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Author Topic: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?  (Read 4086 times)

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dondon151

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An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« on: May 24, 2012, 07:04:08 pm »
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My play group doesn't play with Ambassador often, mostly due to the impression that it leads to degenerate games, so I don't have much experience with this card, and the question in the title is one that has always puzzled me. In the few times that I have tried it on an engine board, I've only picked it up when I had an extra buy and was reliably drawing most of my deck. This tends to not happen very early when the earlygame is defined by slow build-up and Ambassador tennis.

Of course, the problem with using Ambassador as a cursing card is that it requires 2 cards in order to effectively deal out the Curse and doesn't provide some other kind of benefit - i.e., you don't need as much support to fire a Witch at your opponent every turn, but you do need a good enough deck with other supporting components to pair Ambassador with Curse every turn. Which is why I always wait until I know this match-up is nearly guaranteed to buy the Curse; the potential momentum loss from missing a cursing turn is a little too scary for me.

That said, I've seen people pick up the Curse pretty early in some logs, maybe as early as after the 2nd reshuffle. Am I not playing this optimally? Certainly there's some degree of discretion required on the part of the player, but generally, when is the best time to pick up the Curse, if at all?
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O

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Re: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« Reply #1 on: May 24, 2012, 07:10:26 pm »
+1

1) You've won the ambassador and are drawing your deck with an engine.
2) Your opponent isn't participating in the ambassador war and you want to punish him for it.

You want to pick it up pretty late in case one, a good deal earlier in case 2. Often its a really dumb idea that just makes the game go on for another 15 turns.
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DG

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Re: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« Reply #2 on: May 24, 2012, 07:33:53 pm »
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My personal play style would be to avoid buying/sending the curses unless you'll lose otherwise. This situation might be an opponent with a lead in provinces and a good enough deck to continue buying vp no matter how much copper you can gift. If you want to keep friends at your gaming table you can choose a similar style of play.

Typically you need to develop your ambassador deck so that it can win through buying vp. This development typically needs to start at the same time you can start gifting curses. Sometimes you can do both at the same time but deck development is often more important.
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clb

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Re: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« Reply #3 on: May 24, 2012, 07:46:29 pm »
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http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120523-201647-5a6d87f2.html

Here is a game I played the other night with the Wife. Neither of us are awesome players, yet, but it is an interesting combination of a torturer engine and ambassador. It certainly took away the sting of being tortured when I had confidence that I could pass the curse along. We were in similar situations, but since my torturer chain got up and running better/faster, she was left eating curses (and not too happy after the game, mind).

So to the question of when to pick up curses, if it won't slow you down, but further impedes the other guy, it seems like good timing, though perhaps not best suited for making friends. :)
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ehunt

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Re: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« Reply #4 on: May 24, 2012, 07:53:33 pm »
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It's an overused trick, although it's important. It appears to win games, but they're usually games the curse-giving player has won already, and the ambassador/curse trick just kicks the opponent while he's down.

It also can lose you the game. Here's a comeback I won because my opponent went for ambassador/curse (of course my last hand is very lucky):
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-222349-21335657.html

I used to do it a lot, but now only do it pretty late, namely when I already have +buy and am certain to draw my deck. I lost too many games buying the curse when I couldn't reliably draw it. I also agree that it makes sense as a desperation gambit if the opponent has a bunch of provinces.
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blueblimp

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Re: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« Reply #5 on: May 24, 2012, 08:08:30 pm »
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If your opponent is also trying to build an engine, then sending coppers does nearly as much damage as sending curses, so there's not much urgency buying the curse. You can wait until your engine is solid, then send them over mainly for the score benefit.

The situation where curse-giving is urgent is if the other player skipped ambassador and an engine, going for a treasure-oriented strategy instead. In this case, flooding them with coppers is less helpful, since it will help them buy duchies. But since they aren't sending you junk, the timing is pretty clear: you want to get the curse just before you start drawing your entire deck.
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andwilk

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Re: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« Reply #6 on: May 24, 2012, 10:56:18 pm »
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http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120523-165030-58986175.html

The game above was played yesterday.  The key cards here supporting Amb/Curse are KC/Market/Warehouse.  KC is a big help here lining up the Ambassador with the curse and I didn't buy the curse until turn 10 after I had a few KCs and Warehouses in my deck.  This enabled me to fire at least one curse at him almost every turn for the rest of the game with a couple KC/Amb/curses thrown in there.
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qmech

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Re: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« Reply #7 on: May 25, 2012, 05:06:45 am »
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As someone who increasingly passes over Ambassador, I'll reiterate what's been said a couple of times above: taking the Curse is a good way to penalise opponents who aren't equipped to play tennis.

