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[PitzerMike]

I just had a game on Isotropic with the following cards: City, Colony, Courtyard, Fishing Village, Hoard, Moneylender, Pearl Diver, Platinum, Potion, Quarry, Stables, University, and Witch.

Opening 4/3 i bought a moneylender and fishing village thinking the moneylender would help me get a witch pretty quickly and more importantly get rid of my coppers. The midgame plan was to get a potion and some universities that would ultimately allow me to gain many cities and win the game. At the end of my turn 9 my opponent made the following remark and resigned thereafter: "I'm sick of playing luckers that don't actually know how to play optimally, please, go fuck yourself, Quarry was a way better option to moneylender"

I don't think he was very happy with my play. I would like to hear some opinions. I preferred moneylender because it would also get rid of all the coppers during the midgame where I would be low on money anyway (considering my opponent opened witch) and pretty much just gaining cards with universities. But with stables on the board the coppers might not matter that much and quarry might be the better choice.

Here's the log of the game (I'm InASlump): http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/02/game-20121002-082604-5ca51e8b.html

Anyway I believe the key was not so much luck, but the decision to go for universities. In the absence of +buy that's the only way to grab all those cities.
What do you think, was I lucky? And also how would you have played this kingdom?

[polonkus]

I wouldn't take seriously anything said by someone who complains about luck after opening 5/2 on a board with Witch.

[jsh357]

I hate to say it, but your opponent might have just been a crazy and/or inexperienced and/or trolling person.  Nothing is wrong with your opening and it seems pretty close to optimal to me, and reducing your Copper amount eliminates luck more than the opposite.  Also, your opponent has no right to claim you got lucky when he opened 5/2 Witch with no trashing on the board. 

[thirtyseven]

I would unquestionably open Moneylender over Quarry. Why would you need Quarry?

[popsofctown]

I hate to say it, but your opponent might have just been a crazy and/or inexperienced and/or trolling person.  Nothing is wrong with your opening and it seems pretty close to optimal to me, and reducing your Copper amount eliminates luck more than the opposite.  Also, your opponent has no right to claim you got lucky when he opened 5/2 Witch with no trashing on the board.

Without looking at the game, it's possible he bottomdecked the Witch and had lots of other unlucky outcomes after the fortunate opening.  It is possible to be the unlucky player after a 5/2 Witch, just unlikely.

Someone has told me on this forum that Moneylender is bad in Witch games.  Not at all sure I believe that guy..

Silver has a better chance of getting Witch into your second reshuffle than Fishing Village.  I'd open Moneylender/Silver.

[greatexpectations]

opening quarry seems foolish to me.  i wouldn't mind picking one up later in the game with an odd $4 turn though. when cities inevitably hit level 2 a quarry can help you run piles with the plus buy.

[Captain_Frisk]

Quarry will get you a witch slightly more often than money lender (quarry + 2 coppers gets a witch, where moneylender + 2 coppers does not)

His opponent was unlucky in drawing his witch on turn 4 (and having it miss the shuffle because of the T3 courtyard play).  Opening 5/2 and still losing the curse split after 9 turns is pretty rough, but I think I would have done the same thing (ML + FV).

People are sore losers, including me.

[greatexpectations]

Someone has told me on this forum that Moneylender is bad in Witch games.  Not at all sure I believe that guy..

Silver has a better chance of getting Witch into your second reshuffle than Fishing Village.  I'd open Moneylender/Silver.

silver will give you better odds of hitting witch early, but in the long term i think i'd rather have the FV. i would seek to avoid adding any coin to my deck and just focus on drawing pieces and spamming witch. FV and moneylender should provide all the coin you need until you can reliably draw most of your deck.

[popsofctown]

There's no trashing.  It will take a long time to draw your whole deck.  You'd rather have a Fishing Vilalge long term but that first Witch is important enough to give Silver an edge here.

Silver also buys the second Witch better because it doesn't draw dead off of Witch and it doesn't miss reshuffles.

[greatexpectations]

There's no trashing.  It will take a long time to draw your whole deck.  You'd rather have a Fishing Vilalge long term but that first Witch is important enough to give Silver an edge here.

Silver also buys the second Witch better because it doesn't draw dead off of Witch and it doesn't miss reshuffles.

there is trashing though. moneylender will get rid of your copper fairly quick, especially if you focus your deck for drawing and cycling.

drawing dead off of witch won't be an issue with multiple fishing villages. and to me, consistent coin and spare actions is worth missing a reshuffle. the slight economy boost of silver is not worth it to me, especially with such good engine options at $3 and $4.

