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Author Topic: Question- What is an Engine  (Read 13486 times)

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tripwire

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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #25 on: July 26, 2018, 11:32:57 am »
+1

The problem I have with the term "engine" is that with more expansions and better play, it's becoming increasingly clear that the vast majority of the time, an "engine" of some kind is the correct build on a board. That makes the term "engine" and discussing "engine" versus "not engine" mostly strategically useless because what the best engine will look like and the build path to achieve it on any given board could vary widely from kingdom to kingdom and be very complex or unclear.

Saying "build an engine" on a given kingdom almost amounts to saying something generic, like "play well". It's mostly vacuous and minimally useful once you are beyond the point of understanding this type of deck is possible to build and should be built often.

This is a good thing. Dominion is a better, more complex, more fun game when the correct strategy for a kingdom is not something super simple. But it means we should resist using "build an engine" to end, rather than begin, a discussion of strategy.

I agree with this at the highest levels of play, but I think a more simplified (maybe even less accurate in practice?) definition can still be useful to people learning to get better at the game. This is one of the things I was trying to get at with the "skill plateaus" article I wrote...and then never revised  ::). That people learn these principles and guidelines for play before discovering that stronger play actually requires progressively more complex and nuanced understanding of those principles and guidelines. But you need those oversimplified rules and definitions to even be able to recognize that.

For example, I initially didn't like Awaclus's definition because it seems to describe the ideal engine, not lots of engines in practice. But that ideal is much easier for a lower level player to wrap their head around than most of the definitions people have presented here, and many "less-ideal" engines are striving for that ideal but just make do with what they have.

I guess that means I'm just echoing what others have said here already: that we need more clarification on what this definition is for. What level of players is it directed at? What is it being used to better understand or teach? Who is expected to use it and when? Why does the definition need to be more standardized than the "gut feel" definition that many people probably generally agree on? Etc.
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DG

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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #26 on: July 26, 2018, 12:16:38 pm »
+2

An engine is a collection of cards that can repeatedly be used together for extra benefit. I think main critieria of an engine definition is not to define specific ideas but to exclude
  • A good stuff deck that succeeds because individual cards are working well in a suitable environment
  • A planned deck that never uses cards together (like workshop - gardens)
  • Some megaturn decks that do little apart from hitting the megaturn
« Last Edit: July 26, 2018, 12:18:43 pm by DG »
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hypercube

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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #27 on: July 26, 2018, 12:58:16 pm »
0

There are two qualities I use to qualify whether a deck is an engine or not: control and growth rate. Decks with high control are able to play higher fractions of their useful cards each turn, with the archetype obviously being a deck that draws itself with perfect reliability. Decks with high growth rate are able to quickly obtain useful payload, and ideally use extra gains to grow non-linearly.

If a deck possesses both of these qualities, I consider it a strong engine. Some decks possess one but not the other; for example Hunting Party + X has control but not growth rate, and Bridge Troll + Village (or Ironworks + Gardens) has growth rate but not control. I call these decks weak engines.

Strong money decks can incorporate a limited amount of control (e.g. through Donate), growth (e.g. through Delve), or both (e.g. through Jack), but they can be differentiated from engines as the primary goal while building is to increase the coin value of the average card in the deck.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2018, 01:03:19 pm by hypercube »
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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #28 on: July 26, 2018, 01:02:13 pm »
+1

I, like, literally wrote an article with this exact title
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Polk5440

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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #29 on: July 26, 2018, 01:18:38 pm »
+1

I, like, literally wrote an article with this exact title

In case anyone is interested, here's the link for the article.

Here's the discussion page, too. Lots of good stuff.
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Seprix

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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #30 on: July 26, 2018, 01:26:44 pm »
0

Your definition is inadequate to capture what we commonly refer to as engines then. You can definitely have an engine that plays Ghost Ship every turn and gains only one green card.

Also, the definition "gets more than one set of points" is super arbitrary. A deck that plays Swindler and buys a Dominate each turn is not an engine, but the same deck playing a Monument instead and buying a Colony each turn is?

Actually you cannot according to the definition, it would more or less play like consistent money. Attacks are a way to decrease consistency, and necessitate building further, but if there really is nothing else but playing Ghost Ship, there is no engine there.

No, playing Swindler and buying Dominate is not an engine by itself. Yes, Monument and buying Colony is absolutely an engine as long as you are increasing consistency, which means either sifting, drawing cards or trashing them. Engines aren't always good.