This game helped clarify my thinking on Ambassador.  There's not much to do here with a trimmed deck, and Gardens and Vault are both good ways to handle bloat, but Fishing Village is enough to turn Ambassador into a devastating Cursing machine which WW uses to severely punish me for my decision to go more or less straight BM/Vault.
« Last Edit: May 25, 2012, 05:12:30 am by qmech »
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dondon151

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Re: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« Reply #8 on: May 25, 2012, 05:32:17 am »
+1

This game helped clarify my thinking on Ambassador.  There's not much to do here with a trimmed deck, and Gardens and Vault are both good ways to handle bloat, but Fishing Village is enough to turn Ambassador into a devastating Cursing machine which WW uses to severely punish me for my decision to go more or less straight BM/Vault.

I spy FV and Margrave; that to me is at least sufficient for an engine that consistently draws the deck... I feel that had the game continued, WW would basically have been able to do whatever he pleased, picking up Gardens (which would be worth 3) and Duchies and just controlling the tempo of the game while leaving you with 3-card hands. As well as Vault handles bloat, it performs extremely poorly against handsize attacks.

I suppose my next question is this: if both you and your opponent are using Ambassador to build engines, is it worth it at all to pick up a Curse? Like blueblimp stated, giving Copper is nearly as bad as giving Curse in those situations, and judging by andwillk's game log, it didn't seem like that giving away the Curses was all that necessary (for one, a competitive opponent will just end up giving some of those Curses right back).
« Last Edit: May 25, 2012, 05:35:56 am by dondon151 »
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chwhite

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Re: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« Reply #9 on: May 25, 2012, 06:06:55 am »
+1

This game helped clarify my thinking on Ambassador.  There's not much to do here with a trimmed deck, and Gardens and Vault are both good ways to handle bloat, but Fishing Village is enough to turn Ambassador into a devastating Cursing machine which WW uses to severely punish me for my decision to go more or less straight BM/Vault.

Nope, just the piddly attack of Followers, the superfluous +Buy of Princess and Margrave, the mediocre engine boost of Trusty Steed... no, not much at all.   :P
« Last Edit: May 25, 2012, 06:09:30 am by chwhite »
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To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

O

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Re: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« Reply #10 on: May 25, 2012, 10:31:48 am »
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http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120524-004031-de4d457f.html

Here's a good example. I needed to ambassador curses to my opponent who won the province battle handily, so I could slow him down enough to build a massive spy/festival/tactician/conspirator engine and rush out duke/duchy for the win.
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Jfrisch

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Re: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« Reply #11 on: May 25, 2012, 11:06:32 am »
+1

@qmech Note margrave counters Vault pretty hard. And playing it every turn makes it really hard for your vaults to be destructive. Without the margrave you would have been able to pull it off.
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qmech

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Re: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« Reply #12 on: May 25, 2012, 02:39:30 pm »
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Point taken all!

The log is intended to be taken as an example of good Ambassador play by WW, not good counterplay by me. :P
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WanderingWinder

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Re: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« Reply #13 on: May 25, 2012, 05:52:26 pm »
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@qmech Note margrave counters Vault pretty hard. And playing it every turn makes it really hard for your vaults to be destructive. Without the margrave you would have been able to pull it off.
Well... yes and no. It's a brilliant ambassador board, and margrave helps a TON. But stamp rabble in there, and it's a possiblity, stamp goons in and you're good... well, basically vault and gardens are both quite good counters, but with two of cards, buy, and attack, I expect ambassador player to do really well. Add in a third and it's icing. Of course, literally just taking out margrave and replacing it with nothing, I'm pretty much toast to getting all the right prizes early, which ain't happening. But then, I wouldn't go ambassador. :)

Jfrisch

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Re: An Ambassador engine: when to pick up the Curse?
« Reply #14 on: May 26, 2012, 08:57:30 pm »
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agree for sure about goons, though given that goons is a discard attack I'm not sure it proves all that much. I think vault is decent enough against rabble that I'm not sure you're right. Given that vault is on the board, the requirements for ambassador player go WAY up. A discard attack can act as a pretty strong counter to the counter, but otherwise you need a REALLY strong engine..
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