strategic thoughts (which don't amount to too much) were:
1) Forge could be good (never mind that I had no plan on how I was going to use Forge; I just marked it as a likely buy)
2) Quarry could accelerate my buying Forge
3) +Buy is on Worker's Village and Trade Route ... don't think a Village chain will be fast enough in this game, but a smaller deck from the Trade Route trashing is good.
Based only on these 3 minimal thoughts, I opened Trade Route/Quarry. Looking back, Trade Route was to slow, I think, for this game. My opponent opened Quarry/Silver, which seems to make more sense here.
On turn 5, I trash an Estate. This seems like a good idea at the time, but it means that I have one less card to use with Forge later when I need costs to add up ...
As luck would have it, I get the first Forge on Turn 6, which papaHav matches on turn 7.
My Turn 8 looks a lot like my turn 5 ... and I'm really unsure of whether this was the right move. I had both Trade Route and Forge, and I could have cleared out my hand with the forge and picked up a $5 ... but I was concerned about my economy, so I decided to keep the coppers and remove another Estate. Thoughts on this particular turn would be appreciated from stronger players.
Regardless of my choices, papaHav got to do nothing on turns 6 and 8. Luck was definitely in my favour here.
Turn 10 I decide my Trade Route is only going to hinder me and trash it and a copper for a Silver.
papaHav grabs the first Platinum on his turn 10, and at this point, I feel like I'm behind. This leads to my aggressive Forge use for the rest of the game.
With my small deck, I end up drawing just right, using Forge to rush the Colonies after pushing my economy to Patinum x 2, Copper x 1, finishing with 5 Colonies. I count this as a lucky win.