[RichardNixon]

I wouldn't take seriously anything said by someone who complains about luck after opening 5/2 on a board with Witch.

This, not to mention the fact that the guy was an asshat.

I would have gone moneylender/silver as some others here to make as sure as possible I get in on the witch game on time.
I usually only buy quarry if there's nothing decent at $4 or in response to some very specific cards like Grand Market (much easier to get $4 without copper than $6) or Goons (buy lots of cheap cantrips for points).

[Drab Emordnilap]

there is trashing though. moneylender will get rid of your copper fairly quick, especially if you focus your deck for drawing and cycling.

I think what he means is that there's no trashing for Curses, and so it's more important to get a Witch as soon as possible because every curse you give out is one less you can get stuck with for the duration of the game.

[ednever]

Interesting set.

Some thoughts:
1- this is a colony game, so it will go long. This increases the value of both university and city
2- the curses will be empty. This increases the value of cities again
3- you will be cursed, so cycling it important. And you will likely go cities soon, do you will eventually have a ton of actions.
4- no plus buy until the cities are gone. Which means quarry is only a gold for action cards
5- but you are only going to want action cards for a long time - until curses are gone and cities are low

I think there is an argument for opening quary+courtyard.

That will almost guarentee you a witch on the first reshuffle. The cy also let's you cycle fast to play it more often. Depending on draws you likely want to pick up:
1- a potion to start getting universities to draw down the cities (and the ability to empty the last city on your turn- so you get the mega turn before he goes assuming a mirror)
2- some sort of +action (ideally university, but maybe a fv on a $3 draw)
3- a second witch to really win the curse war - and the draw should help later when you have all those cities and universities
4- then lots of cities
5- be careful emptying the pile. Stables may be the right choice when there is one city left (and cursed are gone.
6- fv and cy on low $ draws likely won't hurt

Played that way the game will end on piles for sure. Likely when someone can use a university to get a city, then go on a mega turn getting a bunch of buys, and emptying a 3rd pile. Or, of they can't, picking up enough vp so the other guy can't end on piles. Then it goes back and forth with both players grabbing (likely) duchies and estates trying to stay ahead.

Lots of interaction in any case.

If the other guy doesn't mirror, then you empty cities even faster, grab some plats, and try to come from behind on colonies (and likely provinces) before its too late.

Ed

[RisingJaguar]

Your opening is just about correct.  The silver's long term help doesn't help enough to warrant that short term gain.  FV is just too helpful in the cycling of this sort of deck. 

With that said, I don't really like the T3 potion that much.  I feel like you should have grabbed witch, FV, or courtyards only as this would help win you the curse war, as this is of main importance as there's no way to trash this.  Also with so much cycling with this sort of deck, you'd likely still be able to grab universities/cities at a good rate when you transition over. 

Quarry is no good here, it's pretty useless in a deck here.  There's just no +buy or $6/$7 actions you'd want. 

His anger probably stems from some really bad shuffle luck.  Never gets to connect a single FV with +cards. 

[Ludgate]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

ML/FV is a decent opening here.  Some of the other strategies are good as well, many of them being viable.  I wouldn't worry about the  comments he made.

I just ran into this guy on a board with Conspirator, Nobles, Spice Merchant, KC, Council Room and some other random stuff I don't remember.  (I took too long registering here that I timed out back into the Isotropic lobby before noting the game number.  :/)

Anyway, I digress.  He was using council room a lot (often KC'ing them) giving me nice sized hands.  I'd use those big hands to play SM or Nobles to activate my Conspirators at gets lots of $$$.  He rage quit around turn 10 complaining about Conspirator luck.  My reply was litterally, "Luck???  lol"

This guy obviously doesn't get high-end play as he was instrumental in me activating my cons on most turns.

[PitzerMike]

Thanks everyone. I also didn't like quarry here because there was no +buy. Although it could get me the witch(es) more reliably.
Or maybe add it later on, when cities are activated to further sprint ahead - but at that point most action cards that you want should mostly be gone already.

Your opening is just about correct.  The silver's long term help doesn't help enough to warrant that short term gain.  FV is just too helpful in the cycling of this sort of deck. 

With that said, I don't really like the T3 potion that much.  I feel like you should have grabbed witch, FV, or courtyards only as this would help win you the curse war, as this is of main importance as there's no way to trash this.  Also with so much cycling with this sort of deck, you'd likely still be able to grab universities/cities at a good rate when you transition over. 

Quarry is no good here, it's pretty useless in a deck here.  There's just no +buy or $6/$7 actions you'd want. 

His anger probably stems from some really bad shuffle luck.  Never gets to connect a single FV with +cards.

