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Author Topic: I will try to post a game here every day.  (Read 121954 times)

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Tombolo

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #100 on: July 30, 2012, 12:48:38 am »
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/29/game-20120729-214027-df4b1262.html

What I went for: Familiar/Tac/stuff
What he went for: Vineyards

I thought I had this game lost- he was picking up vineyards and running out piles quite quickly.  I was able to grab green fairly quickly, however, and caught up before he could end the game.  My deck also seemed to stall out a lot less than his, and I was able to piledrive the provinces for the win! 

-Is Tac/Nothing actually a good open?  Early turns seem like a waste of Tactician...but it's freakin' Tac.  That said, I maybe could've gotten Familiar sooner with Potion/nothing.
-I...had no real idea what to buy at 5 after I got that Tactician, and kinda just went with gut.  Upgrades for curses, Vaults for green.  Any issue with that?  I didn't feel Market would've been that great for my deck, but an early Treasury might've been nice.
-Two Familiars good?
-Was it that good a board for VY?  Market is nice and I guess Great Hall is at least spammable but it didn't really occur to me as a viable option until he almost beat me with it.  Would any of you go Vineyard here, and would you do it any differently than my opponent?
-Should I have tried to grab a few Vineyards?  I don't think it ever really worked out well with my Buys, and it might've just helped end game, but every Vineyard I get is 5 points he doesn't.
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eHalcyon

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #101 on: July 30, 2012, 01:06:37 am »
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I don't think I would have gone for Vineyards.  I think I would have opened Upgrade, and then after that played Vault-BM.

Although there double-tac (with Vault) on the board...
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Tombolo

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #102 on: July 30, 2012, 02:12:29 am »
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Man, I frequently miss all the coolest Tac stuff.  I know about Tac/Black Market, and Golem/Tac, but any other nifty tricks I tend to not notice.
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eHalcyon

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #103 on: July 30, 2012, 02:38:04 am »
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Man, I frequently miss all the coolest Tac stuff.  I know about Tac/Black Market, and Golem/Tac, but any other nifty tricks I tend to not notice.

What "Golem/Tac" strategy are you talking about?  You can use Golem to potentially activate two Tacs in one turn, drawing an extra 10 cards on the next turn.... but that's extremely impractical and not a viable strategy.

The double-tac I am talking about here is playing Tactician every round and still having the coin to buy a Province.  Specifically, you want to set this up:

On a Tactician turn, one of your 10 cards is Vault.  You play it, discarding at least 8 cards for $8, enough for a Province.  You should also have a second Tactician in hand, which you then play to discard whatever is left of your hand.  Buy your Province, repeat next turn with another 10 cards in hand.

I am not so good at evaluating the effectiveness of double-tac engines, so I don't know if that strategy would work here.  Familiar might get in the way by bloating your deck enough that you can't find Tac and Vault on each Tac turn, thus breaking the chain.

I would open Upgrade because it is a fantastic opener, and will help deal with incoming Curses as well as give you some "free" Silver from Estates.  Then Vault-BM would be nice as it can handle the Curses and let you green pretty aggressively.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #104 on: July 30, 2012, 02:47:16 am »
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Upgrade is most likely the better opening. Upgrade/nothing is actually a pretty decent opening. It basically does what Jack of all Trades does, and then stays useful for removing Curses and Coppers. You probably want to skip Familiar, and maybe get a second Upgrade. But even with the Upgrade's trashing, the Familiar attack might make it too hard to reliably pull off a perpetual Tactician play for Tac/Vault.
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Morgrim7

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #105 on: July 30, 2012, 02:59:40 am »
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If you play DoubleTac, you will want the Upgrade to even out your deck as you buy Provinces so it doesn't overflow.
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Tombolo

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #106 on: July 30, 2012, 03:04:32 am »
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...Skip Familiar altogether?  Familiar is one of the few cards I am aware you don't need EVERY game, but I will pretty much never ignore. (Well, unless there's Witch or Sea Hag or Mountebank, but if there's strong cursing of some sort I am pretty much guaranteed to go for it.)  That's an interesting question itself, I suppose.  When's it okay to skip good cursers?  Or Chapel?  Or Tac?

