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[funkdoc]

yeah, i'm feeling more and more like the forums overrated this one

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160616/log.0.1466046900673.txt

maybe instead of council room i should've gotten more gears & stables?  feel like i needed some big draw with hamlet as the village tho

[jsh357]

Thief big money beats a lot of engines. It depends on the competency of the engine player and dumb luck. A bad strategy often beats no strategy.

I am finding gear bm hilariously overrated, but I knew that before the set even came out. Beat a gear bm deck with a questionable engine just this morning.

[Seprix]

Gear BM is fast, but it will not outpace a decent engine as shown here. Not to mention engines can use Gear as well. I don't like Gear BM here at all.

[Seprix]

Actual question.

Code: [Select]

Travelling Fair, Pathfinding, Page, Stonemason, Gear, Shanty Town, Armory, Duplicate, Treasure Map, Giant, Horn of Plenty, Treasure Trove
Any chance engine can win here against Gear BM? The engine looks so precarious. It's so close to being good, but not quite there. I'd say it should win, but it's a bit close in my mind.

[math]

Actual question.

Code: [Select]

Travelling Fair, Pathfinding, Page, Stonemason, Gear, Shanty Town, Armory, Duplicate, Treasure Map, Giant, Horn of Plenty, Treasure Trove
Any chance engine can win here against Gear BM? The engine looks so precarious. It's so close to being good, but not quite there. I'd say it should win, but it's a bit close in my mind.

Hmm, good question.  I think the engine can win here, but I'm not certain.  Getting Giants early could make it harder for the BM player, and there's Travelling Fair and Stonemason for buys and pile control (Travelling Fair lets you always use all of the Giant money).  Gear is great with Travellers; you can play them without worrying about drawing the Traveller dead. The biggest problem is the almost-nonexistent trashing.  Using Stonemason to get two Pages from a Silver seems decent; you can Pathfind the Pages later.

[Seprix]

I would say no, but then there's Horn, and Horn makes engines that take forever to build possible, and there's Champion for infinite play potential. You could just pile out Gears so quickly, and that's your engine right there. I think I'll submit this to KotW.

[Beyond Awesome]

It should beat out Gear BM because you have HoP and if your opponent ignores Page, you just Warrior away his entire deck.

[traces Around]

Mostly people just suck at playing money these days - especially gear with all the decisions it comes along with. They forget that money is a speed based strategy and so you get points when you can.

I'm not claiming that the engine was not the way to go here, but the opponent did themselves no favors turns 9 and 12 setting up for the next turn when duchy could be reached. 5 extra points may have allowed them another turn if I am not mistaken - once again, no guarantees on any good coming of it.

As for the board Seprix presented, there is no way that gear/treasure trove gets beat by an engine without absolutely atrocious shuffles - even that might not be enough. Warrior does almost nothing, giant is too slow, and setting up the draw for HoP takes way too long without any trashing present.

[Chris is me]

yeah, i'm feeling more and more like the forums overrated this one

You barely won with an engine fast enough to win the game on turn 12 - this is pretty fast for an engine. I would say "a lot of engines" can't end the game on turn 12. A strong engine beats Gear BM, yes.

Your opponent's Gear plays also weren't optimal.

---

With Seprix's board: Cycling / draw is a little weak there and there's limited gaining except for Horn - Gear is just too fast. Your payload attacks don't really bother Gear / Treasure Trove at all. The engine COULD win but I think BM is going to in most matches of averagely skilled humans.

It should beat out Gear BM because you have HoP and if your opponent ignores Page, you just Warrior away his entire deck.

Other than Gear itself, what 3 or 4 costs ever end up in the opponents deck? Buying Silver in a Gear game is often entirely skippable, and on this board Treasure Trove floods with Gold pretty fast.

[Davio]

Engines are not always about ending the game fast, sometimes they're about control.

[Deadlock39]

On the board Seprix posted, does Gear BM buy Pathfinding on its first $8, or is the effect too minimal? Does Treasure Trove drop the Gear density too much to make it worth it? Would Gear-BM-Pathfinding beat Gear-BM?

[dedicateddan]

Engines are not always about ending the game fast, sometimes they're about control.

Yep, I can't imagine skipping page here. Picking one up gives you a bunch of free treasure, a champion if you want it, protection from the giant/warrior threat, and the option of playing a mega engine with gear + pathfinding (on something).

On 4/3, the treasure hunter/gear opening is quite nice.

[werothegreat]

I think the best way to stymie Gear BM is a cheap Attack - Militia, Sea Hag, Ambassador, maybe Catapult.  Oh, and Enchantress shits on any single Action BM strat.

[DG]

So what is the engine here? Open page (TF) and gear, take more gears and shanty towns until the champion arrives (as every other card is bad), then accumulate gains as quickly as possible to get all the gears, pathfinding on gears, and empty remaining provinces and duchies with the megaturn? The problem is really that the shanty towns seems to combine with gear really badly and might add very little cycling at the time it is needed.

The treasure deck just takes gears and treasure troves and no pathfinding. The treasure troves sustain a big money endgame, add resilience against giants and warrior, and might surprise a treasure hunter.

[funkdoc]

You barely won with an engine fast enough to win the game on turn 12 - this is pretty fast for an engine. I would say "a lot of engines" can't end the game on turn 12. A strong engine beats Gear BM, yes.

Your opponent's Gear plays also weren't optimal.

agree with the 2nd part, that did make me wonder even as the game was over

but i think this was more than "barely" due to the greater control i had in picking up victory cards and milling provinces.  i find that gear still stalls in the end just like any other terminal draw-BM.  it's just that instead of a guaranteed series of mediocre turns, you can do nothing one turn in hopes of a province on the next.  that tends to be too little too late against a lot of the strategies that have become more common with adventures, i think...

