Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: Defeating BM in 4p  (Read 5328 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

AHoppy

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 978
  • Respect: +529
    • View Profile
Defeating BM in 4p
« on: April 10, 2012, 12:20:13 pm »
0

So I play Dominion IRL mostly (at least, I prefer IRL) and when I do i usually play with 3-5 people.  My one friend that we often play with only ever plays a BM or a BM+X with the X being a +draw card.  We keep telling him that this isn't always the best strategy (and certainly not the most fun) but he actually wins the majority of the time.  Out of the 14 games I've played with him, he has earned 38 more points than me (yes, I record our scores and do some minor statistics on them, we play often enough).  Anyways, my suspicion is that this has a lot to do with it being a 4 player game.  The other night we had worker's village, goons, monument, laboratory, throne room in (i don't remember the rest) and so I went for a goons/lab/worker's village strategy and was able to have 2 goons megaturns (8 and 10 points off of double goons) and he still beat me by 7 points (he only lost by 1 to someone else).  Here's what I think the biggest problem was though: The other 3 players were all running the same goons strategy.  So our strategies were actually anti-synergizing with eachother because we would only ever have 3 card hands.  However, with platinum and colonies in, the BM player was able to get a good amount of money each turn, even with only 3 cards.  So I think if we were playing 2 player i could have destroyed him.  Another example:  We just finished a game with markets, grand markets and militias.  Because the 3 of us were all going for grand markets and markets, we had a (mostly) even split between them, whereas in 2p I would get all/most of the GMs and would have been able to again destroy the BM player.  What does anyone else think?  Is BM or BM+X significantly more powerful in multiplayer than 2 player because money doesn't run out but the actions do?  Does it require a  much faster deck to defeat BM+X in 3 player games?

jonts26

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2746
  • Shuffle iT Username: jonts
  • Respect: +3668
    • View Profile
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2012, 01:03:01 pm »
0

I don't think BM+X changes power in multiplayer for the most part (there are cards which are better/worse with differing numbers of players). I think depending on the board, BM might have a slight advantage if the engine components are in short supply and there are a lot of players. Though I think the real problem is this: BMU +X, played poorly, still does pretty well. Engines played poorly can be really bad. I think it's very worthwhile to experiment with engine building when you can, but until you get a lot better at it, it's likely BMX is going to win.

As to the specific goons game you mentioned, BM should get crushed here, because a good goons engine doesn't even want provinces. The BM player buying provinces will stall and flounder while you build and build. You say you got two megaturns, but 8-10 goons points is not even close to a megaturn. You need to be looking to get 3-4 Goons in play drawing with throne rooms and labs. With workers villages you can be shooting for 40 point turns, depending on how many goons you can get.

As for the grand market game, GM is often a trap card. Likely, some sort of big money strategy was the way to go.
Logged

Davio

  • 2012 Dutch Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4787
  • Respect: +3412
    • View Profile
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #2 on: April 10, 2012, 01:09:05 pm »
+2

What you have to realize about BM decks is that they're pretty sturdy. They're like Diesels, trudging along grabbing whatever they can afford and slowly but surely harking in those VP cards.

A 3 player BM-game will end in ~21 turns. 3 players playing Smithy-BM will end it (with a non-optimized version) in ~17 turns.
4p games will end relatively sooner, because the number of VP cards per player goes down from 4 to 3. This may not seem like a lot, but it is.

Also there are less kingdom cards per player, which may be more critical for two reasons.

The first reason is that there are less combo possibities. If you're playing 2 player and both have a 5/5 Minion split you can often afford a Province. If you've got less than 5 Minions, it becomes a lot harder. A BM player doesn't have these kinds of problems. There will always be enough Golds and Silvers for him.

The second reason is 3 pile endings may come a lot sooner. While everyone is busy grabbing Throne Rooms, Labs and what not, they may easily clear 2 piles in no time while the BM-player is already grabbing VP cards. Once they're down the the last card of the third pile, the BM player can simply grab it to end and win the game.

