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[Kirian]

[As suggested/requested in this post.]

All of the analyses posted on the Dominion Strategy blog are of high-level games, where the players are playing different strategies but nearly-perfect play.  Which is as it should be; the best way to learn is to look at the best players.

Nonetheless, novices playing their own games often end up wondering:  What did I do wrong?  That strategy should have worked, so did I screw up along the way?  Or was the other guy just lucky?

The intent of this thread is for novices to post a game where they did poorly for whatever reason, and for someone more knowledgeable to analyze the game and help the novice understand what they did wrong.  So, post away!

[WanderingWinder]

All of the analyses posted on the Dominion Strategy blog are of high-level games,

I agree with this

where the players are playing different strategies but nearly-perfect play. 

but not with this. The games may be high level, but most of the time, I think they're far from perfect.

[Kirian]

Our first analysis is of this game, between ^_^_^_^, who I'll call foureyes because it's a lot easier to type, and userynamery.  The tableau is:

Chapel, Native Village, Embargo, Warehouse, Navigator, Baron, Library, Merchant Ship, Wharf, Goons.

Executive Summary:  Usery gets exceptionally lucky, drawing Baron-SCCE on both T3 and T5, and heads straight into Goons; foureyes' Chapel strategy goes south because of terminal clashes.

Openings:  foureyes opens Chapel/Baron; usery opens Silver/Baron.

Chapel and Baron are incompatible cards.  One of the objects of Chapel is to get rid of one's Estates; chances are you'll only use that Baron once, maybe twice, before it becomes a liability--and if you draw the two together, Baron is a huge liability.

Turn	Usery	Foureyes
3	8->Goons, NV	3->Silver
4	3->Silver	Chapel: E, 3C
5	8->Province	6->Goons

Usery gets ridiculously lucky, drawing Baron-SCCE not once, but twice in Turns 3 and 5.  The first he plays well; the second he plays incredibly poorly.  While a Province on T5 looks great on paper, it really clogs one's deck.  Another Goons/NV would have been a better play there.  Meanwhile, foureyes draws his Chapel on both T4 and T5--and on the latter it clashes with the Baron.  Had the Baron been a Silver instead (standard Chapel/Silver opening), this hand would have trashed two more cards and gained another Silver.  Instead, he buys Goons with the Baron.  Instead of having trashed 6 cards at this point, he's trashed 4; this is a huge difference, though the Goons will help offset that.

Turn	Usery	Foureyes
6	5->Wharf	8->Gold, NV
7	Goons; 4->Embargo, NV	Goons, 4->NV, NV
8	4->Silver	Chapel: C; 3->Warehouse

Foureyes' Chapel clashes again, this time with his Goons on T7.  On T8 he finally trashes one more card... but does not trash the Estate in hand, presumably saving it for his Baron.

Now, let's step back a bit and assume foureyes had bought Silvers instead of other terminals.  His T5, instead of Baron-Chapel-CCE, would have been Chapel-SCCE.  Instead of buying Goons, he trashes CCE and buys NV.  T6 he draws SSCCE->Goons... and reshuffles an extra time!  The only thing in his discard is Chapel/NV.

Foureyes' deck at T6:  Chapel, Baron, NV, Goons, GSCCCCEE (12 cards, av. value 11/12 plus Baron chance, av. hand value 4.5)
Thinned deck at T6:  Chapel, NV, Goons, SSCCE (8 cards, av. value 8/8, av. hand value 5)
Opponent:  Baron, Goons, NV, Wharf, SSCCCCCCC, PEEE (17 cards, av. value 13/17 plus small Baron chance; av. hand size 6 [Wharf] for av. hand value 4.6)

The small picture is that the thinned deck has more buying power.  The bigger picture is that, with judicious use of NV, the thinned deck will be playing Goons almost every turn.  After a few more buys of NV, Goons, and Wharves, the deck will be playing more than one Goons most turns.  The opponent will be pinned by the Goons, though with Wharf to mitigate it.

Even with the actual deck, this will be a close game; in fact at time of resignation the players were in a dead heat, so I'm not sure if the resignation was intentional.  But usery's deck is better by T20, and unless foureyes could end the game on a lucky turn, he's going to fall farther behind.

----

There are plenty of mistakes after T8, though, on both player's sides:

Using the Baron to gain Estates is almost always a losing proposition.  You have to desperately need that extra buy to make it worthwhile.

Buying Coppers with Goons is a great idea... in the endgame.  But unless you're more than halfway through, which you aren't by T11 (foureyes) or T13 (usery), those Copper buys aren't worth even 2 VP.  One could argue they might be worth 3 VP.

Foureyes' T16 3-Estate buy was a definite turning point.  Those 6 VP were not nearly worth the extra crap in your deck.  Another Goons, another Gold, anything but 3 Estates.  Now, later in the game, if you were going to head to a 3-pile ending, that could have been great!  But not in the midgame.

Embargoing the Coppers (usery at T19) is an interesting touch but one that hurts both players pretty equally... and probably usery worse, as he has more Goons by that point, he just hasn't been getting pairs--foureyes has, thanks to Warehouses (which wouldn't have been necessary in a thinner deck...)

----

Any other comments from the crowd?

[Silverback]

I haven't read the game log, but I stumbled here.

Buying Coppers with Goons is a great idea... in the endgame. 

This might be true in other kingdoms. In this case here I would refuse to buy coppers unless it is my very last turn.
Instead I would fill my deck with loads of Goons, Native Villages and some Wharves. Trying to get a hand where I can play 4-6 Goons in one turn and end the game on piles.

[Kimwipe]

I'm pretty sure Chapel, several Gold, and a couple of Warehouses would be much faster, but less fun than putting together a Goons engine.

[Jack Rudd]

I'm pretty sure Chapel, several Gold, and a couple of Warehouses would be much faster, but less fun than putting together a Goons engine.

Quite possibly, but not necessarily better. The point of Goons engines is - among other things - to slow your opponents down by reducing them to three-card hands. This means they don't have to build up as quickly to be effective.

[luv2breformed]

Chapel/Silver opening and I am looking to get a Wharf asap. The +buy will allow several turns of double Native Village purchases. I want to scoop up as many of the NV's as I can because that will be the limiting factor on who gets to play more Goons. Balance how many Wharves and Goons you purchase based upon how many NV's you were able to to get. Remember also that each wharf only technically counts as half an action if you are able to draw your entire deck every turn.

You will also have more buys than you want to spend each turn. Balance carefully how many dead cards you purchase, making sure you can still draw your entire deck to trash them with chapel. Keep tabs on where your opponent is at, making sure you never enable him to end game on his turn. You want to take the very last turn, and when you do drain every buy you have.

The Native Village race is where this game is going to be won or lost. If you can split them 6/4, extend the game longer, you will be able to play more goons. If you are on the losing end of the NV race, you have proabably lost, but try to rush piles hopefully before your opponent notices.

[chwhite]

All of the analyses posted on the Dominion Strategy blog are of high-level games,

I agree with this

where the players are playing different strategies but nearly-perfect play. 

but not with this. The games may be high level, but most of the time, I think they're far from perfect.

Agreed.  I'm at Level 39 and I still make mistakes all the time.

[Anon79]

The evidence on CouncilRoom does suggest strongly that Baron/Chapel is a poor opening. However, the idea of using Baron as an alternative card to power up appeals to me. What do I mean?

The canonical Chapel deck opens Silver/Chapel, trashes Estates and Coppers while usually getting one or two extra Silvers or an enabling card, then quickly starts buying Golds and Provinces, maybe trashing Silvers towards the later part too. What Baron can offer in this case is take the place of Silver; instead of buying Silver, one uses Baron to leapfrog up to Gold directly. This should not be too hard, since after all a 5-card deck of (Chapel, Copper, Copper, Estate, Baron) allows a Gold buy. Over-trashing Coppers fine too, as Estate + Baron alone allows a Silver buy, then the next turn Estate + Baron + Silver = Gold. In other words, the Baron + Estate here take the place of 2 Silvers. If Chapel and Baron collide in Turn 3 or 4, then by the same principle as in the Silver/Chapel opening we should use Chapel to trash all cards except the Baron (unless you draw Chapel Baron and 3 Estates, in which case depending on what 5's are available I think you can consider cutting your losses and trashing everything.)

