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Author Topic: When do you take the curse in torturer games?  (Read 13423 times)

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jotheonah

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Re: When do you take the curse in torturer games?
« Reply #25 on: February 22, 2012, 12:53:03 pm »
0

In most Curse games (Witch, Young Witch, Familiar, etc.) buying single-card trashers like Trash for benefit cards is a sort of a risky proposition because you can't catch those curses until the next reshuffle. But when you know you're going to gain your curses in hand, it makes a little more sense to grab something that can trash a curse the turn you get it, even if there's no other benefit. But maybe I'm totally off-base here and the trashers will still slow your deck down too much.

Although, if Steward is out I'm pretty likely to have a few, since I can use them for plus cards with my villages (to get to more torturers) if I don't get tortured and clear out two curses at a time if I do.
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Davio

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Re: When do you take the curse in torturer games?
« Reply #26 on: February 22, 2012, 02:28:11 pm »
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The other problem with trash for benefit cards is that you're better off if you can use them on high value cards. Spending them on a lowly Curse doesn't help you much. I dislike trashing Coppers with early Apprentices for this reason. With Torturer, it can often be the right choice to take the Curse, but trash another card for a greater benefit.

So I wouldn't rely on trash for benefits to make your problems go away. Trash for nothing (or small benefit: Trading Post, Trade Route) cards are better with Curses.
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Zaphod

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Re: When do you take the curse in torturer games?
« Reply #27 on: February 22, 2012, 02:36:26 pm »
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I recall the game that turned this card around for me; I got hit with an early Villager/Torturer chain, I decided to take the Curses, I was able to build up my own chain, and I came back to win, much to my surprise.  That took some of the fear out of it for me.

I'm not sure we can set hard-and-fast rules for when to take the Curse.  It depends on a number of factors.

If you have a bad hand anyhow, you obviously discard.  If Curses are out, you obviously "take a Curse."

Is it early in the game or late in the game?  Early Curses are worse because they'll keep turning up, but if you can get an early Torturer, don't discard.

Obviously, the action and reaction cards you're holding make a difference.  If you're holding Ambassador or Trader, you might want to be given a Curse.  OTOH, if you have Menagerie or Library in your hand, you may want to discard.  Watchtower and Jack of All Trades can go either way.

You should be conscious of how many actions your opponent has left.  Also, keep track of how many Villages and Torturers he has bought and whether he's played them since his last shuffle.  If you know you can only get tortured once this turn, your decision is easier.  If you may get hit with a chain, you need to know that when you're making the decision.

If the Torturer is Throne Roomed or King's Courted, you should make the decision based on the complete attack.  The attack of KC/Torturer is no worse than that of TR/Witch, if you play it right.

In 3- and 4-player games, taking a Curse may hurt you more if the other players aren't taking any.  You can't automatically discard every time, but you should keep track of how many Curses have been dealt and factor that into your decision-making process.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2012, 02:39:34 pm by Zaphod »
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Epoch

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Re: When do you take the curse in torturer games?
« Reply #28 on: February 22, 2012, 02:46:55 pm »
+4

A potentially interestingly degenerate situation in Dominion could be a scenario where:

Player A has a mathematical lock on winning the game, if he doesn't take any Curses, but could lose if he takes any Curses.  That is, he has slightly more than 0.5 of the VP in the game, and the VP in the game are fixed, no tokens or whatever.

Player B has an utterly reliable ability to Torture Player A into a non-hand each turn (KC/KC/Scheme/Scheme/Torturer, for example), and in general a strong deck with lots of buying power, but no non-Torturer way to get player A to take a Curse.

Presumably the "correct" behavior for the players is:

Player A refuses to take any Curses and so loses his hand each turn.
Player B refuses to end the game because to do so is to lose.

So they just sit there in stasis, with player A having trivial no-action turns and Player B just repeating his Torturer play.  Until either they agree that the game is a tie or one person gets fed up and concedes.

Obviously, unlikely enough that it'll probably never happen in real play, but it could.
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GendoIkari

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Re: When do you take the curse in torturer games?
« Reply #29 on: February 22, 2012, 03:06:14 pm »
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I dunno, unless player A has a ridiculously crappy deck; he should be able to take a curse and then buy at least an Estate to keep in the lead. He should be able to do this enough times to force a win by 3-piling.
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Captain_Frisk

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Re: When do you take the curse in torturer games?
« Reply #30 on: February 22, 2012, 03:16:22 pm »
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Obviously, unlikely enough that it'll probably never happen in real play, but it could.

I suspect that this will be viewed the same as that thief lock puzzle from BGG back in the day.  If someone does it to you, just don't play with them any more.
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Epoch

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Re: When do you take the curse in torturer games?
« Reply #31 on: February 22, 2012, 03:25:54 pm »
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I dunno, unless player A has a ridiculously crappy deck; he should be able to take a curse and then buy at least an Estate to keep in the lead. He should be able to do this enough times to force a win by 3-piling.