Yes, I definitely would have wanted a courtyard or two in my deck. My reasoning for the potion was that I didn't mind so much losing the curse split (and after his 5/2 opening i certainly didn't have much hope of winning it). But with my 3 universities to his zero i would be able to grab those cities quickly and they'd be activated when the curses were gone. All those actions and the good draw from witch/courtyard/cities would help me deal with the curses just fine.

Also from turn 9 on would I want any silvers to not run out of money or just load up on fishing villages? I feel I needed at least one silver to be able to afford gold.

Oh, and welcome Ludgate

[-Stef-]

Hi PitzerMike,


First of all.... sorry for you you had to endure such language. Fortunately this kind of behavior is extremely rare with level 40+ players. I think the sensible response is not to take it too seriously and try to ignore such a person. Eventually just play someone else. Any more energy you spend on it is a waste.

About the game... Basically I think you played very well. Your opponent did not.

Fishing Village/Moneylender would definitely be my opening as well. Quarry is not even considered and I really don't like Silver either. You will need the actions soon (Witch if you can, but courtyard is also very good) and money-wise fishing village isn't much worse then silver. Sure, I can construct some shuffles where silver gets me to $5 and silver doesn't (CCMEE - CCC?E - CC), but not too many and there even are some edge cases where it's the other way around (CC?EE - CCCCE - CM). More importantly: hitting $5 is quite likely already. I want the option to add a courtyard, and silver makes that awkward.

The next decision is on your turn 3, where you get a potion and I once again agree. But this one is trickier then the opening. Having the fishing village in play, you're very likely to get a witch next turn anyway. It should make you lose the curse split, but getting the universities started is easily important enough. If you would have gotten to $4 on a CCCCE hand, I think I'd go for courtyard though. Getting the witch cannot be postponed to turn 7/8.

Your opponent then makes a game-losing mistake by playing courtyard on turn 3. Courtyard can somewhat 'prevent' a clash of two terminals on turn 3, but only if the other terminal doesn't draw. It makes a) his witch miss the reshuffle, b) your curse miss the reshuffle, c) his t4 buy miss the reshuffle. He has nothing to compensate for this whatsoever. If he plays the witch on t3, he may very well get to $3 anyway (fishing village & moneylender) and even if he doesn't (pearl diver & stables) he's much better of then he is now. Now he has a reshuffle containing a fishing village and a courtyard only, and to make it worse he has to draw two cards dead (which is what happened to his courtyard).
I would not even have played the courtyard turn 3 if I didn't have witch in hand (!).

After this the game is basicly over, unless some bizarre luck / bad luck hits either one of you, and it doesn't.

But to comment on the possibilities after turn 9...
You definately do not need to turn to buying silvers. In fact they would still be bad. (bad as in rather have nothing then silver). You still want to decrease the deck-cycle, to maximize use of your universities. I would probably even add courtyards over fishing villages on less-then-$5 turns. Your cities will draw enough cards soon to hit gold anyway, and platinum soon after. Being the only player that can get >1 card/turn, you're in complete control of the game.

[PitzerMike]

Hi PitzerMike,


First of all.... sorry for you you had to endure such language. Fortunately this kind of behavior is extremely rare with level 40+ players. I think the sensible response is not to take it too seriously and try to ignore such a person. Eventually just play someone else. Any more energy you spend on it is a waste.

About the game... Basically I think you played very well. Your opponent did not.

Fishing Village/Moneylender would definitely be my opening as well. Quarry is not even considered and I really don't like Silver either. You will need the actions soon (Witch if you can, but courtyard is also very good) and money-wise fishing village isn't much worse then silver. Sure, I can construct some shuffles where silver gets me to $5 and silver doesn't (CCMEE - CCC?E - CC), but not too many and there even are some edge cases where it's the other way around (CC?EE - CCCCE - CM). More importantly: hitting $5 is quite likely already. I want the option to add a courtyard, and silver makes that awkward.

The next decision is on your turn 3, where you get a potion and I once again agree. But this one is trickier then the opening. Having the fishing village in play, you're very likely to get a witch next turn anyway. It should make you lose the curse split, but getting the universities started is easily important enough. If you would have gotten to $4 on a CCCCE hand, I think I'd go for courtyard though. Getting the witch cannot be postponed to turn 7/8.

Your opponent then makes a game-losing mistake by playing courtyard on turn 3. Courtyard can somewhat 'prevent' a clash of two terminals on turn 3, but only if the other terminal doesn't draw. It makes a) his witch miss the reshuffle, b) your curse miss the reshuffle, c) his t4 buy miss the reshuffle. He has nothing to compensate for this whatsoever. If he plays the witch on t3, he may very well get to $3 anyway (fishing village & moneylender) and even if he doesn't (pearl diver & stables) he's much better of then he is now. Now he has a reshuffle containing a fishing village and a courtyard only, and to make it worse he has to draw two cards dead (which is what happened to his courtyard).
I would not even have played the courtyard turn 3 if I didn't have witch in hand (!).