What is the advantage of this compared to Silver/Chapel? If your Baron and Chapel are split between turns 3 and 4, and you draw your Baron with 1 or 2 Estates, you immediatly get a leg up to your first Gold even before you have finished trashing. The increase in speed here I estimate to be about one turn.

What is the disadvantage of this compared to Silver/Chapel? If you do not have the opportunity to trash your Baron and/or Estate once you have started building up, then they become dead cards in your hand, so your deck is less finetuned and has higher variance. To mitigate this, your Baron could fetch you extra Estates, and on rare occasions that +Buy may come in useful if it comes down to non-Province VPs.

The above argument is non-applicable to this particular set of 10, where Goons is an important $6 buy that is almost a must-get. In this specific set of 10, I am somewhat surprised by the lack of Library buys at $5... isn't the mantra "Library counters hand-size attacks"? I would seriously consider it over Wharf, since in any close game I am expecting to be Gooned every turn.

[DG]

There might be an opportunity to skip the chapel and use a baron/warehouse opening to get some early deck development. The warehouse is much stronger than the silver used in the actual game. You might be able to build that wharf/native village engine much faster or sit on your opponent's chapel with some goons. If you can grab a majority of native villages you might have a permanent advantage over the chapel player. If you've got enough actions you can use a late chapel to remove copper and buy it back with goons. Chapel openings are strong but not automatic.

Libraries would work well with the native villages and warehouses here. However once you get a lot of wharves they are much better than a lot of libraries, especially with an extra buy to feed the goons. The extra cards arriving at the start of turn really cut down on the number of bad draws.

[Davio]

If after an Isotropic game against a 20+ level player, you just ask what you did wrong, I guess most of them will be helpful, I know I will, most of the time.

[Reyk]

Chapel and Baron are incompatible cards.  One of the objects of Chapel is to get rid of one's Estates; chances are you'll only use that Baron once, maybe twice, before it becomes a liability--and if you draw the two together, Baron is a huge liability.

True for this board - where you have a very good buy for 2 and chapel/silver clash doesn't matter and you have other sources for +buy. As Anon79 I'm not sure whether this is true in general. I've seen baron used for a quick gold at the non chapel turn and then trashed. If there isn't another source of +buy you might keep baron + 1 estate.
It might be ok as an advice for new players, but then you have to say something about openings like Militia/Chapel etc.

[Superdad]

This post has good information in it, but I would make sure you have the consent of both players before you open up their game and discuss all their failings.

I personally would relish the opportunity to have top players critique my mistakes - but I have pretty thick skin and take constructive criticism well. If I did this sort of analysis on my wife's games (for example), she'd never play a game of dominion again. Some people just don't like criticism, especially in a public forum.

[Jack Rudd]

This post has good information in it, but I would make sure you have the consent of both players before you open up their game and discuss all their failings.

That's not the accepted standard with board games - at least, not with chess, which is where I'm coming in from. Chess has a lot of high-quality analysis associated with it, and this is in no small part thanks to the cultural norm that you don't need the consent of either player to publish analysis of a game.

[DStu]

And everything get's published automatically on isotropic. There is only a link on a specific game. And the difference to: "I once played a game with Worker's Village, Venture and Sea Hag" is that everybody can click the link and does not have to go to councilroom and search "DStu; Worker's Village, Venture, Sea Hag" and click on the link displayed there...

[Superdad]

That's not the accepted standard with board games - at least, not with chess, which is where I'm coming in from. Chess has a lot of high-quality analysis associated with it, and this is in no small part thanks to the cultural norm that you don't need the consent of either player to publish analysis of a game.

Typically though, the high-quality analysis are of top-level games, not of kitchen-table games. I would say that the game analysed here, while "available" publicly on isotropic falls into the category of the latter. An in depth analysis of all the failings of a kitchen-style game of chess between two casual/beginner players would probably not be well received by the players of those games - without their prior consent to having all their failings exposed publically in a forum.

Also, while this is publically available on isotropic, realistically, nobody would have ever opened this game - so saying that it's publically available isn't really a valid position to take (in my opinion).  Us pouring over and analysing their mistakes in a public forum just feels offside to me.


All that being said, I have no investment in either outcome. I'm just trying to point out that it would probably be best if both player's consent was obtained before-hand. I suppose my point of view is likely originating from the fact that most of the forums I frequent lately (MtG, WoW, LoL) moderators would insta-lock a thread like this, for violating terms and conditions for posting in the forums.

I'll just leave it at that. Like I said, I don't really care either way, I just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents to something that feels slightly offside to me upon initial impression.

[DStu]

Oh, and I didn't realized that none of the players posted the log. I think that is a different situation, I thought someone posted one of his games and let it discuss. But as an outsider just take a game and point out the failures of others, I don't know if I like this. So there I'm with Superdad.

[tko]

In this game, I mixed Chapel & Baron:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110629-200820-850d4b3e.html

But I had a lucky 5/2 start of Upgrade/Chapel, and I got even luckier after trashing 2 of my Estates to pair Baron & Estate.  While there was a chance I could Upgrade the Baron to an Upgrade, that never happened.  If I didn't get a double-Dutchy purchase in this game, I might have lost.

For Chapel & Baron to work together, you need things to go favorably for it to work.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Oh, and I didn't realized that none of the players posted the log. I think that is a different situation, I thought someone posted one of his games and let it discuss. But as an outsider just take a game and point out the failures of others, I don't know if I like this. So there I'm with Superdad.

I'd feel the same except ^_^_^_^ asked (in another thread) for this thread to be made. I don't know why (s)he didn't make it him/herself, but whatever.

[joel88s]

In this game, I mixed Chapel & Baron:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110629-200820-850d4b3e.html

Just read through this game, and since this thread is asking for expert advice, thought I'd ask for thoughts about an endgame situation that arose in it. Namely, the double duchy buy on Turn 15 tko refers to.

Leading by one, with two provinces remaining, holding $11 and two buys - what's the percentage move, take the penultimate province, or go for the double duchy? (All else being equal, of course can depend somewhat on the deck situation; in this case looks like tko had just reshuffled, with both decks pretty strong, so the duchies less likely to encumber.)

I have no opinion on this, just curious what the sages would think! 

[Kirian]

Oh, and I didn't realized that none of the players posted the log. I think that is a different situation, I thought someone posted one of his games and let it discuss. But as an outsider just take a game and point out the failures of others, I don't know if I like this. So there I'm with Superdad.

And this is why i linked the thread with the original request (from ^_^_^_^ and seconded by Eagle) along with ^_^_^_^'s permission to dredge up a game of his.  I offered to set up a thread for these sorts of things.

[Superdad]

And this is why i linked the thread with the original request (from ^_^_^_^ and seconded by Eagle) along with ^_^_^_^'s permission to dredge up a game of his.  I offered to set up a thread for these sorts of things.

And what about Userynamery's permission? You know, the guy who you said got extremely lucky, and completely misplayed his second baron, etc, etc, etc. Did he consent to this?

Again, I don't care either way, I'm just saying, it feels offside. This post does offer good discussion, but next time you do it, I would get consent from both parties. If userynamery was my wife, she'd be pretty upset.

Also... I don't feel you were too harsh on the guy. You treated him with decent respect. I feel this tangent may be taking too much attention from the original post, so this will be the last I post on it. I would just suggest if you do it again, you make sure both people are cool with it. I do really like the discussion that was generated. It is very value added.

[WanderingWinder]

The only problem there is that you often have no idea who the other guy is, and this is really going to stop this improvement process. I think that we should have a standing line open for people to opt to never have any of their games analyzed, and respect that, but if not, it's not really a big deal so long as you're fair and respectful of them.

[tko]

Some of the previous posts regarding getting consent are noble but impractical.

The only problem there is that you often have no idea who the other guy is, and this is really going to stop this improvement process. I think that we should have a standing line open for people to opt to never have any of their games analyzed, and respect that, but if not, it's not really a big deal so long as you're fair and respectful of them.

I believe "as you're fair and respectful of them" is closer to a practical solution... just don't dirt on the other player when you link to a game.

In this game, I mixed Chapel & Baron:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110629-200820-850d4b3e.html

Just read through this game, and since this thread is asking for expert advice, thought I'd ask for thoughts about an endgame situation that arose in it. Namely, the double duchy buy on Turn 15 tko refers to.

