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Author Topic: 5/2 on an amb board. Could I have played this better?  (Read 2002 times)

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verikt

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5/2 on an amb board. Could I have played this better?
« on: September 21, 2012, 09:08:58 am »
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201209/21/game-20120921-054646-3c163310.html
Should I have totally ignored amb and just gone for bishop?
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DStu

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Re: 5/2 on an amb board. Could I have played this better?
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2012, 10:17:13 am »
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 Ambassador, Bishop, Haggler, Horn of Plenty, Oracle, Pirate Ship, Sea Hag, Secret Chamber, Tactician, and Torturer

Hmm, so assume we ignore Ambassador. What we want is a deck that still works when it's bloated.  You don't want to curse, as these only come back, so Torturer and Sea Hag are out.  You don't want Pirate Ship as you won't have many Coppers to hit. You don't want HoP as there is no engine to build.  You don't want Secret Chamber because there is no reason for it to work. Tactician-SC needs to draw a card, which you don't have here.  OK, maybe you pick one up on 5/2, but it's not the center of your plan.
You don't want Ambassador because that's what we assumed.

Remain Bishop, Haggler, Oracle, Tactician...

Bishoph-Haggler-BM seems the most promising for me here. Maybe with Tactician, I don't know. If with Tactician one can maybe again think at HoP, in Tactician-turns it should get up to $6 at least, but $8 is impossible here. Bishops don't help your opponent when they are Ambassadoring.

So I think from 5/2, start Haggler/nothing, get 2 Bishops fastly, more later depending on the draw, and try BigMoney. There's no engine for the Ambassador anyway, but it could go for Pirate Ships after it trashed down, which will probably be quite powerfull against an Ambassador-flooded BigMoney. Without the PS, I would be quite confident in Haggler-Bishop-BM from 5/2 against Ambassador, but these are a bit frightening. 
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verikt

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Re: 5/2 on an amb board. Could I have played this better?
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2012, 10:43:23 am »
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Quote
You don't want Ambassador because that's what we assumed.
You don't want amb because there's no way to catch up mirroring amb from a 5/2 start.
Haggler bishop BM with no +action? What would be a likely hand? Bishop haggler silver copper estate. haggler 2 coppers 2 estates. You're only getting one vp for bishop for anything less than gold. And he can easily counter by bishoping golds from a 4 card deck.
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Tactician-SC needs to draw a card, which you don't have here.
Needs to draw a card for what? double tac prov hand? I picked it because it turned all the estates into copper, which meant I needed one 2+card (silver/haggler) to get a province. With the added benefit of possibly drawing my tac a turn early to his ambassador.
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DG

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Re: 5/2 on an amb board. Could I have played this better?
« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2012, 10:54:48 am »
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I think you got the most of what's required but could have cut down to a single strategy. You seemed to have a bit of everything. So tactician and secret chamber seems right. Then take hagglers and avoid the horn of plenty. I think there's a danger of the opponent getting an easy ride if you don't take an ambassador of your own. Keep a focus on buying provinces with hagglers and gold on tactician turns, so don't get too distracted by bishop points.
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DStu

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Re: 5/2 on an amb board. Could I have played this better?
« Reply #4 on: September 21, 2012, 10:56:55 am »
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Tactician-SC needs to draw a card, which you don't have here.
Needs to draw a card for what? double tac prov hand? I picked it because it turned all the estates into copper, which meant I needed one 2+card (silver/haggler) to get a province. With the added benefit of possibly drawing my tac a turn early to his ambassador.

That was no critics for your game, I actually only looked at the board, and from your post, and the 2 Ambassadors in your final deck, assumed you would have followed the Ambassador route.  And didn't came up with something good my self.
"Fastly" would not mean "on the first 3 buys if possible", but maybe one per reshuffle. With the Haggler, and the Ambassador that should have low enough probability that they colide. Bishop-Bishop collision is not that bad, as you can trash it. Bishops mainly to get rid of some Estates, but maybe that's also wrong.
Adding a Tactician to this strat is also something I think is worth considering, as variance is good in bloated deck.

But yes, I was thinking at double-Tac there.  Tac-SC opening is not that bad of an idea, it is probably also less attackable by the Pirate Ship, deck will have a lot less Silver and more Gold.  I still don't really believe in the Ambassador here, (except for Pirate Shipping), because there is exactly no engine to build, the thing that comes next to an engine is Tactician, and that does not need a slim deck.

Edit2: Golden Deck is of course something one can think of with the Ambassador, too. Especially when uncountered, so maybe picking up an Ambassador yourself to slow that down might in deed be right..
« Last Edit: September 21, 2012, 10:59:11 am by DStu »
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verikt

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Re: 5/2 on an amb board. Could I have played this better?
« Reply #5 on: September 21, 2012, 11:27:10 am »
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I think you got the most of what's required but could have cut down to a single strategy. You seemed to have a bit of everything. So tactician and secret chamber seems right. Then take hagglers and avoid the horn of plenty. I think there's a danger of the opponent getting an easy ride if you don't take an ambassador of your own. Keep a focus on buying provinces with hagglers and gold on tactician turns, so don't get too distracted by bishop points.
We more or less agree. I did get ambassador not to give him an easy ride. I figured double amb would get to 4 provinces faster than tactician secret chamber though, even with haggler. Even with 3 tacs  I wasn't drawing them every turn. So I got bishop to compensate. I figured I'd get golds from haggler and hop, lose the province race and get enough alternate vp to make it up. Which it did. He couldn't just buy 4 provs because of my vp and once we started buying duchies my deck worked better with bloat.  I bought hop because it was a likely gold on tactician turns, and as a choice for gaining from haggler-gold seemed better than another silver or bishop.  You think I could have won just going for green?
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DG

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Re: 5/2 on an amb board. Could I have played this better?
« Reply #6 on: September 21, 2012, 12:40:16 pm »
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The haggler comes almost necessarily comes before the horn of plenty and then you need big coin totals to drive the hagglers, but the horns of plenty don't provide coins. It's better to maximise this one theme, gold and hagglers, than add some diversity theme as well. The deck is messy and you can't ask too much from it.
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