Quote
4. Council Room/Margrave deck with nothing else. Yes, this is an engine. It increases consistency and it can score more than one set of points a turn. However, it is a very weak engine.

I fail to see how this could be considered anything other than Terminal Draw Big Money. Tacking a +Buy on Smithy Big Money does not an engine make.

Let go of your romanticized ideas of engines. Something has to give in the end, to define something so contradictory in nature. It could very well be that my idea is insane, but something at the end has to give. Nobody is going to be 100% happy with an idea at first. I never said it was a good engine, it is in fact a terrible engine. But it is nontheless an engine according to my interpretations.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2018, 01:30:44 pm by Seprix »
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Chris is me

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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #31 on: July 26, 2018, 01:30:06 pm »
+4

Your definition is inadequate to capture what we commonly refer to as engines then. You can definitely have an engine that plays Ghost Ship every turn and gains only one green card.

Also, the definition "gets more than one set of points" is super arbitrary. A deck that plays Swindler and buys a Dominate each turn is not an engine, but the same deck playing a Monument instead and buying a Colony each turn is?

Actually you cannot according to the definition, it would more or less play like consistent money. Attacks are a way to decrease consistency, and necessitate building further, but if there really is nothing else but playing Ghost Ship, there is no engine there.

No, playing Swindler and buying Dominate is not an engine by itself. Yes, Monument and buying Colony is absolutely an engine as long as you are increasing consistency, which means either sifting, drawing cards or trashing them. Engines aren't always good.

A deck that thins down in order to guarantee a Ghost Ship play and a single province every turn is definitely an engine (as opposed to a Ghost Ship Money deck that just throws a bunch of ships and Gold in there to try and have attacks happen often enough)
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Seprix

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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #32 on: July 26, 2018, 01:31:57 pm »
0

A deck that thins down in order to guarantee a Ghost Ship play and a single province every turn is definitely an engine (as opposed to a Ghost Ship Money deck that just throws a bunch of ships and Gold in there to try and have attacks happen often enough)

I cannot disagree more. Take a deck with Windfall, Ghost Ship and Donate. I'm not calling that an engine. Sorry. It's just incredibly consistent money, which will have to be the case when under constant siege from Ghost Ship. Extend this example to Donate, tons of engine enablers but no way to gain more than one green card a turn. I'm still not calling that an engine, because it cannot be.
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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #33 on: July 26, 2018, 02:14:01 pm »
+1

A deck that thins down in order to guarantee a Ghost Ship play and a single province every turn is definitely an engine (as opposed to a Ghost Ship Money deck that just throws a bunch of ships and Gold in there to try and have attacks happen often enough)

I cannot disagree more. Take a deck with Windfall, Ghost Ship and Donate. I'm not calling that an engine. Sorry. It's just incredibly consistent money, which will have to be the case when under constant siege from Ghost Ship. Extend this example to Donate, tons of engine enablers but no way to gain more than one green card a turn. I'm still not calling that an engine, because it cannot be.

there’s not going to be a definition of engine that meets every example. Plenty of engines exist where the only payload beyond that Province is the consistent attack; just because some specific Donate stack plays like money doesn’t mean those other decks stop being engines.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #34 on: July 26, 2018, 02:19:51 pm »
0

A deck that thins down in order to guarantee a Ghost Ship play and a single province every turn is definitely an engine (as opposed to a Ghost Ship Money deck that just throws a bunch of ships and Gold in there to try and have attacks happen often enough)

I cannot disagree more. Take a deck with Windfall, Ghost Ship and Donate. I'm not calling that an engine. Sorry. It's just incredibly consistent money, which will have to be the case when under constant siege from Ghost Ship. Extend this example to Donate, tons of engine enablers but no way to gain more than one green card a turn. I'm still not calling that an engine, because it cannot be.

I feel like engine more generally applies to how a deck plays than how it wins. Meaning, I don't see why the ability to gain points should be relevant at all.

Imagine a deck that uses all sorts of actions in order to draw and play your entire deck every turn. It contains 5 Universities, so you can use this deck to gain all the actions you need and increase consistency while draining piles. But it has no payload. Either it has no +buy, or it has no source of coin, either one.

I just don't see why that deck would not be an engine deck. It plays exactly like an engine. It's just a really bad engine; because you have failed to give yourself a way to actually win the game by getting points.

Or, what if you plan on adding a +buy late; using your Universities? Does the deck suddenly go from not an engine to being an engine the moment that you finally decide to gain some +buy cards?
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #35 on: July 26, 2018, 02:24:56 pm »
+1

I think my response was something like: "A deck with the goal of drawing itself every turn."