Leading by one, with two provinces remaining, holding $11 and two buys - what's the percentage move, take the penultimate province, or go for the double duchy? (All else being equal, of course can depend somewhat on the deck situation; in this case looks like tko had just reshuffled, with both decks pretty strong, so the duchies less likely to encumber.)

I have no opinion on this, just curious what the sages would think! 

I'm also curious about the double-dutchy purchase here... after I read the penultimate province article, I've had some better end-game scenarios, and others where I went Dutchy-crazy and cost myself the game.

[ackack]

+Buy or other methods of obtaining more than one card in a turn really complicate close endgame decisions. I don't think there is a comparably easy heuristic if you really have to worry about that stuff.

Your opponent has two +buy cards, Baron and Woodcutter. Baron offers the extra wrinkle that it could be used to gain an extra Estate. If you buy Province/Estate, you lose whenever your opponent can hit 13 and play one of those two cards. I think that's pretty unlikely, but it's probably still a bit less safe than buying Duchy/Duchy, when your opponent will now realistically need to use a +buy turn just to catch up to you safely. So yeah, Duchy/Duchy looks good.

[WanderingWinder]

+Buy or other methods of obtaining more than one card in a turn really complicate close endgame decisions. I don't think there is a comparably easy heuristic if you really have to worry about that stuff.

Your opponent has two +buy cards, Baron and Woodcutter. Baron offers the extra wrinkle that it could be used to gain an extra Estate. If you buy Province/Estate, you lose whenever your opponent can hit 13 and play one of those two cards. I think that's pretty unlikely, but it's probably still a bit less safe than buying Duchy/Duchy, when your opponent will now realistically need to use a +buy turn just to catch up to you safely. So yeah, Duchy/Duchy looks good.

On the other hand, not getting the province now means you have to worry about your opponent getting both of them later. So I probably would have put the pressure on with Province+Estate, but it's a rather close call. (I would also have had a better feel for the decks if I actually played the game, too, though).

[fp]

On a general note, I think having 2-3 experts analyze a game between two novices would make for very good articles.

If any one is interested (on either side), let me know.

[WanderingWinder]

I'd be interested in providing some actual in depth analysis maybe on a weekly basis.

[tko]

I'm interested in contributing as a novice and providing some of my games where I lost so the "consent" issue isn't really an issue since we'll be discussing how bad I failed.

Here are a couple recent fails on my part:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110706-182820-b627c1e5.html

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110630-220127-339ea951.html

[WanderingWinder]

Quickly, on the first one it looks like your only major problems are that you bought cities without any reason, and you broke the PPR.
I'll take a closer look at the second tonight.

[tko]

Quickly, on the first one it looks like your only major problems are that you bought cities without any reason, and you broke the PPR.

I find that the PPR (Penultimate Province Rule) is difficult.  I have made both bad and good decisions trying to apply it.  In this game, the Colony/Province/Dutchy purchases leave me guessing as to who is in the lead.  Maybe my issue is that I don't use the point tracker.  Or perhaps I should be tracking VP on paper or in my head and either of those efforts will help me improve.  I play Dominion because the games go quickly and I can relax... the effort of keeping track of VP feels like too much work and I therefore play lazy.

I find that determining when the right reason to buy or ignore City is another tricky one.  In this case, I wanted +Actions to support Council Rooms to bolster my Hoard.  Now City or Mining Village were both valid in this case so I was planning to get either.  In the end, I only got 1 Council Room which may have been another failing.  Also, I read that Hoard is not optimal in Colony games, so I may have taken the wrong approach altogether.

[DG]

First game - Don't buy village style cards if you don't need them, just use a couple of actions and take the odd loss if they clash. You also got into a mess with the hoard even though you might not have realised it. Get platinum or good drawing cards first so that you'll use the hoards to buy colonies and provinces. Buying an early hoard then buying a duchy to get an extra gold is poor, worse than buying a gold then a gold.

Second game - If you look at your salvaging again I bet you'll be able to see better choices for trashing. It's hard to get to the high value cards so salvaging a mountebank for a king's court or salvaging a gold for a platinum is worth it.  Trashing the curses wasn't a good idea as they give no salvage value and they protect from further attacks. The horn of plenty was a waste of time and it was always like to be a bad board for possession unless you could shrink your deck to a reasonable size, which wasn't going to happen.

[WanderingWinder]

Quickly, on the first one it looks like your only major problems are that you bought cities without any reason, and you broke the PPR.

I find that the PPR (Penultimate Province Rule) is difficult.  I have made both bad and good decisions trying to apply it.  In this game, the Colony/Province/Dutchy purchases leave me guessing as to who is in the lead.  Maybe my issue is that I don't use the point tracker.  Or perhaps I should be tracking VP on paper or in my head and either of those efforts will help me improve.  I play Dominion because the games go quickly and I can relax... the effort of keeping track of VP feels like too much work and I therefore play lazy.

I find that determining when the right reason to buy or ignore City is another tricky one.  In this case, I wanted +Actions to support Council Rooms to bolster my Hoard.  Now City or Mining Village were both valid in this case so I was planning to get either.  In the end, I only got 1 Council Room which may have been another failing.  Also, I read that Hoard is not optimal in Colony games, so I may have taken the wrong approach altogether.

You definitely need to keep track of the score! Especially in such a simple scenario where all it is is remembering how many of each green card you bought, then using the number left in the supply (and if necessary in the trash) to work out how many your opponent has. I'd preferably have you do it in your head. Also, this City thinking is twofold wrong. First, unless a pile runs out, mining village is going to be absolutely better than city. Since no piles are in danger of going, mining village would be the clear choice between the two. Second of all, you really don't need to waste time getting village-type actions to "support" card-draw. It's basically always better to just get the card draw and money. It's less clear if they're fishing villages or, more importantly, if there's some other terminal you want to be able to hit with consistency along with your card draw.

[Kirian]

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110630-220127-339ea951.html

Well, that's easy.  As soon as your opponent picked up a second Mountebank, you should have, but that's relatively minor.  The first time he hit you with KC/Mountebank was probably gg, and if it wasn't then certainly the second time was.  I think I'd have resigned at that point.

[^_^_^_^]

Ok first off all, don't call me four eyes T.T. That makes me feel down graded from happy face to weirdo . Second of all, you took a game from a while ago (I haven't played a goons game in a long time)and reviewed it. Last but not least, you didn't even ask me for permission before posting it here to be reviewed. Now, here is a recent game I would like reviewed T.T..

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201107/07/game-20110707-161517-080af945.html
In this game(3 player) I feel I didn't play my best and as such ended up with a two-way tie instead of the win I was looking for. Any suggestions to how I would've done better? I do worst in 3 player games which is why I posted this.

edit: I also was playing my first 10-20 games when I played that goons game where I first encountered goons.

[kn1tt3r]

First game - Don't buy village style cards if you don't need them, just use a couple of actions and take the odd loss if they clash. You also got into a mess with the hoard even though you might not have realised it. Get platinum or good drawing cards first so that you'll use the hoards to buy colonies and provinces. Buying an early hoard then buying a duchy to get an extra gold is poor, worse than buying a gold then a gold.

I see no reason not to go for Minions here, so opening Chancellor/Mining Village is actually fine (with the intention to trash MV for +2$ to get a Minion early). Since it's a Colony game, you want Platinum and maybe even 1-2 Gold, and propably some Village/Council Room support at some point, but without trashing Minion is still too good to ignore.

[DG]

The minions are a fair point, but if people want to learn about mistakes in their games you need to follow their line of play to some degree. The minion strategy is severely complicated by cities and needs quite a bit more explanation.

[tko]

...Now, here is a recent game I would like reviewed T.T..
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201107/07/game-20110707-161517-080af945.html
In this game(3 player) I feel I didn't play my best and as such ended up with a two-way tie instead of the win I was looking for. Any suggestions to how I would've done better? I do worst in 3 player games which is why I posted this.

Rejoicing in a tie is usually satisfactory for me.  I only see 2 issues:
Turn 7: Venture purchase with no trashing of Copper could have been better spent as a Conspirator or Laboratory.
Turn 8: Don't buy the additional Silver, Province alone is good here.

[WanderingWinder]

...Now, here is a recent game I would like reviewed T.T..
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201107/07/game-20110707-161517-080af945.html
In this game(3 player) I feel I didn't play my best and as such ended up with a two-way tie instead of the win I was looking for. Any suggestions to how I would've done better? I do worst in 3 player games which is why I posted this.

