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Author Topic: Winning Without Touching Gardens/Workshop  (Read 2815 times)

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Young Nick

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Winning Without Touching Gardens/Workshop
« on: March 01, 2012, 11:42:36 pm »
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I see Monument on the board and no crazy engine. With my $4...I buy Monument assuming a boring BMU+2Monument sort of game. My opponent Mic Qsenoch plays $4 and opens Workshop.

My first thought? What a fool, why would you ever open Workshop. Then I see Gardens. I'm not one to quit out prematurely, but well, this one is a forgone conclusion, is it not?

Apparently not as I keep to my strategy, snag 3 Workshops and 3 Provinces and relatively coast to a surprising victory. With Islands in play, the game ends on piles with Gardens, Islands and Estates.

My question is, How bad was my strategy? Could opening something like that perform reasonably? Did my opponent play sub-optimally? Basically, how did I win, especially so comfortably? Log: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/01/game-20120301-203623-ab200393.html

Edit: Formatting and grammar.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2012, 11:46:03 pm by Young Nick »
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kn1tt3r

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Re: Winning Without Touching Gardens/Workshop
« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2012, 12:44:02 am »
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The first think I see is that your opponent only picked up 3 Workshops, which is way too few for a Gardens rush against a Province player. After your Monument opening another possible decent idea for him would actually have been to add an early Noble Brigand to his deck.

As for you, I think your strategy is ok in this kingdom, but I expect it to get smoked by a good Gardens player.
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RisingJaguar

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Re: Winning Without Touching Gardens/Workshop
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2012, 08:40:00 am »
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I'm just curious, does university make sense here? I feel like it should be able to add some benefit here (especially with islands in play) or is this plan just too slow overall?
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Catalytic

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Re: Winning Without Touching Gardens/Workshop
« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2012, 09:35:20 am »
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Gardens/Workshop without a Village is fairly slow.  The Gardens player will maximally gain two cards a turn (one from a Workshop and one from a purchase) early in the game, but late in the game as the deck clogs, the Gardens/Workshop player will be reduced to one gain per turn.  So, it is very slow without +Action which leaves open the possibility of going a different route.  Monument is a great buy here simply because you can pick up VP as you go and his deck will be very slow and you can snag enough Provinces (and maybe snipe a couple of Gardens) for the win.

That said, RisingJaguar must be right.  Opening Workshop/Potion and hitting Universities will speed this up dramatically.  You get +Action so you can chain workshops for multiple gains, plus University will let you gain a Workshop/Gardens/Island when played. Gardens/Workshop must be fast enough to drain three piles before the opponent can pick up several Provinces, so the early delay is non-ideal, but must be preferred to the one card at a time strategy.
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Epoch

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Re: Winning Without Touching Gardens/Workshop
« Reply #4 on: March 02, 2012, 05:53:29 pm »
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I do not believe most of the things said in this thread.

In Geronimoo's simulator, Workshop/Gardens crushes Monument 76-21.

I am not sure that I believe that Village is a terribly good buy in a typical Workshop/Gardens situation -- it seems okay in testing solo, when you're not contesting Gardens or Workshops, but I feel like using Workshops/$3 buys on Villages would leave you behind in the early game if someone else where fighting you for those piles.

I very much do not believe that Universities are a good buy in a typical Workshop/Gardens deck, unless there is an amazing $5 Action to make Universities worth it.

EDIT:  Oh, and I'm not sure in what world "Gardens/Workshop without a Village is fairly slow."
« Last Edit: March 02, 2012, 05:57:50 pm by Epoch »
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Geronimoo

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Re: Winning Without Touching Gardens/Workshop
« Reply #5 on: March 02, 2012, 06:07:14 pm »
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If you tune the Monument bot to also buy Gardens and green earlier it will crush the Workshop/Gardens player
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Epoch

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Re: Winning Without Touching Gardens/Workshop
« Reply #6 on: March 02, 2012, 06:40:04 pm »
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If you tune the Monument bot to also buy Gardens and green earlier it will crush the Workshop/Gardens player

Hmm, I can tune them in different ways that play better or worse against each other's strategies.  Like, if you keep Workshop/Gardens the same and let Monument buy Gardens very aggressively, Monument wins -- but that's because Workshop/Gardens currently takes a very mellow approach to Gardens, only getting them after it gets 8 Workshops.  Then tune Workshop/Gardens back to stop letting Monument take most of the Gardens, and it gets better again.  I imagine you could then tune Monument again -- not sure where the equilibrium point is.

That said, I'm not trying to make any terribly strong claims about how to play on that board -- it looks complicated.  But lots of the stuff being claimed in this thread seems just... weird.  Like, if someone's gonna claim that University is a good buy on this board, I want to see something more concrete than "University lets you gain a card and gives you +2 actions so you can play two Workshops."
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Catalytic

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Re: Winning Without Touching Gardens/Workshop
« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2012, 07:32:43 pm »
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Epoch: A couple of thoughts.

If I am reading Geronimoo's simulator correctly (a big if), the Gardens/Workshop combo without a Village takes around 20 turns to finish the game.  This is not blazing fast I would think.  The problem is usually that the Gardens player will usually have an insurmountable VP lead at that point, but, there are ways around this with either a mega-turn deck, some alternative VP, sharing the Gardens run effectively and so on.

But this might be a semantic disagreement.  In one sense it is very fast; not many solo strategies reliably end the game in 20 turns.  In another sense it is fairly slow; 20 turns gives the opponent all kinds of time to build up an engine to take plenty of VP.  In far less than twenty turns you can easily pull off a KC-KC-Goons-Masq pin, a huge Bridge engine, etc. which will end the game before the Gardens player can build too big of a lead.  So maybe we just disagree about the word and not the actual speed.

In regards to University, it costs you two early turns to pick up a University (to buy the potion and the University in lieu of Workshops/Gardens).  But, you get those two turns back if you play the University at least twice and gain Workshops (which you will get to play at least twice and likely five or six times in approximately 20 turns).  Further, if you get the benefit of one or two double Workshop turns this speeds you up even further.  I don't know the probabilities, but you are guaranteed to get the tempo costs back (and then some) on the gains and the extra Workshop or two you could get in suggests that this should be faster than just going Workshop/Gardens/Estates.

There is a further question of whether the Potion and University buys slow you down too much after your first reshuffle since you only have one Workshop instead of two.  But, you are more likely to hit 3 or 4 on turns 3 and 4 than you are later in the game, so maybe it balances out.

Now, if your opponent is going Workshop/Gardens as well, this delay is probably too much to overcome.  But, University/Workshop/Gardens should be faster than straightforward Workshop/Gardens.  Is it faster than Village/Workshop/Gardens? I have no clue.

As far as tuning the bots go, the question seems like it should be whether the Monument player can split the Gardens 3-5 or 4-4 and still hit a few Provinces.  The extra VP from Monument and enough time to transition to a couple of Provinces (while the Gardens player attempts to empty Estates and Workshops) should put the Monument player ahead I would think.  So, does the Monument player hit 4 constantly enough on turns 3 -8 to take enough Gardens compared to the number of Workshops that the Gardens player hits and is he still able to transition for a few Provinces?  I would think so anyway.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2012, 08:01:38 pm by Catalytic »
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