This means that if you are going for a combo deck, you have to ask yourself if you can pull it off quicker than usual and with less of each component as you would like. A Hunting Party deck is less interesting with only 3.

I would say that a BM deck is - relatively - more powerful in multiplayer, not only because the game will probably end sooner, but also because you can't control multiplayer like 2 player. In 2 player, you can manage the piles (and your opponent) more easily, but in multiplayer an ignorant player (or someone who's had enough) may end it and deliberately make all of you (except the BM guy) lose.

You really have to scramble for points and grab those VP cards way sooner than in 2p, because multiplayer is basically a free for all frenzy. You have to push your luck and grab as much as you can. Duchies become interesting much sooner. In 2p you can often make a nice comeback later, in multiplayer you just can't wait that long.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2012, 01:11:41 pm by Davio »
Logged

BSG: Cagprezimal Adama
Mage Knight: Arythea

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #3 on: April 10, 2012, 01:47:39 pm »
0

BM vs engines is almost the same 2p to 3p (3p is really slightly more BM-conducive usually, but not always), 4p is a bit more BM centered, just because the games are shorter (fewer provinces per player to get), so the engine doesn't have as long to get built up and fire.

Having said that... not sure I have loads of advice here.

AHoppy

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 978
  • Respect: +529
    • View Profile
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #4 on: April 10, 2012, 02:34:50 pm »
0

You say you got two megaturns, but 8-10 goons points is not even close to a megaturn. You need to be looking to get 3-4 Goons in play drawing with throne rooms and labs. With workers villages you can be shooting for 40 point turns, depending on how many goons you can get.

As for the grand market game, GM is often a trap card. Likely, some sort of big money strategy was the way to go.

The reason I could not get bigger "megaturns" is that with 3 of us going for all the same engine components, I could only get 4 labs, 4 worker's villages and by that point I could only get 2 goons.  This is my whole point: That BM seems stronger in multiplayer games because (in that case) the only other dominant strategy required competing to get all the engine components, which when you have 3 other players to compete against to get all the components you want.  So in my case, I came up short in the goons, where as another player came up short in the drawing or +buy cards.

And if GM is a trap card, when should I be buying it?

The second reason is 3 pile endings may come a lot sooner. While everyone isbusy grabbing Throne Rooms, Labs and what not, they may easily clear 2 piles in no time while the BM-player is already grabbing VP cards. Once they're down the the last card of the third pile, the BM player can simply grab it to end and win the game.

This was another big concern in the game, nobody wanted to run down the worker's village/labs/goons too low just for the BM guy to just end it.  we have definitely played games where everyone goes for the same engine components and then we don't realize how close the game is to being over and then someone buys a duchy and the last pile and wins...  That's why sometimes the most interesting sets may not be as fun in multiplayer since it'll be over really fast.

All that said, I still really like playing multiplayer more than 2 player in person, I just need to figure out how to change my strategy to account for it after playing on Isotropic so much...

ftl

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2056
  • Shuffle iT Username: ftl
  • Respect: +1345
    • View Profile
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #5 on: April 10, 2012, 03:25:50 pm »
0

Also, in that board you mentioned, was there good trashing? Because without good trashing, and with a few labs as the only card draw, you're never going to have a real megaturn.

BM+X is definitely stronger in 4p, especially with discard attacks like Goons. In 2p, if I go for a goons engine and you go BM+X, I'll be goonsing you every turn and mostly playing with 5-card hands. In 3p or 4p, as long as two or more players go Goons engine, EVERYBODY will be playing with 3-card hands every turn, regardless of their strategy.
Logged

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #6 on: April 10, 2012, 07:51:18 pm »
0