Rejoicing in a tie is usually satisfactory for me.  I only see 2 issues:
Turn 7: Venture purchase with no trashing of Copper could have been better spent as a Conspirator or Laboratory.
Turn 8: Don't buy the additional Silver, Province alone is good here.

Okay, maybe Lab would have been better than Venture on 7, but that's not a big issue. Conspirator, however, would have been MUCH worse. Venture is like sick broken with copper trashing, but it isn't weak without it.
On 8, that's horrible advice. You absolutely want to get that extra silver there. Why would you not?
The biggest issue I see is buying a Royal Seal in the opening - either Venture, Lab, or Council Room would have been significantly stronger than the barely-better-than-silver.
Other than this, I think you played well. It's just a fast board and there's not a lot you can do.

[^_^_^_^]

...Now, here is a recent game I would like reviewed T.T..
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201107/07/game-20110707-161517-080af945.html
In this game(3 player) I feel I didn't play my best and as such ended up with a two-way tie instead of the win I was looking for. Any suggestions to how I would've done better? I do worst in 3 player games which is why I posted this.

Rejoicing in a tie is usually satisfactory for me.  I only see 2 issues:
Turn 7: Venture purchase with no trashing of Copper could have been better spent as a Conspirator or Laboratory.
Turn 8: Don't buy the additional Silver, Province alone is good here.

Okay, maybe Lab would have been better than Venture on 7, but that's not a big issue. Conspirator, however, would have been MUCH worse. Venture is like sick broken with copper trashing, but it isn't weak without it.
On 8, that's horrible advice. You absolutely want to get that extra silver there. Why would you not?
The biggest issue I see is buying a Royal Seal in the opening - either Venture, Lab, or Council Room would have been significantly stronger than the barely-better-than-silver.
Other than this, I think you played well. It's just a fast board and there's not a lot you can do.

Ok thanks guys . Yeah that game was real fast. Now I'm starting to favor council a lot more than I did in my first 80 or so games.

[WanderingWinder]

So, I don't like Council Room a lot personally, because I don't like giving my opponents cards, but it can be quite strong. I do want to point out though, that like any other terminal card draw, with it in your deck, you really want to be loading up on money. So Council Room goes better with Venture than it does with lab. Lab goes better with itself. And which of those two plans is better depends on if there's another strong terminal you want to be able to play or not.

[^_^_^_^]

So, I don't like Council Room a lot personally, because I don't like giving my opponents cards, but it can be quite strong. I do want to point out though, that like any other terminal card draw, with it in your deck, you really want to be loading up on money. So Council Room goes better with Venture than it does with lab. Lab goes better with itself. And which of those two plans is better depends on if there's another strong terminal you want to be able to play or not.

Yes. This I already understand myself. However, it can still be a great addition to a lab/village deck.

[WanderingWinder]

What do you mean by a Lab/Village deck?
If you mean a Lab deck or a Village deck, then a) they're actually not very good in lab decks, and b) village decks are really bad - it would be much better if every village was a silver.
If you mean a deck with Labs AND villages, such a deck is better without the villages, and then it's just a lab deck - see a).

[^_^_^_^]

Well I mean b and you would want villages so that you can use terminal action cards.

[tko]

This has probably been done on BGG or elsewhere since it appears to be common knowledge that Villages aren't optimal... but to a player like me, I have trouble grasping that.  For example, I believe that Village-like-cards can help to play multiple Monuments, Wharfs, Mountebanks, Torturers, etc.  Is there a forum or article somewhere that does a turn-by-turn of what buying Village-like-cards does to slow you down vs. other strategies?

[Kirian]

Second of all, you took a game from a while ago (I haven't played a goons game in a long time)and reviewed it.

edit: I also was playing my first 10-20 games when I played that goons game where I first encountered goons.

The game I used was played on 04 July, only a bit over a day before I posted this.  It was somewhere around your 100th game (via CR.com).

Last but not least, you didn't even ask me for permission before posting it here to be reviewed.

Replies 7, 10, 11, 17, 18 in this thread, which I also linked on the first line of this thread.

----

That said, if you'd like me to remove my analysis, I will.

[ShuffleNCut]

Village is not necessarily bad in a vacuum however in a standard Province game you may not see a ton of benefit playing +Action/+Card chains over just buying lots of money.  You'd be better off just buying money and one or two of those good actions.

If you have a super thin deck that's dense with good cards then Village and all it's permutations allow you to play your awesome actions repeatedly thus maximizing their benefits.  If you have a deck with seven Copper and three Estates and a handful of Silver and Gold and then a few Villages and a few Smithies you're going to run into a lot of turns where you play Village and then you end up with a hand full of money and green cards or play Smithy and draw dead Villages.  Unfortunately in a lot of cases players simply curse their unluckiness without thinking how they built a deck that's at the mercy of such variance.

Keep in mind when you spend a turn buying a card that isn't Province (or Colony where appropriate) you have to make that turn up later on down the line (this applies from turn 1, with every buy you should be asking yourself "How does this help me win?").  Silver and Gold do this by letting you buy those important green cards.  Village does not in and of itself contribute to winning the game in any way; it is strictly an enabler.  In most games you don't have the luxury of time to buy your enablers and terminals and then put them together enough to matter.

[fp]

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110706-182820-b627c1e5.html

I have attached some commentary for this game

@WanderingWinder, et. al:
Feel Free to download and add your own commentary

[tko]

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110706-182820-b627c1e5.html

I have attached some commentary for this game

@WanderingWinder, et. al:
Feel Free to download and add your own commentary

@fp, thanks for the commentary.  "Had the Hoard been a Gold you could have bought a Platinum here.", was an eye-opening illustration of why Hoard isn't optimal.  "Had your City been a Minion, you could have bought another Minion here."  I bought that City on turn 4 when it's critical to improve my buying power - plus, I already had a Mining Village... I see why it was such a bad play.  Two things were over my head as while I'm learning from your commentary, I still don't fully have the grasp of the game, so I'll ask:
1. Turn 16 purchase Colony/Mining Village with 15 coin and 2 buys, "You are still stuck at one Platinum; I would have bought Platinum+Gold here. You engine allows you to buy multiple cards per turn."  Is this because I need more Platinum in my deck to fuel future Colony purchases?
2. Turn 21 Dutchy purchase with 7 coin.  "This is questionable. If you were to buy a Gold instead, that Gold would help you earn you at 4 points by buying a Colony instead of a Province." At turn 21, should I start realizing I am diluted by too many green cards and need to add Gold to increase my Treasure to Green Card ratio?

[^_^_^_^]

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110706-182820-b627c1e5.html

I have attached some commentary for this game

@WanderingWinder, et. al:
Feel Free to download and add your own commentary

@fp, thanks for the commentary.  "Had the Hoard been a Gold you could have bought a Platinum here.", was an eye-opening illustration of why Hoard isn't optimal.  "Had your City been a Minion, you could have bought another Minion here."  I bought that City on turn 4 when it's critical to improve my buying power - plus, I already had a Mining Village... I see why it was such a bad play.  Two things were over my head as while I'm learning from your commentary, I still don't fully have the grasp of the game, so I'll ask:
1. Turn 16 purchase Colony/Mining Village with 15 coin and 2 buys, "You are still stuck at one Platinum; I would have bought Platinum+Gold here. You engine allows you to buy multiple cards per turn."  Is this because I need more Platinum in my deck to fuel future Colony purchases?
2. Turn 21 Dutchy purchase with 7 coin.  "This is questionable. If you were to buy a Gold instead, that Gold would help you earn you at 4 points by buying a Colony instead of a Province." At turn 21, should I start realizing I am diluted by too many green cards and need to add Gold to increase my Treasure to Green Card ratio?

\t
Warning: I am also a novice so take this with a hand full of salt.
I forget where but I read a guide on the blog stating that you should generally(rule is often broken but this is a standard to start with) only buy a duchy with <$8 if it looks like you won't reshuffle twice before the game ends. Buy estate (<$2) if you won't reshuffle before the game ends(this is often broken). In a colony game buy a province when the game begins to turn into a race to clear the colonies and you don't have enough $ for the colonies. I may be in the wrong here in which case better players can tell me where my mistakes lie.

edit: @ kir.(abbreviated) Where did all the games go lol. I think I resigned/disconnected from quite a few lol.

