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Author Topic: Contesting a card vs. buying the best card  (Read 2659 times)

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Epoch

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Contesting a card vs. buying the best card
« on: August 15, 2011, 01:32:58 pm »
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You and your opponent both are going for Minions, and you draw $6 (or $7).  Do you get a Gold or a King's Court, understanding that they are the better card for your deck (let's stipulate that they are the better card for your deck), or do you get another Minion on the basis that denying your opponent the Minion is better than the differential in utility in your deck?

You and your opponent are racing for Duchies in a Duke kingdom.  You draw $5.  You already have 4 Duchies, and no Dukes, so a Duke buy gets you more VP than a Duchy buy.  Do you go Duchy to deny your opponent?

Fishing Villages are out and likely to be depleted to 0.  You get $4 or $5 with good $4 or $5 actions on the board.  Do you get the Fishing Village instead?



Obviously, the answer is "sometimes."  But how do you make that decision?  What are your heuristics for deciding when it's better to end up with the majority of a contested card, and when it's more valuable to get a card that's stronger overall, but will not likely be depleted, and will be there for you later?  I feel like I'm reading tea leaves when I try to make this decision.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Contesting a card vs. buying the best card
« Reply #1 on: August 15, 2011, 01:50:04 pm »
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Minions: Pretty much always take the KC here, unless you already have like more KCs than actions. Gold? Well, are you going to be able to get through the game without stalling based only on minions? Then go minion. If not, then go gold.
Duchies: Almost always go for the Duchy. It'll be worth more in the long run.
Fishing Village: Well, probably go for the 'good' 4/5 action. Probably you don't need a billion fishing villages. But it sorta depends on how good 'good' is, and how many terminals you have against how many FVs you have.
Also if three piling is going to happen soon/let you win, more likely you should go for the pile.

Overall though, you really shouldn't be doing these out of denial so much as out of what will help your deck more.

chwhite

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Re: Contesting a card vs. buying the best card
« Reply #2 on: August 15, 2011, 01:53:48 pm »
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You and your opponent both are going for Minions, and you draw $6 (or $7).  Do you get a Gold or a King's Court, understanding that they are the better card for your deck (let's stipulate that they are the better card for your deck), or do you get another Minion on the basis that denying your opponent the Minion is better than the differential in utility in your deck?

You and your opponent are racing for Duchies in a Duke kingdom.  You draw $5.  You already have 4 Duchies, and no Dukes, so a Duke buy gets you more VP than a Duchy buy.  Do you go Duchy to deny your opponent?

Fishing Villages are out and likely to be depleted to 0.  You get $4 or $5 with good $4 or $5 actions on the board.  Do you get the Fishing Village instead?



Obviously, the answer is "sometimes."  But how do you make that decision?  What are your heuristics for deciding when it's better to end up with the majority of a contested card, and when it's more valuable to get a card that's stronger overall, but will not likely be depleted, and will be there for you later?  I feel like I'm reading tea leaves when I try to make this decision.

If I'm going for Minions, I'd pass up the Gold and take the King's Court with near-100 percent certainty. The idea that Gold would be a "better card for your deck" if you're seriously contesting Minions is a strange idea (normally you want most of your Treasure to be from Actions, since you're just going to be discarding most of your Treasure cards), and it would take a very odd Kingdom for  that to be the case.  But King's Courting a Minion is way better than just playing two Minions, so KC it is.

I would absolutely buy the Duchies.  In Duke games, emptying the Duchy pile first is a must if you're both going that route.

The last one is far more situational, and I don't even know how to answer it without knowing a) how many players (the more players, the more important to race FV) and b) how good those other cards are.  I'd probably take a $5 card over FV though.
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Epoch

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Re: Contesting a card vs. buying the best card
« Reply #3 on: August 15, 2011, 02:05:37 pm »
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Guys, the opening three things are examples, not the main question.

The QUESTION is, "How do you judge these decisions"?  What is the thought process you use to decide, "Do I take a less-good card now, because it will not be available soon," versus "Do I take a more-good card now even though I'll have more opportunities to buy it later"?