In a 4 player game you need to look at the attacks in the kingdom and the defences you need. Once you can satisfy those you can move onto how to score and attack yourself. Gold and platinum are good defences to 3 card hands so did you ensure you had gold and platinum in your deck? A village in a 3 card hand isn't very good usually since you don't need to keep two actions and the village might draw a worse card than something you discarded. An attack from your goons isn't necessarily strong if there are other players using goons in the same round to attack the same opponents. Throw in a number of other factors as well and I can see how a pure money deck could beat opponents with more ambition but more fragile decks.
Logged

Asklepios

  • Duke
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 394
  • Respect: +116
    • View Profile
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #7 on: April 11, 2012, 07:55:23 am »
+1

First off, I'd suggest playing Colony games if you want to see more Engines, as Colony games generally favour BM+X a lot less than Province games do. Even in two player games, BM+X remains the dominant strategy on a high proportion of Province kingdoms.

Second, in four-player games, most attacks get a lot stronger. You can afford to play attacks that normally would be quite weak - Thief springs to mind, naturally, but say you have Militia on table: in a four player game there's three chances for it to be played before the BM+X player gets in, and that will slow the game down enough to give Engines more of a chance.

Third, recall that the point of the game isn't to score the widest margin, or to build the most complex engine. The goal is to win! If you can win the game with an early three pile and by -1 VP to -2 VP, thats as good as winning by 8 Colonies to nil. And if a Kingdom supports BM+X, play BM+X. If villages don't help you win, don't buy them.
Logged

AJD

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3292
  • Shuffle iT Username: AJD
  • Respect: +4434
    • View Profile
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #8 on: April 11, 2012, 08:42:10 am »
0

Second, in four-player games, most attacks get a lot stronger. You can afford to play attacks that normally would be quite weak - Thief springs to mind, naturally, but say you have Militia on table: in a four player game there's three chances for it to be played before the BM+X player gets in, and that will slow the game down enough to give Engines more of a chance.

Wait, is it true that "most attacks" are stronger in 4p? I thought many of them were quite a bit weaker, at least in the sense that you get less marginal benefit from using it in a game where other players are using it. That is, in a 2-player game, if you don't buy Militia or Witch and your opponent does, you're the only one who's being attacked; in a 4-player game, if you're the only one without Militia or Witch, everyone is still going to be playing with 3-card hands and curses anyway.
Logged

DStu

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2627
  • Respect: +1490
    • View Profile
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #9 on: April 11, 2012, 08:45:37 am »
0

Second, in four-player games, most attacks get a lot stronger. You can afford to play attacks that normally would be quite weak - Thief springs to mind, naturally, but say you have Militia on table: in a four player game there's three chances for it to be played before the BM+X player gets in, and that will slow the game down enough to give Engines more of a chance.

Wait, is it true that "most attacks" are stronger in 4p? I thought many of them were quite a bit weaker, at least in the sense that you get less marginal benefit from using it in a game where other players are using it. That is, in a 2-player game, if you don't buy Militia or Witch and your opponent does, you're the only one who's being attacked; in a 4-player game, if you're the only one without Militia or Witch, everyone is still going to be playing with 3-card hands and curses anyway.

I would say the marginal benefit of playing an attack gets weaker, but nevertheless you are usually under stronger attack, so it's more difficult to play BigMoney.
Logged

Asklepios

  • Duke
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 394
  • Respect: +116
    • View Profile
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #10 on: April 11, 2012, 09:38:39 am »
0

DStu puts it better than me.
Logged

jomini

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1060
  • Respect: +766
    • View Profile
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #11 on: April 11, 2012, 10:47:28 am »
+1

Second, in four-player games, most attacks get a lot stronger. You can afford to play attacks that normally would be quite weak - Thief springs to mind, naturally, but say you have Militia on table: in a four player game there's three chances for it to be played before the BM+X player gets in, and that will slow the game down enough to give Engines more of a chance.