[WanderingWinder]

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110706-182820-b627c1e5.html

I have attached some commentary for this game

@WanderingWinder, et. al:
Feel Free to download and add your own commentary

Here's my additions.
WW

[WanderingWinder]

Also, I think it would probably be good in the future if people who wanted this kind of analysis posted the games themselves with their own analysis already in there, in a file like this. I think it's probably at least as important to see what you were thinking as compared to what you actually did.

[KMueller]

This post has good information in it, but I would make sure you have the consent of both players before you open up their game and discuss all their failings.

I personally would relish the opportunity to have top players critique my mistakes - but I have pretty thick skin and take constructive criticism well. If I did this sort of analysis on my wife's games (for example), she'd never play a game of dominion again. Some people just don't like criticism, especially in a public forum.

Just curious, does this mean that for any user to post a link to a game log, he/she should get the consent of their opponent, in your opinion? It is pretty common practice to say "Hey, I just played this crazy game with such and such cards, here is the {link} log {/link}..."

[Thisisnotasmile]

Do we really need to attach Word documents to forum posts? Just type your analysis in the post =/

[ShuffleNCut]

Do we really need to attach Word documents to forum posts? Just type your analysis in the post =/

Also, if you simply post a copy of the game log you can run through and do a Find And Replace for your opponent's screen name to change it to Villain or something like that.  That's how poker hand discussion generally goes down online; everyone is referred to by position rather than name for privacy.

Not that I'd care if someone wanted to post one of my game logs and point out the mistakes I made (that seems like it would only be beneficial to me) however I can understand where the desire comes from.

[WanderingWinder]

Do we really need to attach Word documents to forum posts? Just type your analysis in the post =/

I would think the same thing too, except then that leads to an extremely long post.
Post your own and see what I mean if you really want to.

[Thisisnotasmile]

I know how long a game of Dominion can be. I'm just saying that if I'm going to read through one, I'm more likely to do it if I don't have to download it first.

[WanderingWinder]

I'd just guess that there are more people like me, who don't want to see a huge page on the forums with a full copied game log plus notes, than there are like you, who do. I could be wrong. If there were a way to put it in a collapsible box that came pre-collapsed (I guess this would actually be an expandable box) so that we could both be happy, I'd do that.
It's also easier for me to put the text in in different colours, etc. (to make it stand out) in word than it is in the forums.

[Not a Cylon]

I actually won this game, but only barely, and largely by luck (my Peddler got Swindled to a Province, and my opponent miscalculated and ended prematurely). There were a lot of moving parts (Swindlers, Witches, Watchtowers, Peddlers, Envoys), and it was interesting and tense, but I'm not really sure what to make of it in the big picture. I'd love to hear how an expert would summarize it, and it seems like the game could've gone very differently. For instance, did it have to be such a low-money game? It was a Colony game, after all, but we only ever got one Gold each, and no Platinum; he managed to grab one Colony, but that was it. I never really had a strategy going besides ooh-Swindler-and-Witch-are-nasty and maybe-he'll-Swindle-a-Peddler (it was still only lucky that that worked out, though). How would an expert have read this board?

(I do know I made one mistake, which was not Watchtowering the Pearl Diver to the top of my deck when I got it from a Swindler, since I would've been able to use it next turn. Also, since I was hoping to counter Swindler, I probably should've let him keep the Swindler I Swindled (yo dawg). But those are details, and I never got a grasp of the game's broad strokes.)

[fp]

Do we really need to attach Word documents to forum posts? Just type your analysis in the post =/

I would think the same thing too, except then that leads to an extremely long post.
Post your own and see what I mean if you really want to.

The logs are really really long. I originally did it as a post, but it was too long.

Plus coloring and editing is easier in a .doc file.

[fp]

This post has good information in it, but I would make sure you have the consent of both players before you open up their game and discuss all their failings.

I personally would relish the opportunity to have top players critique my mistakes - but I have pretty thick skin and take constructive criticism well. If I did this sort of analysis on my wife's games (for example), she'd never play a game of dominion again. Some people just don't like criticism, especially in a public forum.

Just curious, does this mean that for any user to post a link to a game log, he/she should get the consent of their opponent, in your opinion? It is pretty common practice to say "Hey, I just played this crazy game with such and such cards, here is the {link} log {/link}..."

I do not know what happened to the original post, but SuperDad raises some excellent points. So let me give you my input:

1. Ordinarily, I would seek the approval of both players, however, I do not know how to contact or even who the other player is. Many times, unless you talk and get to know your opponent (which I totally recommend doing), you have no idea who they are.

2. I strongly believe that players have entitled to the privilege to improve their game. Players should never be unnecessarily inhibited from becoming better players.

That being said, we must balance the privacy of one player with the rightful ambitions of another player wanting to improve.

3. I should point out that all the game logs are currently public anyways. While there is a distinction between publication and promotion, if a player is upset that his or her games are public, then the underlying issue also includes the initial publication also well as the subsequent promotion.

I have no intention of hurting players or discouraging players from playing Dominion; if you feel uncomfortable, you should let someone know!

These are the guidelines I intend to follow:

1. Where possible, we should seek the permission of both players. However, given the near impossibility of identifying and contacting an opponent after the fact, it is not unreasonable to proceed given points (2) and (3) below.

2. Commentary should only be directed toward players where express permission is granted. No commentary should be made about other players' turns or decisions.

3. The/An-other player can request that the commented game be taken down for any reason, and this request will be satisfied.

I hope people (including SuperDad and his wife) would find this a reasonable compromise between privacy and improvement. If you have any suggestions, let us know.

[fp]

1. Turn 16 purchase Colony/Mining Village with 15 coin and 2 buys, "You are still stuck at one Platinum; I would have bought Platinum+Gold here. You engine allows you to buy multiple cards per turn."  Is this because I need more Platinum in my deck to fuel future Colony purchases?
2. Turn 21 Dutchy purchase with 7 coin.  "This is questionable. If you were to buy a Gold instead, that Gold would help you earn you at 4 points by buying a Colony instead of a Province." At turn 21, should I start realizing I am diluted by too many green cards and need to add Gold to increase my Treasure to Green Card ratio?

End game buys can be very tricky.

1. To buy a colony you need an average of $2.1 per card. Typically, I make sure I have 2-4 Platinums before I consider buying Colonies because you need that many Platinums in order to satisfy that average. Here, you only have 1 Platinum.

2. This is simply a risk versus reward scenario. IF you buy a Gold, that Gold can help you buy a Colony over a Province which is a net gain of 4 points. So you can buy a Duchy for a sure 3 points, or you can by a Gold for a potential (net gain) or 4 points. Even though it seems like a bad bet, it is bet I think is barely worth making.

I hope this answers your questions.

[ackack]

2. Commentary should only be directed toward players where express permission is granted. No commentary should be made about other players' turns or decisions.

I don't think this is a good concession - often it's hard to make a good assessment of whether a plan was working or not unless you look at both decks. (If your awesome strategy prevailed primarily because your opponent totally ignored Chapel, it's probably worth considering how awesome your strategy really is.) I do think adopting a respectful tone is a good idea. As long as people criticize plays and not players, it doesn't seem to me like this should be a big deal. And I think people who would be bothered having their games posted should probably just not read those threads. That seems like a better solution to me than pulling down games that one party wants discussed.

[theory]

I think it's complete hogwash for someone to forbid others from posting their losses.  There are separate rules governing civility and conduct: mocking a losing opponent is a separate issue entirely from reasoned analysis of games.  It's petty and immature to complain about it; it's not like the games aren't public already on your CouncilRoom page. 

Of course, I think it would be better for people to post their own losses, since if you post a game just to show "Look I beat this newb with Big Money" then there's zero value gained.  But if there's something to be learned from the game you should have no hesitation about posting it, and not be worried that someone's feelings will be hurt. 

[ShuffleNCut]

I would love to see people posting my losses and pointing out how bad I play.  It seems like this would do nothing buy help me recognize my mistakes thus making me a better player.  Thick skin seems like a necessity if you choose to brave the harsh landscape that is the Internet.

[dihlenfeldt]

Here is a game, I played yesterday where I lost, At level 20 I wouldn't call myself a total novice, but I am always looking for ways to improve.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110710-170046-8c3157b4.html

Here is some commentary from me:
When I asked my opponent what I did wrong, he basically said I shouldn't have bought the gold (T7 & T9) so early and should have gone for a torturer action chain instead. Now I know the torturer action chain is good, but I like to make my decks thin, so I decided to just go thinning with big money and a mountebank if I hit 5 early enough (I didn't). When I finally hit 5, turn 10 I was feeling self-conscious about my low buying power (since he already had a province), so I went for the vault. So did he just get lucky hitting that early 5, or did I make some crucial mistakes (like not getting a mountebank with my first 5+). Or it a torturer/village chain just too powerful to choose any strategy but it?

