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[Asklepios]

Two games. Sadly I forgot to open the log of the first, so I'll scoop it up from councilroom and post it later.

Had the pleasure of playing twice against ARTjoMS, a level 43 player, currently 18th in the rankings. Won both times.

The first game (link to come) I'll admit I played worse and came out ahead. Chat log as follows:

22:37 Asklepios: good luck
22:40 Asklepios: considering bank as your second card?
22:40 ARTjoMS: no
22:40 Asklepios: shows what i know!
22:40 Asklepios: I was thinking you have +buy, and I don't
22:40 ARTjoMS: yes
22:40 ARTjoMS: thats true
22:40 Asklepios: my path is a lot more linear it seems
22:41 Asklepios: oooh
22:41 Asklepios: didn't see that coming
22:42 Asklepios: nice
22:42 Asklepios: shame you can't haggle nobles eh?
22:43 Asklepios: and here was me thinking i'd negated highway by taking out council room
22:44 Asklepios: so glad to see the spice merchant played for cards!
22:44 Asklepios: i think you still have this though
22:44 Asklepios: i'd need a great draw with forge to pull this off now
22:45 Asklepios: daaaamn
22:45 Asklepios: after the game would you mind sharing your thoughts?
22:45 ARTjoMS: i dont mind
22:46 Asklepios: thanks, always seeking to learn from higher ranked and better players
22:47 Asklepios: that was the luck i needed
22:47 ARTjoMS: it was huge luck
22:47 Asklepios: definitely
22:47 Asklepios: anything you can suggest re: my gameplan?
22:47 ARTjoMS: well spice merchh is obv way better than caravan
22:47 Asklepios: yeah i forgot it gives buys
22:47 ARTjoMS: and u had no buy all the game
22:47 ARTjoMS: and going green too early
22:48 Asklepios: ?
22:48 Asklepios: Surprised by that I have to say

An explanation: first up, he vetoed herbalist, then me councilroom. Reason for me was because of Highways presence, and I thought that if we ditched all the +buys I'd take that card out of the equation and make a simpler game. Simpler game = more chance of me keeping up with a better player's strategy.

Of course, I forgot the +buy from spice merchant. That's why I'm not a top tier player: I make mistakes like that quite a lot.

I opened caravan/silver, my good opponent spice merchant/silver. We both went for Haggler early, and both played mildly for crossroads/nobles as a combo, likely with the thinking that any turn buying a province ought to have some haggling going on too.
Soon, I started greening - too early, according to my opponent's postgame analysis, though I felt that as he had +buys and I didn't, it was best to rush for VP as quick as possible, and crossroads would soften the green's impact on the deck.
My best gain, I think was my haggled forge, which accounted for two of my final provinces, and gave me the win. Actually, I'd bought the forge mostly to forge provinces to provinces, and thus up the tempo, but as it turned out I got lucky with a final turn of $8 of coin, and $8 of forgeable stuff.

That game, I admit, my strategy was worse (though by no means uberweak, just worse), and I lucked into a win.

The second game is the one I really want to discuss...

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201205/02/game-20120502-150457-c16a8d68.html

This game I won as well, though again my opponent pointed out that I had "extreme good luck".

I agreed that I was lucky to get ghost ship straight after the reshuffle, though to be fair it also drew my hunting party dead. And after that, I think my strategy was solid. Buy and use hunting parties to get bank + coins, to buy a province at a time. Reject duchies till the endgame. He played a jester based counter, I think with the view of seeding me with curses to slow down hunting parties, and was building for a big buy turn.

But I disagree that I won through "extreme luck". Particularly galling was his response to my comment that "I think I had a solid strategy, I thought" as "the  difference is you think, I know." As in "I know Dominion better, so don't question me" And yes, he called me a noob, hence the title of this thread.

To my mind, I took a simple linear approach, and he went for a more compelx one. He went with moneylender to slim his deck, I went with Feast to get to $5 and a ghost ship quickly, then aimed for Hunting Parties to make sure I could keep drawing it.

My dilemma here, of course, is that the rankings reflect that ARTjoMS is a statistically significantly better player than me. Sadly he wasn't inclined to stick around to tell me what was wrong with my strategy the second game, or in what way I was so lucky. Thus I turn to dominionstrategy, and the other 40+ players in particular, to tell me if it was just luck that won my second game. I know I'm only a low 30s player, and I've not been able to ever get above 34, so likely I am missing something that smarter and better players have spotted.

I seek to learn! WW? Anyone?

[Galzria]

While I'll leave the post game analysis to better and more experienced players than I, I will encourage anybody who does reply (and I'm eager to read as well) to stay on topic, and let lie the elephant in the thread which has caused recent other threads to be locked.

Personally, I like ... (ok, some brief thoughts) ... Moneylender, but feel it isn't as strong as it seems. It's a slow trasher, that has to pair two cards (harder as the game goes on), and nets you a one-shot gain of +$2, at the potential future cost of +$1.

I liked your strategy more. Plain and simple.

[ShuffleLuck]

Here are my thoughts regarding game two: I think that your strategy was better. Hunting Party is a power card. It does not need trashing, so money lender is a waste. It loves having an attack card, which you can play pretty much every turn, so ghost ship is great. Furthermore, you were NOT particularly lucky; your silver missed the opening reshuffle, and none of your estates did (meanwhile, neither of ARTjoMS's opening buys missed the reshuffle).