Wait, is it true that "most attacks" are stronger in 4p? I thought many of them were quite a bit weaker, at least in the sense that you get less marginal benefit from using it in a game where other players are using it. That is, in a 2-player game, if you don't buy Militia or Witch and your opponent does, you're the only one who's being attacked; in a 4-player game, if you're the only one without Militia or Witch, everyone is still going to be playing with 3-card hands and curses anyway.

I would say the marginal benefit of playing an attack gets weaker, but nevertheless you are usually under stronger attack, so it's more difficult to play BigMoney.

It depends on the attack type. Gain type attacks: thief, jester, noble brigand, and pirate ship (gain tokens) are better as you have higher odds of getting something good. Cutpurse gets much better as it stacks heavily; dropping from 5 to 4 is harsh - dropping from 5 to 2 is brutal. Torturer and rabble also get better as stacking between multiple plays per round makes them much harsher.

On the flip side, many attacks stack very poorly. Most discarding attacks, aside from cutpurse and bureaucrat, have no attack value after the first two plays of the attack on a round. Bureacrat is normally, pretty much much fails to stack as well because odds are rather low for all the pieces (two or more attacks hitting two or more green cards). Fortune teller does not stack at all and even spy, scrying pool,  and oracle also tend to lose value as the attack is less and less likely to turn down good cards as it is played more times each round.

Card trashers - sab and swindler. Really seem about the same between 2er and 4er. Yeah, your odds of hitting someone's key 5 or whatever goes up, but you also have improved odds of having one lucky guy who keeps getting his silvers whacked.

Cursers tend to get weaker as game size goes up. Losing the curse split 10 - 0 is much worse than losing it 14:9:9:8.

All of this brings about a very important point - unlike in 2er, in bigger games you are often better off mitigating the damage than playing the attacks yourself. All the other players going ghost ship? You are almost certainly better off buying a smithy instead; they will most often play 4 card hands (after ghost shipping) and you will play 5 (after playing smithy). Likewise, going for an upgrade instead of witch will often be the better long term move (certainly almost always better than getting a second witch in 4er) - you can trash an extra curse each time through the deck and still enjoy advantages like better odds of upgrading late game duchies.

I have to say that attacks tend to favor big money in a lot of 4er setups. It is just as hard, if not harder, to make engine progress when you have attacks flying around. Too many workable engine components cost 5 or more and 5 is difficult to hit when you are tossing cards into the discard or have curses gumming up the deck. For big money/draw your price points are 3, 6, 9 and 5,8,11; the former does not care so much about attacks, you will hit a lot of 3s and eventually a good number of 6s. While an engine player will quickly exhaust whatever 3s or 4s are out there, silver never runs out.

The best engines for beating BM/draw are green tolerant engines. Xroads is phenomenal for this. Just pile on duchies, cross roads, and any cantrips/villages you like under 5. Other options include sifting engines (embassy works very well here), golem engines, and top decking engines (e.g. KC/scheme, watchtower/IW, and inn abuse engines) - you will need to green sooner in 4er and your engine needs to be able to cope.

Another option to beat BM/draw is an eternal game. VP chips are good, but outside of a few corner cases (e.g. watchtower/goons) goons engines run into the problem that piles deplete so quickly you can't milk the goons for points for too long before the game ends. Bishop and monument, however, can rack up points forever (in the former case you need to make a call if you want to deplete the provinces for more points or leave them to let the game hang longer).

Logged

dondon151

  • 2012 US Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2522
  • Respect: +1856
    • View Profile
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #12 on: April 12, 2012, 02:25:40 am »
0

Cursers tend to get weaker as game size goes up. Losing the curse split 10 - 0 is much worse than losing it 14:9:9:8.

I have a feeling that the addition doesn't quite work out here...

It should be 10:7:7:6.