I was going for parsimony, so I didn't feel like over-qualifying it.

My definition also doesn't make any effort to judge whether the engine is good or not. To me, a deck can be an engine even if it has shitty payload. That just means it's a poor engine.
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Awaclus

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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #36 on: July 26, 2018, 02:38:39 pm »
+2

I cannot disagree more. Take a deck with Windfall, Ghost Ship and Donate. I'm not calling that an engine. Sorry. It's just incredibly consistent money, which will have to be the case when under constant siege from Ghost Ship. Extend this example to Donate, tons of engine enablers but no way to gain more than one green card a turn. I'm still not calling that an engine, because it cannot be.

Donate by itself changes the very premise of the game so much that you can pretty much throw all the usual deck classification out of the window as soon as Donate is there.
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Donald X.

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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #37 on: July 26, 2018, 03:10:48 pm »
+6

For games in general, an "engine" is "do more." You increase how much you can do with your turns (yes or how many turns you get). When engine games started to be a thing, they were also called "snowball" games, after snowballs getting bigger as they roll down hills. Your engine snowballs; it does more and more.

In Dominion there are three basic ways you can do more. By default you get 5 cards a turn, can play one Action, and can gain one card. You do more by drawing more cards, playing more Actions (not necessarily terminals), and gaining more cards. Gaining more cards includes having the economy to pay for them (or using Workshops, which provide their own economy). So getting better economy is part of this too.

When people talk about engines in Dominion - and of course all that's useful is what people use the term to mean, not what any one person would like it to mean - they tend to mean decks that include all three of these elements. You have to be drawing more cards, playing more than one Action, and gaining more than one card.

I don't think there are people who seriously talk about a deck that has no draw or can only play one Action a turn as an engine. If you can only gain one card, well that can be good, drawing your deck with Labs say, and the Labs do snowball, to a point. But it's limited, even if the Labs never run out. To some people it may count but I think to most it does not; it's "drawing your deck" not "an engine."

It's all a loop feeding itself. Drawing, playing, and gaining more cards all help you draw, play, and gain more cards.

A weak engine is still an "engine." You would like to draw your whole deck every turn, play everything, and gain lots of cards; but just getting part of the way there is still an engine.
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Donald X.

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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #38 on: July 26, 2018, 03:12:39 pm »
0

Imagine a deck that uses all sorts of actions in order to draw and play your entire deck every turn. It contains 5 Universities, so you can use this deck to gain all the actions you need and increase consistency while draining piles. But it has no payload. Either it has no +buy, or it has no source of coin, either one.

I just don't see why that deck would not be an engine deck. It plays exactly like an engine. It's just a really bad engine; because you have failed to give yourself a way to actually win the game by getting points.
University is like +$5 +1 Buy with limitations.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #39 on: July 26, 2018, 04:27:57 pm »
0

Imagine a deck that uses all sorts of actions in order to draw and play your entire deck every turn. It contains 5 Universities, so you can use this deck to gain all the actions you need and increase consistency while draining piles. But it has no payload. Either it has no +buy, or it has no source of coin, either one.

I just don't see why that deck would not be an engine deck. It plays exactly like an engine. It's just a really bad engine; because you have failed to give yourself a way to actually win the game by getting points.
University is like +$5 +1 Buy with limitations.

Right, that was largely my point... that even though it has the limitation "can't buy green cards" (action-victory aside), I feel like such a deck plays exactly like an engine would; even though it fails the criteria of being able to get multiple points in a turn.
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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #40 on: July 26, 2018, 04:29:32 pm »
0

For games in general, an "engine" is "do more." You increase how much you can do with your turns (yes or how many turns you get). When engine games started to be a thing, they were also called "snowball" games, after snowballs getting bigger as they roll down hills. Your engine snowballs; it does more and more.

In Dominion there are three basic ways you can do more. By default you get 5 cards a turn, can play one Action, and can gain one card. You do more by drawing more cards, playing more Actions (not necessarily terminals), and gaining more cards. Gaining more cards includes having the economy to pay for them (or using Workshops, which provide their own economy). So getting better economy is part of this too.

When people talk about engines in Dominion - and of course all that's useful is what people use the term to mean, not what any one person would like it to mean - they tend to mean decks that include all three of these elements. You have to be drawing more cards, playing more than one Action, and gaining more than one card.