[tko]

Here is a game, I played yesterday where I lost, At level 20 I wouldn't call myself a total novice, but I am always looking for ways to improve.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110710-170046-8c3157b4.html

Here is some commentary from me:
When I asked my opponent what I did wrong, he basically said I shouldn't have bought the gold (T7 & T9) so early and should have gone for a torturer action chain instead. Now I know the torturer action chain is good, but I like to make my decks thin, so I decided to just go thinning with big money and a mountebank if I hit 5 early enough (I didn't). When I finally hit 5, turn 10 I was feeling self-conscious about my low buying power (since he already had a province), so I went for the vault. So did he just get lucky hitting that early 5, or did I make some crucial mistakes (like not getting a mountebank with my first 5+). Or it a torturer/village chain just too powerful to choose any strategy but it?

This is not expert advice, but...

Your opponent didn't get luckier than you to hit an early 5 - just different play decisions such as your opponent's turn 3 use of Steward's +2 coin to hit 5.  On either turns 4 and 6 you could have used Steward's +2 coin to hit 5 so you had similar opportunities... you just opted for trashing. 

When to use Steward's +2 coin is a tough decision as discussed in this post:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=35.0

In this game, your opponent used Steward's +2 coin to buy Torturers, and the Torturer chain went off.  You mentioned wanting to get a Mountebank.  Buying a Mountebank on your turn 4 might have slowed your opponent's ability to chain the Torturers.

[WanderingWinder]

You should absolutely NOT go for a torturer chain when Mountebank is on the board (get the mountebank instead).
I find it interesting that you say you didn't hit 5 until turn 10, but you also bought gold on turns 7 and 9! You had 5 each of those two times, and you should have gotten that mountebank over gold, at least before you had any mountebanks. Being able to play those mountebanks will gum up his torturer chain and reduce its power by depleting the curses. Usually you should get mountebank before gold, here you should do it even moreso.
Also, as tko points out, you could have used steward to get $5 on turn 4. Actually you could have done this in two ways, though. Since you'd already drawn everything else in your deck, you knew that those last two cards were silver and copper, which actually would have brought you to $6 if you played steward for cards. I probably would have played steward for cards there and grabbed the mountebank, just because I really want to get that puppy cooking fast.
You can always buy for less than you have, and a substantial portion of the time, that's the right play. Keep that in mind, particularly with the uber-powerful $5 attacks.

[DG]

I can see quite a lot of different things going on in your kingdom there Dihlenfeldt. Some things that didn't happen include a ghost ship + torturer double attack, mountebanks, and conspirator chains. So let's not look at those too much and stick to your play.

There are two good attack cards in that deck, the torturer and mountebank. Neither really has any disadvantage in this deck since they give good benefits, +3 cards and +2 coin, so why not buy them? Your opponent was able to play the torturers to hurt you and at the same time draw up enough money to buy a province and use a steward to trash some coins too.

The next question is whether you were trying to build a draw deck or a money deck? When you build a draw deck you can concentrate on drawing as many cards as you can as long as those cards have enough money for a province. Your opponent had this right as he had one gold, one silver, and four copper left at the end, enough for a province! He only had to buy two treasure cards and the rest of his purchases were action cards to draw the deck. It seems to me that you were wanting to do some drawing, have some money, and have some trashing. It was all too much to do in a limited number of turns.

In terms of defending against the torturers you also had some options. The steward is a decent defence as you can take curses in hand and trash them. The vault might work as you can discard curses for coin but it isn't a strong drawing card. There was also a library, letting you discard cards then draw up to 7 again on your turn. There was also the mountebank, trying to empty the curse pile so that you can ignore the torturer attack. Expanding your opponent's deck also has great value since it makes it more likely that the torturer chain will break. I'd say in fact that the vault was a weak card here and you were probably better trying something else. More importantly, by filling your deck with treasure your deck lost any flexibility in defence and had to soak up the torture. If you intended to take curses and trash them with stewards you needed more stewards and more drawing to make sure you saw those stewards more often (but it still wouldn't have been enough).

Anyway put that all together and you get something like your opponent's play. You didn't need to ask the experts in this case as you had a chance to look at what your opponent did .

[dihlenfeldt]

Thanks for the advice (although sometimes it conflicted....). So I've been big into early buying power recently, which is why I went for the Golds, and I missed my opponents trashing (due to careless play and it being in the middle of chains), if I had seen it I probably would've gone for double mountebank instead of the Golds. Also I didn't even think about library as a counter to torturer, but I see how it could be really powerful. I think I really discount that card. Also there may be a thread for this already, but at what point should you stop buying mountebanks? I felt like at turn 10 it was too late to make a differences (but I still see I should have bought at least one earlier, and bought a library instead of a vault). Also that could have been because by turn 10 I was in a pretty big hole.

Anyways, thanks again for all your advice, especially the steward usage and the torturer countering. :-)

If there's any other advice, feel free to share, I just figured I'd give someone else a turn.

[Superdad]

Regarding Montebank:

I'll usually go with 2 as fast as I can. I'm not sure if there's any discussion on going to 3 or not. I suspect on some boards with no trashing it could be a good idea to get 3 montebanks to ensure he is hit harder than you (and also since he'll be less likely to discard a curse with no trashing, and you'll be less likely to collide with no trashing available). I'd say 2 monte's on trashing boards and 3 on non-trashing boards, but I could be wrong.

More specifically, when is it too late to buy one? The later the game goes Four things are going against the purchase of a new montebank. First, your deck is bigger so you'll draw it less frequently. Secondly, you'll draw it fewer times to use it because the game is ending soon. Thirdly, when you use it, the impact is smaller, since his deck is likely bigger now. Lastly, your deck doesn't want "Silver" anymore, you need a higher money-density card to access provinces more reliably.

Also, consider that the timing of turns 7, 8, 9, 10 will depend on the timing of when the shuffle happens. For example, turn 7 = turn 10 if the shuffle happens on turn 10. But turn 11 = turn 15 if then the next shuffle doesn't happen until 15. So a buy on turn 7 is the same as a buy on 10, and similarly, a buy on 11 is the same as a buy on 15 (in this case).

I would gut-feel that anytime after the shuffle that happens around turn 8-9 or so is too late for a montebank. If you can squeeze one in say on turn 8 before the shuffle, go for it. If your decision to buy it is just AFTER the shuffle on turn 8 on a non-trashing board (i.e. kinda big deck), then don't buy it. For example, buying it just after the shuffle on turn 8 and your deck is slightly bloated, this could mean that you won't even shuffle it until turn 12, then not even draw it until turn 15! So even while both cases discuss a turn 8 purchase, the timing of the shuffle has an enormous impact on your decision to buy it or not.

Again, this is completely game dependant, and likely depends on many things such as: Your deck's ability to cycle itself, overall trashing, Province/Colony game, Overall speed of the kingdom, his deck status in the midgame, current status of VP (i.e. earlygame, midgame, endgame) etc...


Regarding creating Villiage Engines in Province games:
Since it takes time to set up villiage chains (i.e. + actions/strong terminals), the only way you are going to catch up once you get your engine running is either:

a) your engine provides you with a VERY consistent turn 12-16 in which you can almost guarantee to buy a province in each, or
b) your engine will allow you to buy multiple cards per turn. I.e. such that you can overcome a 0-2 province lead by buying multiple in your last few turns.

I believe this is what you should be looking at when deciding to go villiage-type engine (or really, any action based engine) versus simply big money plus a few strong terminals.


For an example of case a) Minion + trashing engine (say such as Loan + Minion). It's a strong engine that once you get it going, it will likely buy a province 4-5 turns in a row. This type of engine can surmount the 0-2 (ish) province deficit by being more reliable on turns 12-16 (or so). I.e. big money may go 2-0 on you, but will stumble trying to get it's 4th province, whereas you'll just smooth-sail to 4 provinces easy. The key to a single-buy engine such as this is to accurately pick when to buy your first province. If you wait too long, you'll be stuck flirting with the PPR (Penultimate Province Rule), and maybe having to buy a duchy with $8.