This doesn't work in lots of very believable scenarios.

Take the KC/KC/Scheme/Scheme/Torturer scenario.  When Player B has that lock in place, player A is reliably tortured thrice per turn.  That means that if player A wants to take only one curse, he's also playing a 2 card hand.  But he's also betting that his two card hand will survive whatever player B does after the combo.  After playing the combo, player B has a 15 card hand and 6 available Actions.  What if he has another Torturer or two in those 15 cards?  Then player A gets to be Tortured again, and potentially again.  If he wants to defend his 2 card hand (and thus ability to buy an Estate), he has to take 2 Curses or 3, and end up net down points.

Or, what if Player B can just end the game on his turn whenever he wants to, with that 15 card, 6 Action hand.  Player A might not get a chance to ever buy his Estate.

If two piles are already run out (not impossible, given the stipulation that player A has a majority of the non-negative VP in the game), then player A presumably can win by slowing buying out the Copper pile.  But if not, and Player B has a reasonable deck behind that combo, he very likely is going to feel that taking any Curses gives him the loss.
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Epoch

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Re: When do you take the curse in torturer games?
« Reply #32 on: February 22, 2012, 03:33:53 pm »
+1

I suspect that this will be viewed the same as that thief lock puzzle from BGG back in the day.  If someone does it to you, just don't play with them any more.

Er, who do you read as the aggrieved party here who should stop playing with presumably the other person who's being bad?  The positions read as fundamentally symmetrical here: neither player can move the game towards the end without losing.  Neither player can force the other player to move the game towards the end.  Who's the bad guy?

In RL, if this happened, I'd say, "Okay, looks like a draw to me."  I'm just interested by the notion that a Dominion game could end up in a state where the game-theory-correct behavior for both players is "do not drive the game towards completion, indefinitely."  There aren't a lot of such game situations in Dominion -- usually, someone has a path towards increasing their chance of winning.
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Davio

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Re: When do you take the curse in torturer games?
« Reply #33 on: February 22, 2012, 03:37:57 pm »
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I dunno, unless player A has a ridiculously crappy deck; he should be able to take a curse and then buy at least an Estate to keep in the lead. He should be able to do this enough times to force a win by 3-piling.
Well, you can modify it to make it an auto-win for player B if player A concedes: Player B has put a Scrying Pool on top with Scheme (6th card) with which he can draw any number of KCs and Bridges. If Player A has exactly half the points in play and would actually be the 2nd player (win the tie) then that Curse could spell A's doom.
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Epoch

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Re: When do you take the curse in torturer games?
« Reply #34 on: February 22, 2012, 03:49:54 pm »
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Well, you can modify it to make it an auto-win for player B if player A concedes: Player B has put a Scrying Pool on top with Scheme (6th card) with which he can draw any number of KCs and Bridges. If Player A has exactly half the points in play and would actually be the 2nd player (win the tie) then that Curse could spell A's doom.

You don't even really need to do that.  Like, suppose that player B really just has the combo right now (plus, well, presumably enough money to buy KCs and such).  So player A goes, "Ah-hah!  I take 1 Curse (now 9 Curses left) and buy 1 Estate (now 7 Estates left)!"

Player B then goes, "Cool, while you do that, I buy 1 more Torturer (which I will put as the sixth card on the top of my deck.  Next turn, if you want to defend 2 cards, you'll need to take at least 2 Curses."

And if player B goes, "No problem, I'll defend a Gold and a Gold and, take 2 Curses (now 7 Curses left), and buy a Duchy (now, say, 5 Duchies left)," then player A goes, "And while you did that, I bought a 3rd KC.  So now my combo is KC/KC/KC/Scheme/Scheme/Torturer/Torturer.  Sure, I can't actually place my second Torturer on the top of the deck, but if it's in the 14 cards after the first Torturer, I'll find it, and now you're not looking at 4 Torturers per round, you're looking at 6.  To defend a 2 card hand, you need to take 4 Curses."

And so forth.  That's without using any card that's not stipulated as being in the kingdom to begin with.  If there is any +buy, or player B started out with Actions beyond the bare minimum needed for his combo, then player A is even more sunk.
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chogg

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Re: When do you take the curse in torturer games?
« Reply #35 on: February 22, 2012, 04:21:37 pm »
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When should you take the curse?  When you've built a robust lead and it will empty the third pile.

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1592.msg25376#msg25376
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petrie911

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Re: When do you take the curse in torturer games?
« Reply #36 on: February 22, 2012, 05:41:28 pm »
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So, the way I see it, the only empty pile is Duchies.  There's 1 Estate left and 1 Province left, and the split is 3-4 on both in favor of the second player.  The first player is the torturing player, and thus if he just buys out the VP, he loses.  Even worse, he can't buy the last Estate or his opponent will buy out the copper and win.  However, he can reliably torture 6 times, so the opponent can't hold on to a silver and grab the last estate without taking at least 3 Curses, losing the game.

I'm pretty sure neither player can break the stalemate here without losing.
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