Trying to answer it for myself, I suspect that the answer depends on whether the contested card actually combos with itself (like Minion or Nobles), or whether it's just a useful, good card (like Caravan or Fishing Village).  The former seems more likely to be worth forgoing a "better" card to buy, both to increase the chance that your deck will start consistently firing, and to decrease the chance that your opponent's deck will start consistently firing.  The latter seems like it's less vital that you end up at least 5-5 rather than 4-6.

But how about the amount of the contested card left in supply, or the ratios that you and your opponent have?  Is it more or less good to decline the contested card if you already have a lead in the contest?  Like, if you have 3 and your opponent has 2, is it better to lengthen your lead or to say, "Well, if he catches up, no worries"?  How about if there are 3 left in the supply versus 7 left in the supply?

How about if it's earlier or later in the game?

I can see arguments in all directions.  Like, "Sure, I don't need to worry about getting every last Minion, so since I'm ahead, I'm okay with letting my opponent catch up a little," versus, "I have a decisive Minion lead, I can consolidate that by preferring Minions to other, 'better' cards and making sure that my opponent simply can't put together a Minion engine."
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Fangz

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Re: Contesting a card vs. buying the best card
« Reply #4 on: August 15, 2011, 02:17:49 pm »
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It's kinda unlikely that denying your opponent that minion will mean all that much at the end of the day. I mean, if even he was to end up in that situation, he'd probably go for kings court instead, making you denying him that minion mostly useless.
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rrenaud

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Re: Contesting a card vs. buying the best card
« Reply #5 on: August 15, 2011, 02:33:44 pm »
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You rarely want to contest for the sake of denial in 2p.  You really want to be in executing your strategy well.  Usually, there is not enough power in taking a card so your opponent cannot.  Rarely do combos require more than 5 of one card, and sometimes there are acceptable substitutes anyway.

I can only remember one game where I successfully contested a card.  In this game against Dstern, I buy bazaars to limit the effectiveness of his bridges.  If there had been some other source of +actions, or if the bazaars weren't pretty good in my deck already, it wouldn't work.

Buy turn 9, he has 4 bridges, but since I took 6 of the bazaars, there just aren't enough actions for him to get a megaturn.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110129-182750-ae9af5c9.html#rrenaud-show-turn-9
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HockeyHippo

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Re: Contesting a card vs. buying the best card
« Reply #6 on: August 15, 2011, 02:36:46 pm »
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I'm going to answer this more generically than specifically.

Well if you're both racing for a powerful $5 card, be it labs, minions, cities, or whatever. I believe it depends on the level of the supply. If the supply has only 2 gone, then I would take the gold at 6. I would almost always take the KC at 7. However, if the supply is getting low then I would be more inclined to buy the $5 card. This also depends on if I had bought a Gold before, or if my opponent has the ability to buy multiples of them.

As far as Duke/Dutchy strategy, it's usually better to go for the Dutchy, unless the game is ending soon. If the game is not close to ending, then buying a Dutchy not only limits the power of his Dukes, but also increases the power of yours. If you have the time, it's better to power your Dukes as much as possible first. Pretty basic strategy, if the game is close to completion maximize your VPs, if not, maximize your potential.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Contesting a card vs. buying the best card
« Reply #7 on: August 15, 2011, 02:51:42 pm »
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Guys, the opening three things are examples, not the main question.

The QUESTION is, "How do you judge these decisions"?  What is the thought process you use to decide, "Do I take a less-good card now, because it will not be available soon," versus "Do I take a more-good card now even though I'll have more opportunities to buy it later"?

Trying to answer it for myself, I suspect that the answer depends on whether the contested card actually combos with itself (like Minion or Nobles), or whether it's just a useful, good card (like Caravan or Fishing Village).  The former seems more likely to be worth forgoing a "better" card to buy, both to increase the chance that your deck will start consistently firing, and to decrease the chance that your opponent's deck will start consistently firing.  The latter seems like it's less vital that you end up at least 5-5 rather than 4-6.