[Seprix]

I just don't know if the Engine can outrace Gear on the board I submitted. The Engine can really win big time, but it takes awhile to build.

[dedicateddan]

So what is the engine here? Open page (TF) and gear, take more gears and shanty towns until the champion arrives (as every other card is bad), then accumulate gains as quickly as possible to get all the gears, pathfinding on gears, and empty remaining provinces and duchies with the megaturn? The problem is really that the shanty towns seems to combine with gear really badly and might add very little cycling at the time it is needed.

The treasure deck just takes gears and treasure troves and no pathfinding. The treasure troves sustain a big money endgame, add resilience against giants and warrior, and might surprise a treasure hunter.

Treasure Hunter/Gear opening, pick up some gears, and cycle as aggressive as possible to Champion. Use traveling fair to activate a Shanty Town, when possible.

Post-Champion, build a bit with some combination of Gear/Traveling Fair/Stonemason. At this point there are a few options.

One option is to race down the Provinces one at a time, much like a money deck with Champion protection.

The second option is to build up to 4-5 horns and go for a megaturn.

The third option is the nuclear option. Pick up a few Pages while building towards champion and pathfinding page as soon as possible. Upgrade a page or two to Warrior and snipe opposing gears.

At this point the money deck is going to have provinces, and no gears and 4 is going to have trouble emptying provinces 6-8. Continue to ignore VP and pick up a few Horns, Giants, and stack duplicates on the mat (as needed), using overdraw with mid-turn stonemason tricks.

After a few turns, Giant the curses, Horn the Provinces, Duplicate the Duchies and buy/sg

Picking up a page opens up a lot of options with terminal draw, while protecting against opposing attacks. Gear/Treasure Trove is probably a bit faster to 4 Provinces (24 VP), but is going to struggle to get to half-VP (45 VP) under pressure from Warrior and Giant

[funkdoc]

to show myself on the receiving end of this, here's another log:

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160618/log.0.1466269615246.txt

this definitely seemed like a weaker engine than the first one in terms of scoring/pile control, which is why i tried gear.  but i guess good trashing makes soothsayer not such a slow attack, and that alone was enough (along with a bit of crossroads goodness to make greening a lot less painful).

i still wonder if gear could win here by playing better, but i guess it would need bad luck from the doctor early on

[Seprix]

Big Money loathes attacks. If there is any attack at all, that is reason enough to not go Big Money. That being said, the game was reasonably close, even with all of those Curses you got. :p

[Chris is me]

Big Money loathes attacks. If there is any attack at all, that is reason enough to not go Big Money. That being said, the game was reasonably close, even with all of those Curses you got. :p

Is there really much of a difference between Big Money and a slog in the presence of Cursing attacks? It's just a matter of how long it takes for your money density to get high enough to work. And hey, if it's not going to get high enough for Provinces, you play sloggier and buy Duchy. But that's not really something you need to change your strategy from the beginning for.

[traces Around]

i still wonder if gear could win here by playing better, but i guess it would need bad normal luck from the doctor early on

FTFY. Seriously, go set up this kingdom and try to play your opponent's strategy. Then proceed to realize that you were absolutely screwed by whatever piece of code shuffled your opponent's deck.

I think money is the way to go here. Gear-gear-soothsayer seems like it would be optimal. That means a gear/silver opening, picking up a soothsayer and a second gear on the next shuffle.

[Seprix]

i still wonder if gear could win here by playing better, but i guess it would need bad normal luck from the doctor early on

FTFY. Seriously, go set up this kingdom and try to play your opponent's strategy. Then proceed to realize that you were absolutely screwed by whatever piece of code shuffled your opponent's deck.

I think money is the way to go here. Gear-gear-soothsayer seems like it would be optimal. That means a gear/silver opening, picking up a soothsayer and a second gear on the next shuffle.

I agree that Funk would have handily won if he picked up a Soothsayer with whatever he was doing. Greby was not playing well at all, as evidenced by Funk having 7 Curses in his deck but still not terribly behind.

[Dingan]

Actual question.

Code: [Select]

Travelling Fair, Pathfinding, Page, Stonemason, Gear, Shanty Town, Armory, Duplicate, Treasure Map, Giant, Horn of Plenty, Treasure Trove
Any chance engine can win here against Gear BM? The engine looks so precarious. It's so close to being good, but not quite there. I'd say it should win, but it's a bit close in my mind.

I'm not jumping to conclusions yet, but I think straight-Page beats straight-Gear, because of Warriors.  Example game:
http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160528/log.0.1464456923102.txt

And Page-inside-an-engine surely beats straight-Page (right?), and therefore would beat straight-Gear.  Generally.  I think.  Or, idk.

[Seprix]

That was still very close, Dingan. Engine is better for sure, but that end game score is pretty close for Big Money Gear.

[funkdoc]

i still wonder if gear could win here by playing better, but i guess it would need bad normal luck from the doctor early on

FTFY. Seriously, go set up this kingdom and try to play your opponent's strategy. Then proceed to realize that you were absolutely screwed by whatever piece of code shuffled your opponent's deck.

I think money is the way to go here. Gear-gear-soothsayer seems like it would be optimal. That means a gear/silver opening, picking up a soothsayer and a second gear on the next shuffle.

oh, good call!  i'm still real new to gear and hadn't thought about how other terminals could work with this strat.  i can see a non-drawing one like soothsayer being good with it, but would witch be better than a third gear?