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Author Topic: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms  (Read 16963 times)

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McGarnacle

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #25 on: April 22, 2017, 02:20:17 pm »
+2

Nope.
Always entertaining to see how the dream of a smoothly running engine influences the opinion of so many Dominion players. Many games are precisely as messy as JThorne described.

What's influencing my opinion is the experience I've accumulated in the thousands of games that I've played against other players in the top 50 range. If your game is as messy as JThorne described, you are misplaying it.
The main problem with this argument, is that I'd prefer our Dominion paradigms to describe games that aren't just between players in the top 50 range.

I don't really see why the paradigms should reflect what people actually do rather than what people should do. For instance, there was a game in which I accidentally bought a Borrow before playing my Treasures, effectively skipping a turn and giving myself the -1 card token. This doesn't mean that we should talk about the "buy Borrow before you play Treasures" strategy as if it was a thing. Similarly, just because people play "hybrid strategies" doesn't mean they are a thing.

In order to be a reasonably competent Dominion player, do I need to understand what the heck you guys are talking about?
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Awaclus

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #26 on: April 22, 2017, 02:24:00 pm »
0

In order to be a reasonably competent Dominion player, do I need to understand what the heck you guys are talking about?

After and including weety4's reply, the only thing you need to understand is that you shouldn't go for a "hybrid strategy".
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JThorne

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #27 on: April 23, 2017, 12:22:49 pm »
0

Quote
If your game is as messy as JThorne described, you are misplaying it.

This may be a shocker, but I actually agree here, with a small caveat.

If I'm interpreting correctly, this statement is basically saying this: If you're buying village/smithy pairs, and a terminal coin/+buy card, then you're playing an engine. If you're only buying one Province a turn, then you are unequivocally doing it wrong. Either you should keep building until you can reliably draw deck and get to $16, OR you should NOT have been trying to draw deck in the first place and should just play a BM game. In BM, Villages are almost always do-nothing cards that might as well be Pearl Divers without the topdeck.

If you're playing a BM opponent and they start buying Provinces first, if you get nervous and stop building and start singling Provinces, you're also doing it wrong and you have lost. If you stick it out and build for doubles and you still lose, then you chose the wrong strategy for the kingdom in the beginning. I totally get it. I've been both on the winning and losing side of this situation. Mostly winning.

That's not to say I haven't played a single-province engine. In a kingdom with no buys and no gains, and especially with decent trashing, there are times when money and sifting can create an incredibly reliable engine that's more reliable than BM even if it's just singling, but that should be the plan from the beginning, not something you settle for when you realize you made a mistake.

Anyway, the caveat, and it's going to make Awaclus roll his eyes.

Multi-player.

The best laid plans can go radically awry depending on what other players do, or if just one of a few opponents gets a lucky draw and grabs too many of a key card early. You may have to bail halfway through engine-building. In my experience, the most effective way to victory in multi-player is one of two things: 1. Figure out if there's an engine that can run on no more than 5 copies of any one card. 2. Pile control.

4-player games almost always pile out, but I've certainly played deck-drawing engines that started doubling before piles emptied, forcing other players to play catch up (Thanks Donate! You're the best!) 3-player games give you more ingredients, and if one player ignores a key card, you can play that strategy like a 2-player game.

But you have to keep your mind open to many possibilities. I just won a game where I had one opponent playing BM, one playing a Hireling engine (no, no, no a thousand times, no) and I won what basically amounted to an extremely weird rush. Procession/Lurker, with both Museum and Obelisk in play, and Lurker was the Obelisk card. You can guess how that went. One opponent was Processing Lurkers in order gain Hirelings. I was Processing Lurkers...in order to gain their lurkers from the trash. (And processing into $3 Chariot races, Processing them into more Processions, then into one of each $5...)

In a kingdom with no decent draw, no trashing, and no +buy, I emptied piles with a final massive Lurker party, bought the last lurker, and landmarked my way to a victory over opponents with several provinces each (I bought one for the 8VP, because that's hard to pass up. That and the 5VP Duchy.)