Edit: I always love it when someone calls me a noob after they lose to me (happens most often in Starcraft). "You just lost to a noob, eh? Pretty embarrassing!"

[shark_bait]

I agreed that I was lucky to get ghost ship straight after the reshuffle

Not true.  You bought feast.  Barring the 17% chance it's in the last 2 cards of your deck, you get GS before your second reshuffle.

He played a jester based counter

Jester isn't really the counter.  The GS is the more effective counter.  Playing a GS forcing you to put 2 cards back on top increases the chance of not drawing into enough HP's.  However the most effective counter is denial.  A HP stack of 9 HP is no laughing matter of 9 HP is no laughing matter.  Art didn't deny you at all.

[Fabian]

I don't think it's been spelled out Asklepios, only implied, but unfortunately you can't take anything ARTjoMS says seriously. He's well known for complaining about luck, for being rude and for putting down his opponents' strategies. Sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong. He's wrong a lot more often than he thinks he is (especially so about the luck part and the being a douche part).

As for game 2, yeah your strategy is good. See paragraph 1.

[jonts26]

While HP/GS can be really strong, you have to be super careful about reshuffles. Playing 9 HPs and then a GS will most certainly ruin your next 2-3 turns. More if you get ghost shipped yourself. Looking at the log, I'd say you played it mostly well to avoid those kind of situations.

But for instance, see turn 14, where you trigger a reshuffle and then have to spend 3 turns sifting through your junk. That really slows you down. The correct play is to not play GS on those turns. It hurts you more than your opponent.

[timchen]

I would say your strategy is solid, but you also had pretty good luck to get 2 $5 cards in the second shuffle. On the other hand his early luck is not as good, moneylender drawn with silver and ghost ship early on. From there it is perhaps not so easy to recover from a straightforward mass HP+ ghostship strategy.

The central strategic problem is, of course, on this board, whether you should start with moneylender? it's hard to say... I probably will... and will probably lose to your strategy the same as ARTjoMS.

[WanderingWinder]

Asklepios, just want to say I hear you here, but I feel like this thread is excessively baiting me to get into a flame war, so I'm not really going to comment.

[jonts26]

By my math, Feast/Silver gets 2 $5 cards on turns 3/4 35.8% of the time. While Silver/Silver(equivelent) get's it 14.8% of the time. So you are lucky to pull 2 $5's and it was certainly a huge boon for you, but maybe not monumentally lucky. Also, I think getting $4 here is still not that bad because you can pick up another feast, which just delays your $5 one turn.

[RisingJaguar]

To add to the luck part, ARTjoMS also gets a $7/$2 start... You kinda have to feel for his frustration. 

Also, one great problem to solve your ghost ship problems is just one worker's village.  Allows you to have the +buy bank so desperately needs.  Almost to the point, you should spend $5 on one, knowing you will get two hunting parties the next turn.  Also allows you to play ghost ship BEFORE you mass out hunting parties, avoiding triggering horrible reshuffles.  Just be sure to get this after your 4th hunting party or so to avoid risking problems. 

[Asklepios]

Here's game 1 btw:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120502-144654-e3b5dd85.html

Re this game, do you think I went green too early? Turn 8 for the first province in a 13 turn game doesn't seem that early to me, hence my surprise at his comment.

Re game two:

As to early luck, I knew I was going to get a ghost ship before the third reshuffle, sure, but I was lucky in that it hit straight after the second reshuffle, and unlucky in that its dead draw drew hunting party. The second time I played it though I already had two hunting parties in deck, so by that stage I was making my own luck.

As for worker's village, the reason I ignored it was that I didn't want to weaken HP's drawing power by having too many different card types. I knew I was getting curses and provinces in the mix, so I couldn't afford an HP seach pulling up a worker's village instead of the next worker's village. Sure, there were one or two times when with the Bank I had enough $ spare to buy Province + something, but never Province x 2, and rarely Province + Hunting Party, and of course with other cards in the mix Bank might not have been worth as high $ as the drawing might have stalled sooner. That's my thoughts anyway!

For the same reason, I avoided buying duchies in the near-endgame, only taking them when there was a risk that their score was going to tip the balance.

[ftl]

Definitely not too early, IMO. Especially the way the game ended up going. You ended up gaining provinces on turns 8,10, 12,13. Especially with Haggler, you bought a green card while building up your engine.

In BM+ I guess the benchmark is that you want provinces after your first gold, but here you both skipped Gold, but by turn 8 you had enough gold-equivalent stuff. And Crossroads around.

[lespeutere]

I agreed that I was lucky to get ghost ship straight after the reshuffle

Not true.  You bought feast.  Barring the 17% chance it's in the last 2 cards of your deck, you get GS before your second reshuffle.

As far as I understood it, Asklepios talked about getting GS straight after the reshuffle, i.e. on t5 after having gained it on t3.

[Asklepios]

I agreed that I was lucky to get ghost ship straight after the reshuffle

Not true.  You bought feast.  Barring the 17% chance it's in the last 2 cards of your deck, you get GS before your second reshuffle.

As far as I understood it, Asklepios talked about getting GS straight after the reshuffle, i.e. on t5 after having gained it on t3.

Exactly - the luck in drawing it, not gaining it.