Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: Torturer Momentum  (Read 3082 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Ferrouswheel

  • Baron
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 57
  • Respect: +25
    • View Profile
Torturer Momentum
« on: January 31, 2012, 02:04:52 am »
0

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/30/game-20120130-193848-e44996a2.html

I start out with some ridiculous luck, and then completely fail in the end. What should I have done differently? I realize that I shouldn't have taken some of the curses that I took, but I had been planning on trading posting them to silver as I was a little light on treasure.
Logged

Wingnut

  • Golem
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 175
  • Respect: +75
    • View Profile
Re: Torturer Momentum
« Reply #1 on: January 31, 2012, 03:09:35 am »
0

There are two problems I see here. One is opening with Envoy as it means either it will be dead later or other more important cards will be dead later. It is a great BM-card, but not good in an engine.

The other issue I see is not playing the Torturer on turn 11 when you drew it with 4 coppers. Even if you draw actions dead, in this type of game the Torturer needs to be played when you have it just for the attack. If he takes the curse, even one curse can make a big difference in an engine game and that curse could have gummed up his engine considering he hadn't bought his Trading Post yet. If he discards maybe he doesn't draw his whole deck on turn 12 as the Crossroads doesn't draw a card and the Apprentice doesn't get used on his Estate left over from his starting hand.
Logged

Asklepios

  • Duke
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 394
  • Respect: +116
    • View Profile
Re: Torturer Momentum
« Reply #2 on: January 31, 2012, 04:10:21 am »
+1

Turn by turn, here's some things I might have suggested doing differently:

1+2) Buy at least one silver in your opening pair here. I see that you were engine building here with a draw card and an actions card, but ultimately your deck has to be worth drawing.

3) You've already got a crossroads and an Envoy here. You had $6 and you bought torturer. Sure, its a good card, but gold is better.

4) Same truth again

5) City, really? City is hard to make worthwhile in a game without +buy or other means to get cards at more than 1/turn. Yes, the curse pile was going to run down eventually, but the problem with relying on this is that the curse-giver is Torturer, and the curses are optional.

6+8+9) You really ought to have bought a gold by now. And on these turns especially. Just look through, and see all the times that you drew a city, if they'd been golds instead and how much greater your buying power would have been.

11) No excuse for not using the Torturer really. 4 copper plus a draw could have been a VP card.

12) Trading Post is a weak late game buy. It means you're digging upwards. turn 12 is really too late to be tuning the deck. At that stage, you should be starting on Provinces.

14) Apprentice on $7? Apprentice is again a superb card, but it needs gold to draw into.

17) City? Now? Bad play. Shoulda been a gold or a duchy.

18) A sure signt hat you've got excess drawing power, this turn. On the one turn you hit province, you have a $9 excess. Great if you have +buys. Otherwise, less drawing and more money is more consistent.

After that, your play is fine as you grab for Duchies, but its too little too late. The key weak point though? Turn 3 should have been a gold.
Logged

DStu

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2627
  • Respect: +1490
    • View Profile
Re: Torturer Momentum
« Reply #3 on: January 31, 2012, 04:26:08 am »
+1

...

I'm not sure you want to play this like a BigMoney-game, I would not care for the Gold so much. XR+Torturer gives quite heavy attacks, and, after I have enough Torturers, the City (just for the Village-effect) might help to play more Torturers.
Lito won this game without ever buying a Gold, but he had an engine that really could play these Torturers so often that Ferrouswheel was forced too take to many Curses.
That includes:
Quarry: Not really so strong as it could be, as there's no +buy, but for ramping up the engine it is basically a Gold for $4. You don't care for the money first, so it's still a strong buy.
Apprentice: Bought early to clean the deck an allows to take a Curse in hand an trashing it fastly
Scheme: Allowed to put the XR back several times, with the masses on Torturers in the deck they often collided, starting the whole chain. Maybe there was some luck that these worked out so often, but it seems like there was a plan behind it.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2012, 07:02:27 am by DStu »
Logged

Asklepios

  • Duke
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 394
  • Respect: +116
    • View Profile
Re: Torturer Momentum
« Reply #4 on: January 31, 2012, 07:16:46 am »
0

Well, I suppose thats a matter of style, but I'm fairly confident that a gold or two would have served you better than cities, or even extra torturers.
Logged

DStu

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2627
  • Respect: +1490
    • View Profile
Re: Torturer Momentum
« Reply #5 on: January 31, 2012, 08:05:15 am »
+1

Well, I suppose thats a matter of style, but I'm fairly confident that a gold or two would have served you better than cities, or even extra torturers.