Also, another weird game: No +buy, no +actions, lots of terminals. I don't remember the rest of the Kingdom, but here's what I did: Banquet Catacombs, Transmogrify. Silver, Banquet two more Catacombs. On the first Catacombs play, buy a Gold. On the second, Donate all starting cards and take only one debt. Next, Transmogrify the Catacombs into a Gold and another T-Mog, buy a Province. Mat the T-Mogs. Start milling Province/buying Province. At some point I think I did a T-Mog a Catacombs into Gold/Remodel late for a Remodel Gold to Province ending. It was ridiculous fast. Game was over in close to ten turns, and I ended up with six Provinces (out of 12.)

So, what's that? I only bought one Province at a time. It's definitely not an engine, because I never actually drew deck, but I could sure line up $8 with Catacombs pretty easily in a deck with that few cards. From my perspective, that seems like a BM strategy, but it certainly underscores the fact that BM isn't simply "buy money and a couple of terminal draw cards and then points."
« Last Edit: April 23, 2017, 12:25:22 pm by JThorne »
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Awaclus

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #28 on: April 23, 2017, 12:49:54 pm »
0

If I'm interpreting correctly, this statement is basically saying this: If you're buying village/smithy pairs, and a terminal coin/+buy card, then you're playing an engine. If you're only buying one Province a turn, then you are unequivocally doing it wrong. Either you should keep building until you can reliably draw deck and get to $16, OR you should NOT have been trying to draw deck in the first place and should just play a BM game. In BM, Villages are almost always do-nothing cards that might as well be Pearl Divers without the topdeck.

Not exactly. Single Province engines are good a lot of the time. The statement is basically saying this: BM is a strategy that relies on buying cards that are good on their own, without any antisynergies between them. If you introduce an antisynergy (between Village and Silver), it falls apart.

Multi-player.

 ::)
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weety4

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #29 on: April 26, 2017, 04:05:58 am »
+1

Arguments from authority are not arguments.

Yes they are. Moreover, they are perfectly valid arguments as long as the expert quoted is an actual expert on the issue, such as in this case.
Nope. Do yourself a favour, jump into a time machine and get out of the Middle Ages or wherever you are intellectually stuck.

If you are living in the modern world you evaluate arguments independently of who made them. A guy without a PhD in a particular field can nonetheless contribute to it and a Nobel price laureate can talk as much bullshit as self-proclaimed Dominion expert.
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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #30 on: April 26, 2017, 04:13:32 am »
+1

Arguments from authority are not arguments.

Yes they are. Moreover, they are perfectly valid arguments as long as the expert quoted is an actual expert on the issue, such as in this case.
Nope. Do yourself a favour, jump into a time machine and get out of the Middle Ages or wherever you are intellectually stuck.

If you are living in the modern world you evaluate arguments independently of who made them. A guy without a PhD in a particular field can nonetheless contribute to it and a Nobel price laureate can talk as much bullshit as self-proclaimed Dominion expert.

That's true. Anyone could make the argument that hybrid strategies are not a thing because Awaclus's experience playing against other top 50 players says so, and it would be a valid argument regardless of who made it.
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weety4

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #31 on: April 26, 2017, 04:22:27 am »
0

Arguments from authority are not arguments.

Yes they are. Moreover, they are perfectly valid arguments as long as the expert quoted is an actual expert on the issue, such as in this case.
Nope. Do yourself a favour, jump into a time machine and get out of the Middle Ages or wherever you are intellectually stuck.

If you are living in the modern world you evaluate arguments independently of who made them. A guy without a PhD in a particular field can nonetheless contribute to it and a Nobel price laureate can talk as much bullshit as self-proclaimed Dominion expert.

That's true. Anyone could make the argument that hybrid strategies are not a thing because Awaclus's experience playing against other top 50 players says so, and it would be a valid argument regardless of who made it.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #32 on: April 26, 2017, 06:42:10 pm »
+1

Arguments from authority are not arguments.

Yes they are. Moreover, they are perfectly valid arguments as long as the expert quoted is an actual expert on the issue, such as in this case.
Nope. Do yourself a favour, jump into a time machine and get out of the Middle Ages or wherever you are intellectually stuck.

If you are living in the modern world you evaluate arguments independently of who made them. A guy without a PhD in a particular field can nonetheless contribute to it and a Nobel price laureate can talk as much bullshit as self-proclaimed Dominion expert.