That is indeed what I meant with Golem/Tac.  I haven't actually tried it in a serious game, nor am I particularly likely to, but my friend and I played like three games the other day specifically to play with that combo and KC.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #107 on: July 30, 2012, 03:18:34 am »
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Familiar is a card you can skip at least a third of the time. The thing with Familiar is that it's really slow to actually get started, so the curses come really late, often giving you enough time to get into a position where they don't hurt that much. Here, once you have Upgrade and Vault, you can just trash Curses or discard them for coins, so all the effort in buying cards to give you curses won't really pay off.

More generally, you rarely want to skip Witch or Mountebank, but you can skip Sea Hag or Young Witch or IGG if there's good trashing and an engine, because you put yourself in a good shape by opening trashing, and if you draw enough cards per turn, the Curses aren't a big deal and you can probably trash them (since you get up to large enough hands to reasonably reliably match the trasher with the Curse). Young Witch you can also of course skip when the bane is really strong.
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dondon151

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #108 on: July 30, 2012, 03:25:42 am »
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DoubleTac with Vault gives you 9 cards to discard per turn, so you can still Upgrade, Vault, Tactician and buy a Province.
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carstimon

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #109 on: July 30, 2012, 01:37:43 pm »
+1

HiveMindEmulator, I don't understand your analysis.  Familiar is usually in your opponents deck for the third shuffle, which is the same as witch and mountebank.  If you're going to use slowness as a case to skip familiar, then you should also be able to use it for witch. 

Although perhaps if you compare silver/potion->familiar to silver/x->witch the familiar is less likely to be bought turns 3/4.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #110 on: July 30, 2012, 01:55:13 pm »
+2

HiveMindEmulator, I don't understand your analysis.  Familiar is usually in your opponents deck for the third shuffle, which is the same as witch and mountebank.  If you're going to use slowness as a case to skip familiar, then you should also be able to use it for witch. 

Although perhaps if you compare silver/potion->familiar to silver/x->witch the familiar is less likely to be bought turns 3/4.
Sorry I was unclear. There are several kinds of "slow" that I kind of jumbled up. There is the time it takes to get the first Curse into your deck, the time it takes to give you say 3-5 Curses (some amount that is overwhelming), and the time it takes to build up a deck with the curser.

Sea Hag and Young Witch are fast at getting that first Curse into your deck, but suffer in terms of building up their own deck. So if you build faster and just trash the Curses, you can avoid them.

Witch and Mountebank are a little slower at getting the first Curse out, but they add more value to the deck than the other Cursers, giving you less time to recover.

Familiar gets the first Curse out at the same time as Witch or Mountebank (in the best case -- in the $2P case which happens like 25% of the time, it's like an auto-loss, because it's then really slow). But then since you can only buy at most once per shuffle with a reasonable chance of missing each time, it's a while before it gets out an overwhelming number of Curses, and even longer before the Familiar player can do anything with their deck. The Potion is harmful, and the Familiars just cantrips, which don't really do anything for their deck.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2012, 01:56:44 pm by HiveMindEmulator »
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carstimon

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #111 on: July 30, 2012, 02:44:22 pm »
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Hmm, this might be something I haven't thought about enough.  Let's stick to comparing witch to familiar, mountebank is more complicated.  Assume no other potion cards.  Disclaimer:  I haven't looked at the game which started this discussion, and iso is down right now.  I might actually agree with you on it.

Comparing witch to familiar for the cursing player, the difference is +1 card, -1 action.  If I'm trying to build an engine and I'm starved for +action, I'd often rather be buying familiars over witches.  So I think it's not always true about witch adding more value than familiar; I think about half the time playing witch hurts the cursing player because he wants to play a different terminal.  A big example is tactician; I'm ok with drawing familiar and tactician together, i'm sad if I draw witch and tactician together.  Notice that if we're just looking at curse dealing capability, tactician gives the curser an extra turn. To be fair, it also gives the receiver greater possibility of connecting, say, remake + 2 curses.

The thing that's really scary about ignoring familiar is that it's reasonable to get 4 curses in your deck during one of your opponents shuffles.   This happens late, but maybe not as late as you think if the familiar player has strong support.
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DStu

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #112 on: July 30, 2012, 02:50:25 pm »
+1

The problem is also the Potion. You spent $4 which could be a $4-attack, or some other valuable card, or at least a Silver, to go for the Familiar. So you basically have a Curse in deck yourself.
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Tombolo

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #113 on: July 31, 2012, 11:19:08 am »
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Well, this was brutal.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/31/game-20120731-081028-14b61ee3.html

What I went for: BM/IGG/Hoard
What he went for: IGG RUSH
What I wound up with: A positive score!