Also, eternal games don't work quite as well in 3-4 player as they do in 2-player. With more players, the Province pile will run down faster and the game will end sooner, as long as other players aren't going for an eternal deck. Even in 3-player, the 2 opponents only need to split Provinces at 6 apiece, whereas in 2-player, if the Province player isn't adequately prepared for an endgame slog, it's pretty much checkmate.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2012, 02:29:55 am by dondon151 »
Logged

jomini

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1060
  • Respect: +766
    • View Profile
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #13 on: April 14, 2012, 01:42:43 pm »
0

Eternal games better in 3er and 4er if only one player is not going for them; getting 12 provinces is much harder than 8.

However, if you have two opponents going for the end game, you still can get more leverage out of them in some cases. For instance, let's say there are no +buy. If your opponents split the provinces 6/6 then its going to be a tie or a loss for the first player ... unless they spend time duchy dancing; afterall they have to spend just 3 or 4 turns each getting duchies and you've had just as much time as in 2er to run your eternal deck for points. If either of your opponent's is willing to settle for a tie or a loss, then playing eternal is much harder. However, if you can count on the other opponents to go hard for the win, you can count on getting a few more turns as they take turns hitting up duchies and trying to defeat each other. Mileage will vary with each playing group and it takes a good bit of meta to count on this.

With attacks out, this can be particularly effective if the other guys are bashing each other and you can just score points instead. For instance if the other two are playing Ghost Ship/BM and just pounding each other - they can play hands of 4 cards with no actions.  You, on the other hand, can do something like have a five card deck - gold/silver/bishop/duchy/duchy and just keep crunching a silver.
Logged

dondon151

  • 2012 US Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2522
  • Respect: +1856
    • View Profile
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #14 on: April 15, 2012, 04:56:21 am »
0

How do you get your 5-card deck running if you're getting Ghost Ship'd every couple of turns?

But in my personal experience, pure alt VP strategies and eternal game strategies are a lot less reliable in multiplayer because the opponents can either end the game faster or, in the case of alt VPs, one of the players can contest you for the cards. I remember losing a Duchy/Duke rush to 2 Province players in 3p when there was even a decent enabler on the board (Ironworks) because the game ended before I had anticipated it to. Similarly, going for a variant of the Golden Deck is a lot worse because players benefit more from the additional Bishops flying around and Bishops yield less VP than a Province purchase every turn.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2012, 05:02:05 am by dondon151 »
Logged

jomini

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1060
  • Respect: +766
    • View Profile
Re: Defeating BM in 4p
« Reply #15 on: April 15, 2012, 08:11:06 am »
0

It depends on the setup for getting a 5 card deck going against ghost ships. The easiest way is to buy a bishop, three silvers, and then either hold 3 silvers for a gold, or bishop something if you can't; use the ghost ship's attack to increase the odds of the three silvers colliding (you should almost certainly get the gold the shuffle after your third silver). Opening bishop/silver gives pretty good odds of hitting that.

While your bishops do help the other players, it is by less than you'd think here; they are playing 4 card hands most of the time and trashing a copper means buying another ghost ship rather than a gold more often than in a true 5 card hand.

Once you get the gold/bishop/silvers setup you can crunch away and keep piling on more points.

Yes, I get that players can contest you for the cards, this is why goons is much less viable in multiplayer - everyone wants as many goons and enabling cards as possible. Bishop and monument often want fewer; 1 in the case of bishop and say three in the case of monument. Setting up a hand of TR/TR/Monument/Monument/trasher gives you 2 points less an a province per turn, but works in a slow game (e.g. cutpurse).

I also get that if there isn't something slowing down the province players, you will do worse in 3er or 4er with an eternal deck ... however as I've already said attacks in 3er and 4er can slow the game down and you don't need to play them if the other guys are doing all the work for you. If, and perhaps only if, that is true then the eternal deck can be a winning option. You guys spend all your early buys on making sure everyone has crappy hands. Fine, I'll have crappy hands that score a few points without bloating my deck. While you guys try to hit 8 (and fail a greater percentage of the time) thanks to attacks, I'll keep rolling along with the points.

 
Logged
Pages: [1]
 

Page created in 0.114 seconds with 20 queries.