For an example of case b) Grand Market/Vault. (City+X is a more obvious example of this type of engine, but I don't want to derail this thread as much, and GM/Vault is a similar feeling engine). This engine will take a little bit to set up, but once you get it going, it will buy 2 provinces on each of it's final turns (likely). you'll likely start 0-2 provinces to big money, but win something like 6-4. This first big turn should happen somewhere around turn 11, 12, 13 or so, and you'll likely follow that up with double-province buys in the subsequent turns (or at least province + duchy)

These are just a few examples of things you should look for in a province game to assess if you have time to set your engine up and come back from behind a lead that something like big money + terminal will gain on you.

For an example of what (probably) would NOT work... something like Villiage/Smithy/Bank on a board with no +buys. Sure you can draw a ton of cards, but what does it matter if you end up hitting 10-15 gold in a province game with no additional buys? On this board, the simple Smith + Big Money player will easily beat you.

[mcshoo]

Here's a loss that I had.  I tried to attach a .doc, but the filesize is too large! So basically a councilroom link: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110715-184639-167d2670.html.

I'd love to know what you guys think.  In particular:

1) Should I have opened double ambassador? Ambassador/Silver, Lookout?

2) What should be my general goal?  I went money, but it didn't seem to pan out well

3) Should I have bought goons?

4) Should I have stuck with going for colonies? Should I have raced for provinces instead?

5) Other suggestions?

[ARTjoMS]

Obviously it depends on what your opponents are doing. In 3p game i would expect everyone to go in ambassador fight, so i migt as well risk opening with double ambassador for starting tempo.

In 2p game, I would probably open ambassador fishing village, then buy another ambassador and more fishing villages, vill then buy a couple of goons so i can play them pretty much every turn, then slowly empty city pile.

[philosophyguy]

I'm only a midlevel isotropic player, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

You opened with two competing strategies. Both Island and Ambassador provide trashing, after a fashion, so it's not helpful to start with both. In fact, you usually want to Ambassador your Estates first, since those just take up space initially, while you'd prefer to Island your Estates rather than Coppers. Having both means you decrease the chance of being able to send 2 cards back with the Ambassador or drawing your Island with your Estates. Given that Ambassador games with decent players turn into an initial round of Estate and copper tennis, Island won't keep up. So, I would have opened Ambassador/Ambassador, then Silver, or maybe Ambassador/Silver, then Ambassador.

Goons + Fishing Village is definitely the dominant strategy here, so I would concentrate on building Fishing Villages and just enough Silver to start playing Goons. City is going to be essential for drawing cards, especially since it will almost certainly level up, but I wouldn't start buying cities until I get at least 1 Goons, maybe 2.

In this game, you should avoid Victory cards and try to get as many VP tokens as possible. The game should end when Fishing Villages, Cities, and Goons are gone. If absolutely necessary you could buy Island/Island or Island/Estate and immediately clear them out of your deck, but I wouldn't pursue that strategy unless I was falling behind.

[philosophyguy]

Here's a game where I went for too many terminals and wasn't able to get enough buying power. What I'm interested in is what I should have done during the first 10 or so turns when I hit $5--not enough for a Gold, but a Silver felt like a waste of that much money.

(Sorry for attaching as a PDF; it was the only way I could get the file size below the 128KB restriction. The last half of the game plays out about as you'd expect.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Can you link to the game on Isotropic or Councilroom?

[DG]

There are a few alternatives here for philosophyguy
- an alchemist deck with a trade route trashing down and extra buy, banks for income (probably best).
- ghost ships and philosopher's stones - slow the game down and build up that deck.
- envoys hitting money turns with banks and platinum. That's not prevented by your initial ghost ship.
- start with merchant ship and try to get big value treasures sooner

I've been finding ghost ship/nothing to be a mediocre opener as it seems very slow to get past silver and onto gold. This was exactly your experience in this game. It's also a card drawing terminal so it mixes badly with many other 4 or 5 cost action cards. On the other hand, the opponent can put good cards on top of the deck when attacked by the ghost ship so can immediately get one bad turn and one very good turn, but that good turn can be a game winner.

Anyway, the problem isn't the series hands with 4 and 5 to spend with nothing to buy. It was the ghost ship that created all those hands with 4 or 5 to spend when you didn't have any plan to deal with those hands.

[philosophyguy]

Can you link to the game on Isotropic or Councilroom?

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110720-150638-c7970d08.html

With a 5/2 split, would an opening of Merchant Ship/nothing been superior? I can't imagine an Alchemist race would be viable if I'm starting with a 5/2.

[WanderingWinder]

"About as I'd expect" - I have no idea what I'd expect, except I'd guess you lost since you posted it.
I like your initial thought process, but 1) trade route was pretty bad there. This is sorta a subtle point, but you need your deck to be fairly money-rich, and the trade route is going to provide you with little benefit for a highly increased chance of terminal collision. 2) I really don't understand why you went Ghost ship and then switched to buying merchant ships. Generally Merchant Ship will be better early on, because the GS attack is not so powerful at that point, but then Ghost Ship is much, much better later on, as its attack tends to be quite strong. You're getting a little unlucky to keep hitting 5 instead of sometimes getting 6 on this board, but generally I think your 5s are better spent on Ghost ships. Also, sometimes you really need to waste that $5 on a silver. It hurts, but you've just got to grit your teeth and do it. Not sure that that was so much the case here though, as you could have been picking up more ghost ships, which, unfortunately aren't SO powerful against alchemists - but still pretty good. I think you're probably right to not go alchemists, but not so much for the reasons that you say (sometimes you just have to go into a mirror a shuffle behind and hope to get lucky), but more because your deck, with the ghost ship, isn't really built for it. In some ways, 5/2 isn't what I'd want here - I'd probably have wanted 4/3 grand envoy in this fairly weak set.

[tko]

In that game you got 4 Merchant Ships.  In a game with no +actions, I prefer to limit myself to 2 Merchant Ships (similar game with Wharf and no +actions, 2 maybe 3 max).  Silver is preferrable after the 2nd Merchant Ship since Ghost Ship can draw you into a Silver.  These guidelines I follow are by no means perfect and my advice is not "expert advice".

[ARTjoMS]

(Sorry for attaching as a PDF; it was the only way I could get the file size below the 128KB restriction. The last half of the game plays out about as you'd expect.

How did you make such a nice PDF with all colors?

[rod-]

I don't understand how people can say that the ghost ship attack isn't that powerful early on ; I played a game against a 5/2 start yesterday where I was ghost shipped on turns 3 5 6 8 and didn't see my fourth shuffle until turn 10. 

I def. got lucky that that game was a transmute+golem game, and I was able to convert one of the terrible 3card turns into a trash+gold, and could use the golem to "discard" cards instead of sticking them on top of my deck - otherwise I would have been drowned in curses and estates with almost no cards to speak of.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110720-121317-7498d1b0.html

[tko]

If someone opens Ghost Ship/- against me I generally assume I'm in for a long grind of an unfun game.  While I'm putting 2 cards on my deck and shuffling the rare but occassional good buys less often, they are drawing 2 cards, shuffling more, seeing their better buys more often, playing Ghost Ship again.... argh - it's painful even writing about it.

[philosophyguy]

How did you make such a nice PDF with all colors?

Copy/paste from councilroom to Word, then print as PDF (I'm on a Mac). The pain was getting the line breaks, since they copied over as spaces rather than newlines. Frankly, I want to know if there's a way to get the game log without having to fix the line breaks, since that was an unbelievable pain.

[Reyk]

How did you make such a nice PDF with all colors?

Copy/paste from councilroom to Word, then print as PDF (I'm on a Mac). The pain was getting the line breaks, since they copied over as spaces rather than newlines. Frankly, I want to know if there's a way to get the game log without having to fix the line breaks, since that was an unbelievable pain.

"File safe as" from your browser. Than "Open with" - for example word and save as pdf. Takes less than 1 minute on a PC to create the pdf exactly like it looks via councilroom. But I'm not sure for Mac.

[philosophyguy]

"File safe as" from your browser. Than "Open with" - for example word and save as pdf. Takes less than 1 minute on a PC to create the pdf exactly like it looks via councilroom. But I'm not sure for Mac.

The only problem with that method is that I can't insert my own commentary/explanation inline. But if you're just looking for the game log itself, that's an easy solution (although a councilroom link is perhaps even easier).