My opponent opened IGG/Herbalist against my double Silver, and things just went downhill from there.  IGG was almost the only Kingdom card worth buying here, I think, and he got five before I was able to hit $5 with big money.  I tried to give him at least a couple of curses back, but there was no way for me to catch up with his Duchy rush.  I grabbed a few green cards to make it seem like a fight, but...yeah.

I'm aware that I pretty much got killed by my opponents 5/2, but is there something different I could've done?  I was obviously going to get destroyed on IGG, but I decided to grab a couple myself- maybe I should've gone Hoard or Gold early and tried to get ahead on infrastructure?  I didn't see a use for Library or KC, and thusly not really for Quarry, but should I have perhaps gone for Herbalist sooner than I did?  Also, should I have gone harder for Duchies?  I went Gold on 16 and paid $5 for an Estate on 18, primarily because I didn't want to help end the game faster....but is it worth it to give up those points?
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DG

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #114 on: July 31, 2012, 02:09:28 pm »
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Almost totally unplayable draws from your perspective. Buy copper with nothing to spend. You have to follow the duchy rush with an unrepairable deck. Hoards do come into play and I suspect you should bought one with your first 6 coin hand, even from the perspective of doing something different compared to an opponent who is miles ahead in a mirror match.
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Tombolo

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #115 on: July 31, 2012, 10:23:42 pm »
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I suppose buying copper would've helped, but it just feels so...dirty.  Are there any good guidelines for when you should buy copper?  Gardens?  Counting House?  Coppersmith?  Any time you struggle to hit 3?

And at what point is it worth it to switch to a probably inferior strategy because the other guy is pulling off your strategy better than you are?  Again, it makes sense, but I don't really know when else I can apply the idea.
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Morgrim7

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #116 on: July 31, 2012, 11:12:34 pm »
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I buy copper in heavy cursing games, heavy VP, and in games where Copper is beneficial i.e. Apoth/NV, Counting House, ect.
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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #117 on: August 01, 2012, 04:11:01 am »
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When your goal is $5 or below, Copper is usually a good card (when you can expect to have 5card hands).
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Morgrim7

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #118 on: August 01, 2012, 05:53:50 am »
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When your goal is $5 or below, Copper is usually a good card (when you can expect to have 5card hands).
There are many exceptions to this. One being NV/Bridge. Or heavy Scrying Pool with cheap cantrips.
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DG

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #119 on: August 01, 2012, 07:40:24 am »
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Quote
And at what point is it worth it to switch to a probably inferior strategy because the other guy is pulling off your strategy better than you are?  Again, it makes sense, but I don't really know when else I can apply the idea.

In this case hoards are not a strictly inferior strategy but to my mind it is not easy to see when they should be bought or how effective they will be. This is the sort of situation when you can try it out since the game is probably lost by following a mirror match.
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Tombolo

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #120 on: August 04, 2012, 09:21:05 pm »
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It's been far too long since I've played an interesting (for the purposes of this thread) game, but that changes here!

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/04/game-20120804-174741-268dc7de.html

What I went for: Scrying Pool/Vineyards
What he went for: Scrying/Stables

I was originally going for Vineyards here, but wound up with 3 Provinces anyway.  I took the game, but I feel like I could have done it more elegantly.  I went for Vineyards and Scrying Pool pretty early, figuring that with only Trade Route for +Buy, I needed to pick up Potion cards most of the opportunities I had.  I feel like Farming Village, Crossroads, Secret Chamber, and YW all worked really well with all the green I picked up, but it also gummed up my Scrying Pools.  I was worried I'd trash too much Copper for Stables to be useful, especially in the quantities I got it, but that never wound up being a problem.  Despite a general lack of buying power, my deck somehow managed to ramp up to Vineyard/5-8 before too long, and the other fella couldn't quite catch up.

