The Fourth Ending Condition
(Note: This, like so many others, is an article aimed at 2-player dominion)
Now, as we all know, there are three conditions that end the game: An empty province pile at the end of a turn, an empty colony pile at the end of a turn, or any other three empty piles at the end of a turn. But in many games of dominion, there's a fourth victory condition lurking: Securing half of the available victory points.
In your most basic game, with only prrovinces, duchies, and estates, (I would say that Oxford comma is for you, jonts, but I just love them too darn much to not claim a large hunk of it for me, too), there are 86 victory points in play, so securing 43 ensures at least a tie as first player, and a win as second. Throw a way to get the curses slung around, and you're down to 38 points. Instead, add in a two point VP card, and you get to 51 points. The key thing is to remember the 43, then add half of the total extra points the card benefit. So, say there's harem, nobles, and great halls (you're playing intrigue). That's 8 extra points from half the harems, 8 extra points from half the nobles, and 4 extra from half the great halls, for a total of 20 extra, and 63 total to clinch half the VP. Colonies aren't too different - just 40 extra points for half, and you get to 83.
Now these calculations can also change within the game. What do I mean? The biggest way is trashing. Every victory point trashed is half a victory point off the number you need to clinch. So if we trash 5 of the original 6 estates, that's 2.5 off of our 43, it now takes 41 VP to clinch the game, and that clinches a majority outright.
There are also a number of ways where the limits can change more subtly. The biggest is VP chips. Technically, goons game usually have an upper limit (barring ambassador), but monument and bishop games never do - you can gain infinite amounts of VP with them, so you can never clinch. But variable VP cards can also do this. Technically, they also have upper bounds, but I've yet to see a gardens game where that's been close to being reached, and with vineyards you only see it when there are very few actions and vineyards are therefore terrible. Fairgrounds are sort of a hybrid here, as they tend to fluctuate 2-4-6 and not go any further (clinch-wise you can usually count them as 6). Dukes are the most interesting. Every duchy your opponent buys clips a point off of your maximum VP for every duke you might buy (and the same thing is true for the duchies you buy and your opponent's max score).
Silk roads are extraordinarily complicated here, particularly with other alternate green cards. In any game where they're available, there are at least 38 green cards in the game. Every one you have, your opponent obviously can't have, so that's an adjustment. And every extra green card, sans black market, which is available adds 8 more to the possibilities. Technically there's some upper bound of points here, but it is very rarely relevant, unless you've been dancing around for green for a long time, in which case SR are probably clearly your go-to alternate green by now anyway.
Finally, there are ways of your opponent to smash your existing VPs. Sboteur is actually the big one here, though it's not so reliable without some big-time engine. There are some other things too, though - masquerade, ambassador w/possession, swindler on the cheaper things, or even perhaps provinces if you also have a billion highway/bridge in play.
One more thing to note here is that while half the VP is a hard lock, there's often just-as-good locks available based on the points that your opponent can get to. What do I mean? Two piles are gone. Well, without +buys, your opponent can't get the last duchy AND the last province now, so even if you don't have 50% of the points, if you're close, you might be fine. Even with 1 set of +buy, if there's no way to play multiples, they can't get the last harem and the last duchy and the last province. Most often, it's that they can't get the last province and then come back and grab the last colony. Little adjustments like this are possible.
Ok, you say, but what does all this mean strategically? I'm glad I asked on your behalf. The first and simplest thing is to be cognizant of the situation - if you can get a VP lock, do it, just like you'd take a clinching 3-pile.
However, there are bigger implications here, largely related to that age-old (how old IS dominion, anyway - I guess age-old is about 5-6 years in this case?) struggle between engines and... non-engines. I guess money-plus decks?
The first thing is that, if you're playing an engine, you need to make sure that you can get enough VP before it's clinched away. Conversely, if you're playing money against an engine, you need to play it differently than you would against another money deck. Against other money decks, you typically race to 4ish provinces and then start really diving after duchies, as quick as you can, green green green! Against an engine, you really need to be aiming to get to the 50% VP mark quickly. Depending on the engine you're facing, that either means holding off quite a while so that when you make your push, you get all the way there (this is true if once your opponent's engine is assembled, it will be able to buy like EVERYTHING - like a big bridge combo), or more generally their engine is just pretty strong, and you want to aim for something a little short of 50%, because it'll be pretty slow for them to pick up those estates, too, and you can sputter along to 50%. Of course, you can also play for ending the game in some other manner, such as by getting ALL the provinces, and if that's faster, go for it. Actually, if it's AS fast, go for it, because every extra province you pick up makes it a little harder for them, they have to get a higher number of green cards now, with higher total cost...
Moreover, the presence of alternate VP cards (or attacks to destroy opponent's VP, etc.) shifts this equilibrium. It's going to take a bit longer to get to that 50% mark, so the engine has a little longer to get going. In general, there's a couple different things here actually. There are some engines that are good because you can set them up pretty quickly, and then they do nice things for you. Apothecary-based stuff is a great example of this. Also lots of more traditional engines that just let you draw a lot and then splash in for a province. However, probably more engines nowadays are built for the long-haul. You spend a good while setting them up, and when you do, you draw most all of your deck, accumulating a good amount of buying power and extra buys along the way. These, you need to wait longer to make stronger, you can. And generally, when they green, they get some massive turns. So, for engines that are either very resilient to greening or can have a massive strike where all their greening happens at once, basically instantly, these are helped tremendously by alternate VP, because it just gets them longer to set up, and once they're up, they have great control of when to end the game, and lots of VP to gain to get the lead before that end of game happens.
The presence of VP chip cards, because of their unlimited potential, greatly enhances this. It's no mistake that the biggest comebacks I see are with these cards. If you can play a monument 15 times a turn consistently, well, your big lead doesn't look so impressive. If I've got 6 goons in play, man, I can score at least 42+ points right there - and usually more. If I can build my deck to draw everything, bishop a few golds, buy a few golds, I'm going to be pumping back pretty quickly. Meanwhile, you have to really buy out all those provinces to end the game, and if you didn't prepare it right... you'll be drowning in a sea of green. So against big VP chip engines, you need to really look to ending the game, meaning see that third pile, or all those provinces, and head for them, instead of going for smaller green as early as you normally would. Because normally, every VP card you get is not only helping you, but denying your opponent. With the chips, that's not so much true. Now the problem with playing money decks for all the provinces (etc.) like this is, well that means your lead right now isn't as big. Which means they have less work to do to come back. But the point is that they have less time - if they can overcome anyway, well, you should have played the engine!
