Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: Trade Route for Duke/Duchy  (Read 1622 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

tko

  • Young Witch
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 129
  • Respect: +1
    • View Profile
Trade Route for Duke/Duchy
« on: August 23, 2011, 05:41:03 pm »
0

In a previous post, I mentioned I was inspired by this article to try Duke/Duchy and did so with Trade Route in this game.

I had another game featuring Trade Route and Duke/Duchy, so I gave it another go.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110822-045420-cbe36310.html

This time, I also used Bureaucrat to give me some extra Silvers and despite opening Trade Route/Bureaucrat, I had 5 Silvers after Turn 6 and Turn 7 allowed me to get a Grand Market.

Note my opponent's Turns 4 & 5 each got him a Gold and Turn 6 got him a Grand Market - he's totally beating me in card quality.  Didn't I read Beyond Silver - what was I thinking?  It looks like I have lost this game already.

So I dip into the Hunting Party on Turn 8 and and he follows me there.  I realize with Trade Route, Bureaucrat, etc., that Hunting Party might not be extremely effective, so I plan to trash Bureaucrat at my 1st opportunity.  I'm also thinking that Gold may mess me up, and between the Silvers, Grand Markets, and Trade Routes, I should be able to make an effective Duke/Duchy go, so I plan to avoid Gold.

On Turn 14 my opponent buys the 1st Province and starts the VP race.  His deck has a ridiculous amount of buying power comparatively and I'm still staring down a losing scenario.  But I get a fantastic draw on Turn 14 where I can trash my Bureaucrat with Trade Route, and buy 2 Duchies.

Now I realize I just sent a signal that I'm going for Duke/Duchy, and I decide to split my two buys and 11 coin on Province/Trade Route on Turn 15 to Jedi mind-trick my opponent that I've given up on Duke/Duchy.

Then on Turn 16 I buy another 2 Duchies.

In my opinion, my opponent has been playing well up to this point, but then has a questionable Turn 17 buying Gold + Village.  I believe my opponent didn't see the Dukes value and was keeping his buying power strong.  He picks up Turn 18: Province, Turn 19: Gold & Grand Market, Turn 20: Hunting Party and I'm still not comfortable.  At Turn 20, I have bought multiple Dukes and Duchies but I feel like he still has me outclassed in card quality and reach - he can just counter buying out the Dukes/Duchies better than I can...

The fact that he doesn't counter doesn't draw a definite conclusion to whether Trade Route is effective at targetting Duke/Duchy.  The point of this game report is that people undervalue Duke and you can use this to your advantage, catch them off guard, throw in a Jedi mind-trick, and maybe Trade Route can get you there.
[edit to fix misspellings]
« Last Edit: August 24, 2011, 10:51:45 am by tko »
Logged

ackack

  • Explorer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 302
  • Respect: +19
    • View Profile
Re: Trade Route for Duke/Dutchy
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2011, 08:30:19 am »
0

Yeah, that game isn't representative at all. Trade Route is really not what's doing work here - Grand Market and Hunting Party seem much more significant to me. If you get rid of those, Trade Route seems quite bad for a Duke deck because a) you're unlikely to have sufficient wealth to make use of the +buy to purchase 2 in a turn, and b) you're quickly going to find yourself in a place where you don't really have good things to trash with them, since your deck will be overrun by VP cards you can't afford to eat up.

And yes, your opponent really messed up by not blocking Duchies at all. Even after you've gotten the first 4, he has two turns where he could have afforded double Duchies, so I think he can swing a 5/3 split quite easily. On a similar note, if you're anticipating that Dukes are essential to win, I wouldn't purchase even that one Province that early. It only helps your opponent potentially end the game faster before you can stack up enough of your cards to win.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Trade Route for Duke/Dutchy
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2011, 08:49:58 am »
0

You should also not buy any dukes until you have AT LEAST 7 duchies (or all the duchies are gone), or if the game is somehow in eminent danger of ending and you aren't going to end up needing that many VP anyway (because you have some other form of VP or your opponent has curses, but probably you need a good number of VP tokens, and it's still a small percentage play). With as big and fast as your decks quickly got, I don't think duchy/duke was such a great idea here, especially starting that late, and I'm shocked that the province player got so few in so muh time. Like really, really shocked, considering big money can get to 4 in 17 turns, and this board has lots of improvement over straight big money.
I agree with ackack that Trade Route is not a good idea for most Duke decks, and I want to emphasize that it's an absolutely terrible opener, especially for Duke decks (in which you usually WANT more copper)
Edit: And Bureaucrat is actually quite nice for Duke decks, pretty much all the way through.

Superdad

  • Moneylender
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 161
  • Respect: +2
    • View Profile
Re: Trade Route for Duke/Dutchy
« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2011, 10:17:12 am »
0

On Turn 14 my opponent buys the 1st Province and starts the VP race. 

When reading this I was thinking... wow this is really late.

Quote
but then has a questionable Turn 17 buying Gold + Village. 

and

Quote
Turn 19: Gold & Grand Market,


Unfortunately, I don't think that any conclusions can (should) be drawn from this game. Simple Big Money would have been better (or, really, more to the point, better buying "rules").

Turn 14 is really late for the first province, but he has an extremely strong deck. However, for him to miss two province turns on turn 17 and 19 to further empower his deck just makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I see this kind of game all the time in casual settings, where people polish their shiny deck (and get enjoyment from doing so), but aren't really playing to win.  I know a friend of mine would rather lose, but have one massive 4-province turn. He gets enjoyment from having a huge combo turn, even if he lost the game, and he'd do that every game, even if he knows ahead of time that he'll lose the game. He's the type of person where, there is 1 province left, he gets $5 and buys a laboratory instead of a duchy.

Unfortunately this specific game cannot lend itself to any concrete conclusions about the strategies used.
Logged
Pages: [1]
 

Page created in 0.072 seconds with 20 queries.