-I had no idea how to open here, nor what to do with 5-8.  Did I want more Gold?  More Stables?  ...I think I bought Province every opportunity, but was that wise?
-Was VY actually advisable?  There were spammable cards, but nothing that was really GREAT for spamming, and Trade Route being the only +Buy is kinda lame for Vineyard.
-Did I want to bother with Provinces at all, or just pumping VY and rushing piles?  I wasn't even really trying to go for Provinces, I just found myself with a buy and $8 sitting around a few times <_<
-Second Potion.  Good idea or no?
-Secret Chamber was decent here, right?  And YW?
-Was Scrying Pool worth the effort?  It rarely turned into the beast I intended it to be.
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chesskidnate

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #121 on: August 04, 2012, 10:47:35 pm »
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I'm not sure if it's viable with trade route as only trasher and only +buy, but a neat strategy could be trying to slim down to almost only action cards (including multiple scrying pools, secret chambers, Farming villages, and trade routes) and going for a megaturn where you play scrying pool, draw your whole deck, play farming village, play secret chamber discarding all of your action cards except for a single scrying pool, playing that scrying pool and repeating, then trashing cards you don't really need with trade route to get enough extra buys to buy 2-4 provinces[might be too tough to gather enough villages to play both the secret chambers to get 40$ with enough actions left over to play 4 trade routes] one crossroads would help this strategy by providing actions and a quarry might(along with trade route's +buy) make it easier to reach enough action cards to really make secret chamber/scrying pool strong
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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #122 on: August 05, 2012, 05:10:26 am »
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Vineyard is strong whenever your opponent will stall if left to pick up 8 Provinces, which is probably the case here.  Scrying Pool with lots of lovely non-terminals will just get stronger as the games goes on.

Another source of Buy would be nice, but Trade Route is much better than nothing.  The weak trashing is a huge help to Scrying Pool.

I'm surprised that no Lighthouses got bought given the presence of Young Witch.  I suppose you weren't often stuck at two, and Curses aren't so bad when they're providing fodder for your Trade Routes.  The opening Secret Chamber is an even better deterrent against Young Witch, and it does provide you with a lot of economy, so that was fine.

Two Potions is certainly correct here.

You didn't want Gold.  You don't need much money as Vineyards/$2 Action counts as an excellent turn. You also picked up too many Stables.  The first Stables is good as it cycles you quickly, but they become less useful later on as you trash your Treasure.  In particular, Scrying Pool will be much better for you than Stables, so Secret Chamber'ing your Potion to pick up a Stables on turns 9 and 19 was a mistake.

You might not want to pick up Provinces at all.  With a majority of the Vineyards you can gain points faster than your opponent in the long run.  If your 3 Provinces and a Gold had been 4 Action cards then you'd only have been down 6 points from where you ended up, but the game would have several more turns left to run.  (If you have a lead and it turns out that you can consistently hit $8 with the help of your Secret Chamber then by all means grab Provinces if it means a quick end to the game whilst you're ahead.)
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DG

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #123 on: August 05, 2012, 06:07:54 am »
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I'd open potion/lighthouse here. The lighthouse seems like a better partner to the trade route and the secret chamber only comes later when you want to discard for coins.
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Tombolo

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Re: I will try to post a game here every day.
« Reply #124 on: August 08, 2012, 01:57:07 am »
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A 3 player game!  Scandal!

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/07/game-20120807-184621-211724ce.html

What I went for: Remodel/GM
What my buddies went for: GM/Wharf

The idea here was to remodel into GM, ideally picking up some Havens, WV, and Remodels along the way, and maybe a couple of Wharves.  I never got around to the Wharves, and Remodel -> GM didn't work nearly as quickly as I'd hoped.  I only managed a 4-3-3 split, and by then the game had almost ended on piles.  I was hoping to sneak some quick green and end the game before my opponents could respond, but they actually both had me beat on the ability to do that, and my lone Province landed me in last.

-Was Remodel->GM that good a strategy here?  It didn't seem to get me any more GM's than my opponents, and I didn't have the benefit of Wharves later on.  Heck, I didn't even have time to really use GM.  Maybe I should've just skipped both and focused on something like WV/Wharf?
-Should I have greened earlier?  Endgame kinda sneaked up on me a bit, but if I'd pulled the trigger much earlier, they might've been able to build to Colonies before I could pull ahead and end game.
-How bad did skipping Wharf hurt me?  I could've bought it over Gold a couple of times, or done different things with my +buy turns.
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