I don't think there are people who seriously talk about a deck that has no draw or can only play one Action a turn as an engine. If you can only gain one card, well that can be good, drawing your deck with Labs say, and the Labs do snowball, to a point. But it's limited, even if the Labs never run out. To some people it may count but I think to most it does not; it's "drawing your deck" not "an engine."

It's all a loop feeding itself. Drawing, playing, and gaining more cards all help you draw, play, and gain more cards.

A weak engine is still an "engine." You would like to draw your whole deck every turn, play everything, and gain lots of cards; but just getting part of the way there is still an engine.

It's interesting to hear it in that perspective, calling something an engine if its output serves to increase its output on future turns.
It makes a degree of sense when you think about it too, like Silver gets you to $6 so you can buy Gold which helps you buy more gold, calling that a "money engine" isn't completely ridiculous if you look at it in the scope of tabletop gaming at large, not just how we're used to talking about Dominion. And focusing on their aspects that break the rules of the game (like only being able to gain one card).
« Last Edit: July 26, 2018, 04:31:40 pm by Screwyioux »
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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #41 on: July 26, 2018, 05:12:18 pm »
0

Is the engine the thing you're building? Or is the engine the process of building it?
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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #42 on: July 26, 2018, 05:30:33 pm »
0

I think my response was something like: "A deck with the goal of drawing itself every turn."

I came up with the same thing after thinking about this a bit.

The point isn't what the deck is actually doing, it's about what it's trying to do, or what the ideal case is. Smithy big money isn't an engine because you don't want to draw your other Smithies. Rushes aren't engines because the bar for what you're trying to do each turn is much lower. And so on. So when we say "go engine" what we're saying is "try to draw as much of your deck as you can."

And yes, this means golden decks are engines. I don't see anything wrong with this. The whole point of engines is consistency, and a golden deck is about as consistent as you can get.
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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #43 on: July 26, 2018, 07:14:21 pm »
0

Is the engine the thing you're building? Or is the engine the process of building it?
I think of an "engine" as a deck you build, and an "engine strategy" is a strategy that aims to build an engine at some point during the game.

Hm...  If an engine is a deck that draws itself, does that mean every strategy that aims to Donate down to 5 cards is an engine strategy?
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Donald X.

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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #44 on: July 26, 2018, 08:22:18 pm »
+1

And yes, this means golden decks are engines. I don't see anything wrong with this. The whole point of engines is consistency, and a golden deck is about as consistent as you can get.
The point of engines is snowballing. Golden decks are static.
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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #45 on: July 26, 2018, 09:10:01 pm »
0

An engine is a collection of cards that can repeatedly be used together for extra benefit. I think main critieria of an engine definition is not to define specific ideas but to exclude
  • A good stuff deck that succeeds because individual cards are working well in a suitable environment
  • A planned deck that never uses cards together (like workshop - gardens)
  • Some megaturn decks that do little apart from hitting the megaturn
I like this list of things that are not engines. It's not too hard to complement it and come up with a definition for engine. Something like: a planned deck based on interactions between multiple cards, with the goal of having consistent production  for several turns (of money, attack plays or whatever the payload is).
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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #46 on: July 26, 2018, 09:20:54 pm »
0

The problem I have with the term "engine" is that with more expansions and better play, it's becoming increasingly clear that the vast majority of the time, an "engine" of some kind is the correct build on a board.
I don't even find that the majority of random boards have the possibility of an engine. Sure if the engine is possible, it's usually also the strongest strategy. But like, no anti-terminals, no engine. No draw, probably no engine (edge cases notwithstanding). Junking stronger than the available trashing? Good luck connecting the parts. We don't need a super specific definition of engine to note that it has pretty steep requirements for what's needed in the kingdom.
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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #47 on: July 26, 2018, 09:34:31 pm »
0

And yes, this means golden decks are engines. I don't see anything wrong with this. The whole point of engines is consistency, and a golden deck is about as consistent as you can get.
The point of engines is snowballing. Golden decks are static.

A snowball phase followed by a static one is characteristic of every deck, due to the nature of the game. The static phase comes sooner in money and golden decks, but you have to snowball up to both of these first; in golden decks the snowballing is necessary to get all the needed components before trashing all the others.
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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #48 on: July 26, 2018, 11:18:20 pm »
+3

What is an engine? A miserable little pile of Actions! But enough talk! Have at you!
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Re: Question- What is an Engine
« Reply #49 on: July 26, 2018, 11:39:48 pm »
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