[HockeyHippo]

@philosophyguy

Again, I felt like I couldnʼt just waste $5 by settling for a Silver.

What you have to realize is that having a 5$ card with no action to play it with gives you 0, which is worse than a silver(obviously) and inhibits you from getting you to $6.

Your buys are decent, but you need to look at what your deck needs at that moment. You want your next shuffle to be able to buy more than what you did in the previous shuffle. If you already have a problem with colliding terminals(turn 6) then you shouldn't be buying more terminals at that stage of the game(turns 6-11).

[DG]

With a 5/2 split, would an opening of Merchant Ship/nothing been superior? I can't imagine an Alchemist race would be viable if I'm starting with a 5/2.

Alchemists are only strong when there's a potion in play, otherwise they go back into the shuffle with everything else. Playing ghost ships with alchemists means that you get an extra card in hand and your opponent will have at least two cards less when they finish their turn. This means that you'll draw potions more often that your opponent and the hand size might affect banks too. The drawback is that you wouldn't be playing another terminal card, such as a trade route or expand, but the ghost ship is still viable.

[Staples]

I have generally had issues with Pirate Ship. Mainly determining when the game is suitable to go pirate ships or if I can beat it with a different strategy.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110803-194508-ef03f442.html

After this game, I figured I probably should have went pirate ships as well, but I feel like when I mirror I just put myself up to shuffle luck. My initial thoughts were to just get lots of money and try to get up to Grand Market as quick as possible, but that ended up being slower than I thought. Not really proud of my Silver/Silver openning... Any tips on this game?

Edit: grammar fix

[ackack]

I think your own insights on the game are good - buy fewer actions. The initial Ghost Ship is fine, the Merchant Ship is fine, the Expand is fine. Past that, I think you should be spending a lot more on money, including Silvers. The logic of your strategy is largely Big Money + Expand, and the Expand is quite important. Alchemist/Bank/Trade Route is eventually going to become very strong, and so you need to be focused on winning before it gets together. That might be challenging, but I think your best bet is to get money, load up on Expands, and probably hit the Province pile for maximum speed.

added: haha, somehow I thought philguy's post was the end of the thread and missed that there were all those responses to it. Oh well.

[ackack]

After this game, I figured I probably should have went pirate ships as well, but I feel like when I mirror I just put myself up to shuffle luck. My initial thoughts were to just get lots of money and try to get up to Grand Market as quick as possible, but that ended up being slower than I thought. Not really proud of my Silver/Silver openning... Any tips on this game?

Silver/Silver strikes me as the best opening here, so I wouldn't be too ashamed of it. I think piling up a bunch of money and Hoards is a fine strategy here, and I think you just got unlucky that he connected on his first four Ships with a Copper, two Silvers and a Hoard. I do think that collecting a second Hoard instead of your first Gold makes sense - you'll generate more Gold later, which is of course pretty nice Ship protection.

[DG]

I'm not sure in my mind whether Staples' game (with duke and gardens) favours a hoard based deck or a pirate based deck. Perhaps someone else can answer that. I can say that the adventurer would have been a good card for you, probably even bought before the first gold or hoard. I don't think buying silver on turns 1 and 2 was necessarily the problem, but continuing to buy them on both turns 3 and 4 didn't help.

[philosophyguy]

I would guess that Staple's setup favors Pirate Ship, for a couple of reasons. First, there are plenty of village-type cards, so it will be possible to play multiple ships in a turn. And, Worker's Village gives +Buy, so there's the potential for multi-Province turns.

Second, Grand Markets can be purchased much more easily with Ships, since they get around the no copper restriction.

What do the experts in this thread think of this reasoning?

[Fangz]

Well, staples was just buying treasures almost continuously. That's just not going to work against a pirate ship strategy. With games with grand market on them, it's often a matter of who can get to grand market fastest, and silvers are rarely the fastest way. If I was refusing to use pirate ship, I'd have made some investment into hamlet/menangerie, if nothing else to dilute the treasures in my deck. At some point 11/14 of Staples' cards are treasures, and with that you are basically guaranteeing success for his pirate ships. And being successful about 6 times with a pirate ship basically means you can buy a province every time pirate ship is drawn, a pace you'll never beat with big money.

[WanderingWinder]

Well, staples was just buying treasures almost continuously. That's just not going to work against a pirate ship strategy. With games with grand market on them, it's often a matter of who can get to grand market fastest, and silvers are rarely the fastest way. If I was refusing to use pirate ship, I'd have made some investment into hamlet/menangerie, if nothing else to dilute the treasures in my deck. At some point 11/14 of Staples' cards are treasures, and with that you are basically guaranteeing success for his pirate ships. And being successful about 6 times with a pirate ship basically means you can buy a province every time pirate ship is drawn, a pace you'll never beat with big money.

You'd be surprised (and a lot of other players, too) at how wrong these statements are. Big money by itself barely loses to pirate ships. Seriously. And Grand Market is by no means a must, especially if there's not a great way of getting to them.

[DG]

Big money by itself barely loses to pirate ships.

Simulator says it's about 50/50, and the simulator doesn't play the pirates that well.

[Staples]

I remember thinking about picking up that adventurer, but never did for whatever reason. Thanks for the tips so far. Now, maybe not on this board, but what kind of kingdoms are good for beating pirate ship? I generally figure some sort of engine with some +$ shouldn't have a problem against it.

[DG]

Add any card with +coins to that kingdom, even a woodcutter, and the pirate is weakened considerably. Adding any vaguely useful 5 or 4 cost card to that kingdom might have prevented you from spending 5 on a silver each turn. So before we even mention attack cards, trashing cards, and reaction cards there are any number of cards that would have changed the kingdom.

[Fangz]

I've had reasonable success vs pirate ship by picking up a hamlet/pawn early and using excess money to pick up more pawns/hamlets. This improves the likelihood of his attack missing. Pirate ship is also greatly weakened by lack of cheap enablers, like +actions or havens. Secret chamber obviously kills pirate ship dead. If you can assemble the components of a cheap draw engine faster than they can assemble a multiple pirate attack, you can just let him cleanse the coppers from your deck while drawing the remaining treasures each turn.

[WanderingWinder]

Stash is also an almost totally safe treasure to play against pirate ships, though honestly if you're that scared of the PS, you're probably in a bit of a bad way. But stuff like NV/Stash or Chancellor/Stash looks a little better against PS

[jonts26]

Another note on Ghost Ship. There is the chance of it helping your opponent rather than hurting him, especially early with potion cost cards. I'm sure someone has done the math, but there is a not terrible chance of drawing $2+P on turn 3 or 4. If this happens, your opponent can just top deck copper/potion and greatly increase the chance of getting the alchemist next turn. For this reason, I would be tempted to open merchant ship/nothing and then switch over to ghost ship for subsequent 5's.

Also, I can't find the log, but I once played a tournament game with ghost ship. In the mid game, ever time I played a ghost ship, my opponent was able to top either a tourney or province if he didn't draw them together. It didn't end well for me.

[WanderingWinder]

A good point, though it's also worth noting that the GS attack is generally (not in those situations, obviously) THE strongest non-cursing attack in the game.

[jonts26]

Oh I agree that Ghost Ship is a fantastic attack. I don't think there's anything more annoying than playing against a good engine that plays GS on almost every turn.

There are also other reasons Merchant Ship/nothing might be a better opening that Ghost Ship/nothing. Merchant's benefit to your own deck is vastly superior than Ghost Ship's. Your average card value is less than $1 during the first reshuffle so the +2 cards from GS is less beneficial than +$2 from MS, even if you don't consider the duration effect.

Additionally, the GS has a 6/11 chance of missing a reshuffle, since on turn 4 you only have 1 card in draw pile. And if you draw MS on turn 3, you will get benefits from it on turns 3,4 and still have a chance to draw it on turns 5 or 6.

[Razzishi]

Other notes on Ghost Ship: Menagerie effectively nullifies the attack unless you were going to draw 3 off Menagerie from your initial 5 hand.  I've also found that I've not cared all that much about the attack in recent times, although it might just be a sort of resignation to the fact that it will mess with my turns; I use the fact that I get to choose two of the cards I draw next turn to as much advantage as I can.  Maybe I really really want a source of +buy but all that's available is Hamlet and now I'm able to save good treasures for next turn and buy the cheap card I need but can't justify severely overbuying.