That's true. Anyone could make the argument that hybrid strategies are not a thing because Awaclus's experience playing against other top 50 players says so, and it would be a valid argument regardless of who made it.

Spot on. The argument "a top 50 player said so" is an invalid argument from authority. But "a top 50 player's games have revealed that this is so" is a valid argument, and it is lent some credibility by the fact that the top 50 player in question is the one making the argument.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #33 on: April 26, 2017, 06:49:29 pm »
+1

Also, wow talk about Déjà vu:

Every Kingdom is different and there are very well ample of Kingdoms in which you need some villages but don't end up with a sublime engine that draws the entire deck every turn. Typical psychological bias, we all love these games and thus forget all the mediocre games or the stuff that is somewhere between engine and BM.
There is no stuff "somewhere between engine and BM".
Yes there is. The density of Actions and Treasures in your deck is different in every game.  Which is e.g. why you might have some Silvers and some Action card in your deck and which is why Wandering Ministrel can be worse than Village in a particular situation.
As I said, everybody loves sublime engines but you seem to willfully ignore those muddy games in which you have a mix of everything or in which one player goes for more Actions and tries to build up an engine while the other bought some Gold early on and is already greening.
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weety4

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #34 on: April 26, 2017, 07:33:55 pm »
0

There is no stuff "somewhere between engine and BM". must have won a bullshit prize somewhere in saner lands.
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Awaclus

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #35 on: April 27, 2017, 03:52:05 am »
0

There is no stuff "somewhere between engine and BM". must have won a bullshit prize somewhere in saner lands.

It has also gotten me into the top 50.
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McGarnacle

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #36 on: April 28, 2017, 07:50:18 am »
0

There is no stuff "somewhere between engine and BM". must have won a bullshit prize somewhere in saner lands.

Why don't you think so? It seems to me that there really should be something in between.
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Awaclus

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #37 on: April 28, 2017, 08:09:14 am »
0

There is no stuff "somewhere between engine and BM". must have won a bullshit prize somewhere in saner lands.

Why don't you think so? It seems to me that there really should be something in between.

He does think so and he's wrong. The fundamental strategy types are built on very intricate rule and card interactions and they have basically nothing in common between any two strategies. By mixing them up, you throw the synergies out of the window and replace them with antisynergies and then you're basically playing "buy random terminals from the kingdom and wonder why your deck isn't doing anything" v. 2.0 instead of an actual strategy.
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trivialknot

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #38 on: April 28, 2017, 12:29:35 pm »
0

This is just begging for some edge-case discussion, though.

Hermit/Market Square draws itself for one turn, followed by big money.
Native Village/Bridge doesn't draw itself, until the last turn.
Oh, and there was that one in the Game Reports forum where someone alternated between drawing deck, playing 3 goons and buying lots of copper, and the next turn buying Donate to trash all the copper.

Awaclus, I'm curious what your take is.  Am I wrong to think of these as "hybrid" strategies?  Are they actually either BM or Engine?  Or maybe rushes or slogs or whatever?  Or are they another category that we don't need to talk about because they're rarely any good?
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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #39 on: April 28, 2017, 01:02:45 pm »
0

My feeling about these unusual strategies is that it's not necessary for our dominion paradigm to account for them.  Similarly, as Awaclus said, it's not necessary to talk about strategies that are just bad.  It's fine if our strategy types neither include Counting House/Travelling Fair nor the Estate/Duchy opening.

On the other hand, if our dominion paradigm can incidentally talk about edge cases and bad decks, why not go along with it?  We have this idea of "Big Money" because sometimes that is a good strategy, but it also incidentally allows us to talk about Big Money even when it loses handily to the engine.  Likewise, the hybrid BM/Engine is an easily accessible concept and I don't see why we should throw it out just because it seems like a bad deck in most cases.
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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #40 on: April 28, 2017, 04:27:21 pm »
0

We have this idea of "Big Money" because sometimes that is a good strategy, but it also incidentally allows us to talk about Big Money even when it loses handily to the engine.  Likewise, the hybrid BM/Engine is an easily accessible concept and I don't see why we should throw it out just because it seems like a bad deck in most cases.