For the Cities you might be right, the Torturers I don't think so. Torturers get good when they are massed. One Torturer's attack is a Militia that can be avoided if necessary. Two and three get nasty.
I simulated a bit just XR/Scheme/Torturer, and I think scheming the Crossroad was really a key move here. I just bought (without optimization)
4 Torturer > Gold > 1 XR > 1 Silver > Scheme > Silver
and prio for the Scheme
XR > Scheme > Torturer
and that crushed BigEnvoy 75/25. Without the Scheme (or putting Torturers back) it ties.

There are plenty of Torturers in the deck, but you don't really want many Crossroads, but you really want to have 1 XR in hand at the beginning of your turn to start the chain. Scheme is the card that guarantees that for you

Appendix:
Code: [Select]
{
  name: 'XR/Torturer/Scheme'
  author: 'DStu'
  requires: ["Crossroads", "Torturer", "Scheme"]
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Province"
    "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 5
    "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
    "Torturer" if my.countInDeck("Torturer") < 4
    "Gold"
    "Crossroads" if my.countInDeck("Crossroads") < 1
    "Silver" if my.countInDeck("Silver") < 1
    "Scheme" if my.countInDeck("Scheme") < 2
    "Silver"
  ]
 
  schemePriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Crossroads"
    "Scheme"
    "Torturer"
  ]
 
  actionPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Scheme"
    "Crossroads"
    "Torturer"
  ]
}

Edit: With the Scheme, you also don't need the Cities, because of the +3Actions of the XR, and you can invest in Torturers and/or Gold.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2012, 09:15:53 am by DStu »
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Torturer Momentum
« Reply #6 on: January 31, 2012, 09:13:23 am »
0

I'm not great at playing torturer chains. But I am pretty sure you want to prioritize engine components over gold (and like your 3rdish to 4thish silver) in a torturer chain mirror especially. For a long, long time.

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: Torturer Momentum
« Reply #7 on: January 31, 2012, 10:01:25 am »
+1

By turn 7 or 8 you could have taken an apprentice or trading post. I'd suggest that a trading post, turning curses into silver, is better than buying gold. Your opponent finished with exactly 4 silver in a kingdom without extra buys, which seems excellent.

I think on turn 13 you took three curses in hand as a gamble and it didn't pay off. Taking one curse that turn is almost certainly better. It is at this point we see that your opponent has taken curses into the deck but trashed enough estates and curses for it not to matter. You deck is still big and this contributed to your bad draws later.

Only turn 14 you put the trading post back onto your deck. At this point you need to cycle fast and perhaps you could have counted the cards in play, the cards left in your draw deck, and calculated that you had a torturer without extra actions in those last few cards.
Logged

RisingJaguar

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 527
  • Respect: +184
    • View Profile
Re: Torturer Momentum
« Reply #8 on: January 31, 2012, 10:05:20 am »
+1

11) No excuse for not using the Torturer really. 4 copper plus a draw could have been a VP card.

Would you have taken the 3 curses instead? Or take 1 and discard 4 cards?  I think discarding all of it makes more sense then using a torturer attack here as his hand isn't worth saving. He later takes all 3 curses on another turn, which was a not so great move.  It was not that great a hand worth saving.

Two improvements, two schemes help SO much in this set (or any deck built around +actions/+cards).  By starting of City/Torturer with scheme, you're ensuring one attack, and Net +2 cards.  Also some sort of trashing mechanism would have helped to start, either Apprentice/TP. 
Logged
Pages: [1]
 

Page created in 0.045 seconds with 22 queries.