After this the game is basicly over, unless some bizarre luck / bad luck hits either one of you, and it doesn't.

But to comment on the possibilities after turn 9...
You definately do not need to turn to buying silvers. In fact they would still be bad. (bad as in rather have nothing then silver). You still want to decrease the deck-cycle, to maximize use of your universities. I would probably even add courtyards over fishing villages on less-then-$5 turns. Your cities will draw enough cards soon to hit gold anyway, and platinum soon after. Being the only player that can get >1 card/turn, you're in complete control of the game.

Hearing that from such a good player as yourself makes me very

Great insight on the courtyard play. I hadn't considered all the implications. Also I now realize that with good enough draw I wouldn't need any silver. My first city definitely should have been a third witch in light of that.

It's fascinating how a game can basically be over after only a few turns.

[greatexpectations]

Your opponent then makes a game-losing mistake by playing courtyard on turn 3. Courtyard can somewhat 'prevent' a clash of two terminals on turn 3, but only if the other terminal doesn't draw. It makes a) his witch miss the reshuffle, b) your curse miss the reshuffle, c) his t4 buy miss the reshuffle. He has nothing to compensate for this whatsoever. If he plays the witch on t3, he may very well get to $3 anyway (fishing village & moneylender) and even if he doesn't (pearl diver & stables) he's much better of then he is now. Now he has a reshuffle containing a fishing village and a courtyard only, and to make it worse he has to draw two cards dead (which is what happened to his courtyard).

this is fantastic stuff. much appreciated.

[Rabid]

Great insight from Stef above.
"Obvious" when the logic is explained, but it is so easy to see a hand of courtyard + terminal and think "I want to play both" without thinking it though properly.

It is very easy to concentrate too much on what cards to buy and when.
I think there is a lot we can still learn about how to play each hand and deck / shuffle management.

[enquerencia]

This is a great thread for people like me who basically understand the game but have trouble with some of the nuances of complex play.  My only reason for posting to it is to say that overall, I really dislike people who use the chat function to deride other players and make derogatory remarks.  If the other player felt that you were playing sub-"optimally," then he should have figured out a way to overcome your "luck." 

In general I strongly dislike quitters.  Finish the game.  You might learn something.

[DG]

Anyone want to rethink the strategy here as a 3 player kingdom?

[SirPeebles]

This is a great thread for people like me who basically understand the game but have trouble with some of the nuances of complex play.  My only reason for posting to it is to say that overall, I really dislike people who use the chat function to deride other players and make derogatory remarks.  If the other player felt that you were playing sub-"optimally," then he should have figured out a way to overcome your "luck." 

In general I strongly dislike quitters.  Finish the game.  You might learn something.

I agree that there's no need for language like that.  I had an admittedly lucky play of Scrying Pool yesterday which nearly drew my entire deck, thereby allowing me to buy both a Possession and a Cartographer and trash a large portion of my non-actions.  My opponent then called me a "lucky faggot" and quit.  Now, I don't particularly have a problem with quitters.  I just now played a game where I had my opponent in a ghost ship lock and was up something like 4 colonies to 1, while islanding them to keep my lock going.  I wouldn't have minded at all if my opponent respectfully resigned -- I probably would have.  You can even make a respectful comment about luck if you wish (although I would usually at least want to reflect on the game log before arguing that there was significant luck).  But no matter how much luck there is, it's utterly uncalled for to use such foul and cruel language.

[enquerencia]

Well, a respectful resignation is something.  I suppose I'm okay with it.  But in general, (and maybe I'm sort of a good guy Greg,) I prefer to play the game out and let the other player get their good feeling of having trounced me rather than just clock out and call it a day.  I mean, I like playing Dominion.  That's why I play it.  But true.  A respectful resignation is far preferable to a series of potty words and sore-loser-itis.

[SirPeebles]

It depends on the game.  If I'm well on my way to a gratifying megaturn, sure, let me play it through.  But keeping some in a ghost ship lock or a series of devastating torturer chains?  Meh, it was fun the first time.  Now it's just sort of a pain to bother finishing and buying up all those provinces and colonies.  In my ghost ship game earlier I saw that I was nearly fifty points ahead, so I just expanded two colonies into the last two colonies.  Sure, I could easily have bought them in the next couple rounds, but what's the point?