I wonder if sometimes we assume that in order for a strategy to be considered an "Engine" it HAS to not use Treasures.  But I'd argue that that's not the definition of an Engine at all. 

First of all, "Big Money" and "Engine" are not so much rigid deck templates as they are more fluid deck archetypes which have fundamental guiding principles behind them that should inform how you build your deck.  To me, what characterizes the Engine archetype are its inter-working components: draw, +actions, trashing/sifting, +buy/gains, attacks, and payload--each Engine component is not very helpful by itself, but when put together with the other parts, it succeeds as a whole.  The cards that actually fulfill each component requirement will of course look different for every Engine depending on the kingdom, and it seems like a fruitless exercise to try and enumerate every different Engine "type" but regardless, if you're actually pursuing an archetypal Engine strategy (and not BM), it means you're trying to build a deck with each of these components. 

One of these required components is payload, and naturally, there are sometimes games where the best payload option is indeed Treasures.  A deck constructed using Village-Smithy-Market-Moneylender-Bandit can still be considered an Engine, even if its main payload is a few Golds.  Using Treasures as payload does not make it a "hybrid strategy."

I think what Awaclus is getting at in rejecting the existence of a "hybrid strategy" archetype, is that the Engine archetype and Big Money archetype are fundamentally different from one another, and the guiding principles behind the two archetypes directly interfere with one another and cannot mix efficiently without creating a mess of your deck.  The Big Money archetype seeks to gain money and points, which actively get in the way of the Engine archetype's pursuit of its inter-working components.  To that end at least, I agree with Awaclus: there really isn't such a thing as a "hybrid" archetype.
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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #41 on: April 28, 2017, 05:42:12 pm »
+2

This is just begging for some edge-case discussion, though.

Hermit/Market Square draws itself for one turn, followed by big money.
Native Village/Bridge doesn't draw itself, until the last turn.
Oh, and there was that one in the Game Reports forum where someone alternated between drawing deck, playing 3 goons and buying lots of copper, and the next turn buying Donate to trash all the copper.

Awaclus, I'm curious what your take is.  Am I wrong to think of these as "hybrid" strategies?  Are they actually either BM or Engine?  Or maybe rushes or slogs or whatever?  Or are they another category that we don't need to talk about because they're rarely any good?

They're combo decks. They rely on the specific interactions between the cards that make them up.
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Awaclus

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #42 on: April 29, 2017, 02:55:20 am »
0

This is just begging for some edge-case discussion, though.

Hermit/Market Square draws itself for one turn, followed by big money.
Native Village/Bridge doesn't draw itself, until the last turn.
Oh, and there was that one in the Game Reports forum where someone alternated between drawing deck, playing 3 goons and buying lots of copper, and the next turn buying Donate to trash all the copper.

Awaclus, I'm curious what your take is.  Am I wrong to think of these as "hybrid" strategies?  Are they actually either BM or Engine?  Or maybe rushes or slogs or whatever?  Or are they another category that we don't need to talk about because they're rarely any good?

They're combo decks. They rely on the specific interactions between the cards that make them up.

That's exactly right. I've been playing around with the idea of classifying "spend the early game putting a bunch of stuff aside so that you can suddenly grab it in large quantities in the late game" as a fundamental strategy type of its own, and that would include the Native Village/Bridge deck, Duplicate and Royal Carriage based megaturn decks, coin token hoarding strategies, etc. Those decks are all based around the same principles, so it's definitely a good idea to group them together in that sense, but whether or not they're common enough that it's worth the effort is something to consider.
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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #43 on: April 29, 2017, 11:23:31 am »
+8

I think what Awaclus is getting at in rejecting the existence of a "hybrid strategy" archetype, is that the Engine archetype and Big Money archetype are fundamentally different from one another, and the guiding principles behind the two archetypes directly interfere with one another and cannot mix efficiently without creating a mess of your deck.  The Big Money archetype seeks to gain money and points, which actively get in the way of the Engine archetype's pursuit of its inter-working components.  To that end at least, I agree with Awaclus: there really isn't such a thing as a "hybrid" archetype.

