Just watched http://www.nextlevelcardgames.com/2011/09/wbc-coverage-dominion-semifinals.html
this was painful to watch. some of the great strategy insights i have gained in this video (these are all paraphrases of stuff she said in the video) if i open tactician/embargo it might have been a better play to embargo the provinces (none having been bought) instead of the tacticians. island is an elite opener and should almost always be bought(and then more islands massed). swindler is a good thing to buy so you can swindle your opponets silvers into ambassodors. merchant ship was a goodbuy because its better than eexplorer. and last but not least you shouldn't swindle coppers into curses because of the wealth of ambassodors in your opponets deck (which you swindled there in the first place)
Unable to watch the the video at work, but I'd note for anyone to be careful criticizing 4-player strategy.
4p is VERY different. 3 piles can end the game on turn 8 without any extra buys, gains, or curses. I've won 4p games with a 4-3-3-3 score buying one estate. I've even won games with the starting 3vp simply because others trashed their opening estates and I did not. Add any +buy, gain cards, or curse givers and things can get crazy.
For example, we all know that Pirate Ship and Thief suck. CouncilRoom tells us so. But I've seen countless times where a great 2-player gamer walks into a 4-player game and laughs and criticizes people as they buy these cards over a smithy because we all know smithy is better. But after 2 rounds of the other 3 players all playing pirate ship or thief on their turns there comes a very long silence from they guy who was just telling everyone how stupid they were as he realizes that it's likely he will never draw a treasure again.
It's even funnier when they complain they only lost because other people played stupid. They play stupid, but they keep winning? 4p strategy is different, not stupid.
For swindling silvers to ambassadors and not copper to curse? It's not necessarily stupid in 4-player. Lets say she swindles coppers to curses, then after the next shuffle 3 players ambassador the curse back. How is she sitting now? Swindle silver to ambassador? That's turning their $2 producing non-terminal into a 0$ terminal. A fast 3-pile 4-player game can get crazy fast with swindlers and ambassadors. What are they going to do with ambassadors in a lightning fast 4p game? Ambassador an estate? That's a quick suicide. Ambassador a copper? In a fast 4p that can end on 3 piles that cost 3$ or less coppers don't really hurt that much. So I'd say she may understand 4p swindler & ambassador better than many here.
Massing Islands stupid? Again, in a 4p games that can end fast on 3 piles, things are different. In games that can be won with estates, islands are very powerful.
For example of 4-player strangeness, here's a game where two opponents open 5-2 and they go with Ghost Ship & Saboteur. We all know how long a Ghost Ship game can take, and two opponents have a province on me. But I easily win on turn 16 with 0 Province, 1 Duchy, & 15 estates.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110919-205648-673377b2.htmlLooking back at the game, I could have skipped the duchy. Had I changed a few buys I could have won on turn 14. But if you look at councilroom it shows that an average ghost ship province game takes 24 turns. Of all cards in dominion, ghost ship is #5 in creating games with the most number of turns. If you run the stats at 24+/-2, you'd think a 14 or 16 turn ghost ship game is extremely rare. But the stats are heavily weighted to 2-player games. I'd wager it's not as rare in a 4-player.