But how about the amount of the contested card left in supply, or the ratios that you and your opponent have?  Is it more or less good to decline the contested card if you already have a lead in the contest?  Like, if you have 3 and your opponent has 2, is it better to lengthen your lead or to say, "Well, if he catches up, no worries"?  How about if there are 3 left in the supply versus 7 left in the supply?

How about if it's earlier or later in the game?

I can see arguments in all directions.  Like, "Sure, I don't need to worry about getting every last Minion, so since I'm ahead, I'm okay with letting my opponent catch up a little," versus, "I have a decisive Minion lead, I can consolidate that by preferring Minions to other, 'better' cards and making sure that my opponent simply can't put together a Minion engine."
The way you phrased it did not at all make it clear that you were looking for something more general than these specific examples.
As for these new questions, my post above gives the rule of thumb: don't really worry about denying your opponent. So it really doesn't matter if you're stopping your opponent from getting to that last minion or fishing village or whatever. You're really making it more complicated than it needs to be. Your question about passing up a minion for 'a better card' like gold is a great example. My question to you is "Why do you think Gold is a better card than minion here". It doesn't matter whether gold in general is a better card than minion. Is it for your deck? In many many minion decks, it is not, and so I would often go for the minion there. KC is usually better than minion in a minion deck though, so there you go. And as for when to start buying green cards vs. engine cards, that's really a separate (very good, but separate) question as well, and it's something you get off of a feel of when you've got enough firepower to get to 50% of the VP fairly reliably, also factoring in the speed of your opponent's deck.

chwhite

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Re: Contesting a card vs. buying the best card
« Reply #8 on: August 15, 2011, 03:00:07 pm »
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Guys, the opening three things are examples, not the main question.

The QUESTION is, "How do you judge these decisions"?  What is the thought process you use to decide, "Do I take a less-good card now, because it will not be available soon," versus "Do I take a more-good card now even though I'll have more opportunities to buy it later"?

Trying to answer it for myself, I suspect that the answer depends on whether the contested card actually combos with itself (like Minion or Nobles), or whether it's just a useful, good card (like Caravan or Fishing Village).  The former seems more likely to be worth forgoing a "better" card to buy, both to increase the chance that your deck will start consistently firing, and to decrease the chance that your opponent's deck will start consistently firing.  The latter seems like it's less vital that you end up at least 5-5 rather than 4-6.

But how about the amount of the contested card left in supply, or the ratios that you and your opponent have?  Is it more or less good to decline the contested card if you already have a lead in the contest?  Like, if you have 3 and your opponent has 2, is it better to lengthen your lead or to say, "Well, if he catches up, no worries"?  How about if there are 3 left in the supply versus 7 left in the supply?

How about if it's earlier or later in the game?

I can see arguments in all directions.  Like, "Sure, I don't need to worry about getting every last Minion, so since I'm ahead, I'm okay with letting my opponent catch up a little," versus, "I have a decisive Minion lead, I can consolidate that by preferring Minions to other, 'better' cards and making sure that my opponent simply can't put together a Minion engine."
The way you phrased it did not at all make it clear that you were looking for something more general than these specific examples.
As for these new questions, my post above gives the rule of thumb: don't really worry about denying your opponent. So it really doesn't matter if you're stopping your opponent from getting to that last minion or fishing village or whatever. You're really making it more complicated than it needs to be. Your question about passing up a minion for 'a better card' like gold is a great example. My question to you is "Why do you think Gold is a better card than minion here". It doesn't matter whether gold in general is a better card than minion. Is it for your deck? In many many minion decks, it is not, and so I would often go for the minion there. KC is usually better than minion in a minion deck though, so there you go. And as for when to start buying green cards vs. engine cards, that's really a separate (very good, but separate) question as well, and it's something you get off of a feel of when you've got enough firepower to get to 50% of the VP fairly reliably, also factoring in the speed of your opponent's deck.

I mostly agree with this, with one big caveat:  it is important to worry about denying your opponent if their strategy is based around nonstandard VP cards.  Duchies (in a Duke game), Gardens, Vineyards are all cards where it's often important to detour from your normal strategy to buy in the interests of denial.
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