I suppose I disagree.  At least, I see a wide variety of strategies that simply "Engine" and "Big Money" fail to capture.  Consider a variety of strategies when Goons is the payload:
  • Can draw deck, available +actions: If the kingdom supports enough trashing/draw and +actions, the optimal strategy is usually to buy one Goons, get to the point where you can draw your deck, and then work towards playing as many Goons as possible while drawing your deck.  This game is most probably going to end on piles.
  • Can draw deck, no +actions: In this situation, you're likely to build as in (1), but stop once you can play one Goons while drawing your deck.  At that point, you might keep building, buying as many catrips or draw + Gold as you can.  If the kingdom doesn't have additional non-terminal +buy and bunch of cantrips, you'll eventually start buying Provinces.
  • Cannot draw deck, available +actions: Suppose either that (a) there's no trashing and insufficiently strong draw, or (b) trashing but no way to increase handsize at all.  In this situation, you'll probably want to get to a point where you're expected to play multiple Goons per turn.  You'll probably end up buying more Goons than you can realistically play in a turn.  You'll want to overinvest in villages, because you'll add consistency while getting Goons points.  At some point, you might use excess buys for Coppers.  This game might end on piles, or one or more players might dip into Provinces to make it harder for the opponent to end the game.  In situation (b) you might attempt a golden deck if the conditions are right.
  • Cannot draw deck, no +actions: Assuming Goons is the best terminal (easy assumption), you're going to buy treasures, ~3 Goons, and helpful nonterminals (e.g. Market on $5).  You'll be able to build a little longer than with most BM terminals due to Goons points, and +buy, but you will certainly be buying Provinces, and ideally more than your opponent.
Strategy (1) is a archetypal draw-yo-deck engine with a huge payload.  In OP's terminology, this maps either to "The Control Engine" or "The Mega-Turn Engine".
Strategy (2) is also a draw-yo-deck engine, but with a single-terminal payload.  This clearly maps to "The Control Engine" in OP's terminology.
Strategy (3) is a messy strategy - no denying it.  It will undoubtedly combine Silver and villages.  Calling it BM seems wrong.  Calling it an engine seems dubious.  According to OP's terminology, this seems like an example of "The As-Good-As-it-Gets Engine".  I've heard it called a "Good Stuff" deck.
Strategy (4) is a BM strategy, albeit one where you want to green later than usual.

