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[TheOneDM]

I just got totally crushed here:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/18/game-20120218-001458-8ffbafb9.html

I bought a Talisman in the opening, and it was an utterly terrible mistake for me to make. But did I spend the rest of the game paying for it? I couldn't ever seem to get to $6 to pick up a Gold. The first time I did, I took Goons instead, and... well, to be honest, I couldn't tell you why. I picked up a Peddler the second time, thinking it would push the $5 hands up a notch, but it simply didn't work.

Did that *one* Talisman screw the whole thing up, or did I buy too many actions, or what?

[Ozle]

In no way being an expert here, but looking at your hand history, there were a lot of times you ended up with hands with two or three terminal actions, and no chance to play both. Which suggests to me far too many for a deck that doesn't have some sort of engine running.

[def]

Yes, it was a terrible opening, but that's not all. The game took 30 turns, so, exaggerating maybe a bit, one could have even recovered from something like opening Curse/Copper if playing perfectly afterwards.
That said, let's look at your further turns.
Turn 5, maybe you want Gold over Goons given the fact you already have three terminal actions, but ok.
Turn 6: You don't need to use every buy you have. Even if that means you skip a whole turn. You did that right in turn 8.
Gaining two Coppers, only to buy Mint next turn to trash three coppers, well...
These two turns, you changed a Copper into a Mint (and got one VP token). Mint can be good, but not when your deck has 6 Copper, 2 Talismans and 1 Silver in a Colony game.
Turn 9: Rabble, another terminal action, even one that draws cards (and therefore will probably draw more actions dead)
Turn 10: Don't buy a Copper that early only because of one Goons played. Think about it this way: Would you gain a free Estate early on if you could?
Afterwards, it's not surprising you didn't get to 6$. In fact, it would be if you had regularly. How should you get to 6$ if your average draw is like two Coppers, two Actions of which only one can be played? Don't forget that you didn't really trash much of your starting cards at all, and you got some from your opponent's Ambassador, too.
Turn 21: You don't want a Trading Post at this point of the game, even if you got to play it next turn.

So, I hope that shows what could have been done differently, and that not the start only loses the game if the next 10 turns aren't that much better.

[Anon79]

If you want to get Goons over Gold, fine, but get Silvers on $5. If you don't want to buy Silvers on $4 or $5, then make sure you get Gold on $6 first.

If you consistently avoid buying Silvers and Golds, well no surprise that you have trouble getting $ on a board where the only +Action card is Peddler.

[WanderingWinder]

I want to chime in to say that I'm not sure that buying that copper with the goons in play is a mistake. People make this mistake a LOT because you definitely don't want to do it early when you have a chance of getting multiple goons plays later, but without extra actions, you want to be buying those coppers for points pretty darn early. Copper's not that bad of a card. Also, if you've got too many terminals already, the copper helps alleviate that somewhat.

[def]

But you surely don't want to buy Copper in this kind of a Colony game before you got your first Gold.

[WanderingWinder]

But you surely don't want to buy Copper in this kind of a Colony game before you got your first Gold.

I dunno, maybe. Lots of times I would. Here probably not, but then I'm not going to have a deck like his that much. Don't think that actually made much difference here - he's probably already lost.

[TheOneDM]

Thanks for all the help! Looking back on this game with a full night of sleep, I bought too many terminals. Probably should have gone Gold with my second $6 and then not flooded myself with bad actions.

I appreciate all the commentary. I've only been playing for about two months, so I'm still having a tough time on playing boards without obvious engines.

[ftl]

So the last comment tells me you're not that good at Big Money games?

You should probably work on that. Lots of boards are fundamentally Big Money-like boards. Even some games WITH obvious engines are still better played as BM+X, if the obvious engine isn't fast enough.

[dondon151]

IIRC on BM boards, you should get Gold before Goons, and alternate buying them when you reach $6+.