So, I think disagreement arises around strategies like (3).  There are a handful of cards that tend to encourage "Good Stuff" decks, IMO:
  • Tournament: Sometimes (often?) the best strategy when Tournament is on the board is to open Tournament + Silver, grab a Gold and extra Tournaments, then grab a Province ASAP.  Then, you want to discard the Province to Tournament to get a fabulous Prize.  At this point, you want to play your prize as much as possible, so thinning and draw become really important, but Province is still a great card, so the deck will probably never reach a consistent engine state.
  • Haggler: If Haggler is the best terminal, but the trashing and draw aren't super strong, you'll often be encouraged to pick up Gold + $5 engine piece in the midgame (when Gold is better than the sub-$5 options).  And without +buy, you're further encouraged to Province early, because you can pick up a Gold or $5 card along with it.  This leads to decks that just want to play some good stuff, ideally a Haggler, and then buy Province and gain more good stuff.
  • Swindler: Swindler is a good card, and you want to play a bunch of them.  But your opponent's Swindlers are going to be turning some of your stuff into treasures or extra terminals.  Because Swindler games can end quickly on piles, and Gold & Province are usually un-Swindleable, it's often correct to get Gold and Provinces early and often.  This despite the fact that you'll probably take the opportunity to get villages (especially $4 villages with no bad Swindler targets) in the hopes of playing multiple Swindlers per turn.
  • Fairgrounds/Museum: If trashing and draw aren't super strong, or if there are many terminals but no or limited +actions, Fairgrounds and Museum can encourage decks filled with cards with some antisynergies, because picking up that Jester and getting 2 VP in the midgame can be the best option, even if you wouldn't get the Jester absent Museum/Fairgrounds.
  • Archive: Archive in the absence of trashing leads to situations where you can draw through your deck, but your turns are still wildly inconsistent.  You'll end up getting redundant cards and green earlier than if you had other draw.
And this isn't an exhaustive list.  Sometimes in Dominion, we play a messy strategy: we're trying to balance making our deck better and getting points at the same time.  And while frequent messy play is usually a sign of non-optimal play, sometimes it is the best thing to do in a kingdom.  If you disagree, let's play a cage match with one of the above cards and get some data on the issue.
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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #44 on: April 29, 2017, 04:12:27 pm »
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I suppose I disagree.  At least, I see a wide variety of strategies that simply "Engine" and "Big Money" fail to capture.  Consider a variety of strategies when Goons is the payload:
  • Can draw deck, available +actions: If the kingdom supports enough trashing/draw and +actions, the optimal strategy is usually to buy one Goons, get to the point where you can draw your deck, and then work towards playing as many Goons as possible while drawing your deck.  This game is most probably going to end on piles.
  • Can draw deck, no +actions: In this situation, you're likely to build as in (1), but stop once you can play one Goons while drawing your deck.  At that point, you might keep building, buying as many catrips or draw + Gold as you can.  If the kingdom doesn't have additional non-terminal +buy and bunch of cantrips, you'll eventually start buying Provinces.
  • Cannot draw deck, available +actions: Suppose either that (a) there's no trashing and insufficiently strong draw, or (b) trashing but no way to increase handsize at all.  In this situation, you'll probably want to get to a point where you're expected to play multiple Goons per turn.  You'll probably end up buying more Goons than you can realistically play in a turn.  You'll want to overinvest in villages, because you'll add consistency while getting Goons points.  At some point, you might use excess buys for Coppers.  This game might end on piles, or one or more players might dip into Provinces to make it harder for the opponent to end the game.  In situation (b) you might attempt a golden deck if the conditions are right.
  • Cannot draw deck, no +actions: Assuming Goons is the best terminal (easy assumption), you're going to buy treasures, ~3 Goons, and helpful nonterminals (e.g. Market on $5).  You'll be able to build a little longer than with most BM terminals due to Goons points, and +buy, but you will certainly be buying Provinces, and ideally more than your opponent.
Strategy (1) is a archetypal draw-yo-deck engine with a huge payload.  In OP's terminology, this maps either to "The Control Engine" or "The Mega-Turn Engine".
Strategy (2) is also a draw-yo-deck engine, but with a single-terminal payload.  This clearly maps to "The Control Engine" in OP's terminology.
Strategy (3) is a messy strategy - no denying it.  It will undoubtedly combine Silver and villages.  Calling it BM seems wrong.  Calling it an engine seems dubious.  According to OP's terminology, this seems like an example of "The As-Good-As-it-Gets Engine".  I've heard it called a "Good Stuff" deck.
Strategy (4) is a BM strategy, albeit one where you want to green later than usual.

The fundamental deck types capture all of these strategies perfectly well. 1 is an engine, 2 is an engine, 3 can be an engine or big money or a slog depending on how you play it but it can't be a combination or anything in between and 4 is big money.

And sure, let's play a cage match. I'm probably available some time next week.
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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #45 on: April 29, 2017, 07:37:26 pm »
+1

The fundamental deck types capture all of these strategies perfectly well. 1 is an engine, 2 is an engine, 3 can be an engine or big money or a slog depending on how you play it but it can't be a combination or anything in between and 4 is big money.

And sure, let's play a cage match. I'm probably available some time next week.

I still don't know if we disagree about anything of substance.  Do our beliefs lead us to play the game of Dominion differently?  If not, I can't see any value in continuing the discussion.

Do you believe that any of the strategies I described in my previous post could not be optimal strategies?

Do you believe that it is never correct to play an enginey approach where you add payload before you draw your deck (assume that drawing one's deck is possible)?  For example: adding Gold and Province before Laboratories on a board with Tournament and weak/no trashing.

Do you believe that it is never correct to add villages to a moneyish strategy?
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Awaclus

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #46 on: April 30, 2017, 05:19:22 am »
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The fundamental deck types capture all of these strategies perfectly well. 1 is an engine, 2 is an engine, 3 can be an engine or big money or a slog depending on how you play it but it can't be a combination or anything in between and 4 is big money.

And sure, let's play a cage match. I'm probably available some time next week.

I still don't know if we disagree about anything of substance.  Do our beliefs lead us to play the game of Dominion differently?  If not, I can't see any value in continuing the discussion.

Do you believe that any of the strategies I described in my previous post could not be optimal strategies?

Do you believe that it is never correct to play an enginey approach where you add payload before you draw your deck (assume that drawing one's deck is possible)?  For example: adding Gold and Province before Laboratories on a board with Tournament and weak/no trashing.

Do you believe that it is never correct to add villages to a moneyish strategy?

1) I don't know if you play Dominion differently from how I play it.

2) They could be not optimal strategies. They could also be optimal strategies, that depends on the board and the exact way in which you execute them.

3) No. If you were playing a solitaire game, that would be correct, but sometimes the availability of payload is very limited and you have to get it asap in order to get it at all. Tournament is one case where this is definitely true, but also Highways, Grand Markets and Peddlers tend to run out before you're done building your deck so you have to start going for them earlier than you otherwise would. There are other cases too, but those are probably the most common. This doesn't mean it's a hybrid strategy, it's just a race to get the payload at all and then you continue building the engine normally.

4) It's not never correct, but it's very rarely correct. Fishing Village is almost as good as Silver anyway, so that's an obvious one you can definitely put in money strategies especially when there's little chance of drawing it dead. Wandering Minstrel can also be pretty good since it doesn't have as big of an antisynergy with Silvers as Village does, sometimes Border Village with a strong $5 terminal can be better than Gold, 1x Plaza over Silver is actually a slight improvement over BMU even if you never end up using the +actions for anything, etc. Basically the village needs to be on the stronger end of the spectrum and the circumstances have to be right. But for instance, something like Fishing Village/Wharf big money is actually super strong (although on that board you can probably build an even stronger engine).
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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #47 on: May 04, 2017, 02:54:52 pm »
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I think what Awaclus is getting at in rejecting the existence of a "hybrid strategy" archetype, is that the Engine archetype and Big Money archetype are fundamentally different from one another, and the guiding principles behind the two archetypes directly interfere with one another and cannot mix efficiently without creating a mess of your deck.  The Big Money archetype seeks to gain money and points, which actively get in the way of the Engine archetype's pursuit of its inter-working components.  To that end at least, I agree with Awaclus: there really isn't such a thing as a "hybrid" archetype.

I suppose I disagree.  At least, I see a wide variety of strategies that simply "Engine" and "Big Money" fail to capture.
This.

Also: the action card density in your deck is not a binary variable, i.e. ample of games consist of a mix of Action cards and Treasure cards in your deck and fail to quality as "engine" or "big money".

Also, some people play Dominion IRL with 3 or 4 players. Building a full engine with only 2-4 villages is not feasible, hence uncategorizable hybrid games emerge.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2017, 02:58:20 pm by weety4 »
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weety4

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #48 on: May 04, 2017, 03:01:40 pm »
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There is no stuff "somewhere between engine and BM". must have won a bullshit prize somewhere in saner lands.

It has also gotten me into the top 50.
Being the best football player in the world does not imply that you can automatically talk intelligibly about the game and repeating arguments from authority doesn't make them any truer.

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Awaclus

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Re: Refreshing the Dominion Paradigms
« Reply #49 on: May 04, 2017, 03:16:10 pm »
+2

Also: the action card density in your deck is not a binary variable, i.e. ample of games consist of a mix of Action cards and Treasure cards in your deck and fail to quality as "engine" or "big money".

Action card density isn't what determines what strategy you're playing. You can have a big money deck with 100% Action density, and that doesn't make it an engine in the slightest.

Also, some people play Dominion IRL with 3 or 4 players.

Some people also play Monopoly.

Being the best football player in the world does not imply that you can automatically talk intelligibly about the game

I don't think that word means what you think it means because having basic communicational skills does pretty much imply that you can automatically talk intelligibly about any subject regardless of whether or not you know anything about that subject. As far as being able to talk intelligently is concerned, being the best football player in the world does still imply that you can talk intelligently about playing football. In order to be the best football player in the world, you have to know how to play football, and if you know how to play football, your views on the subject are definitely a lot more credible than the views of someone who doesn't know how to play football.
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