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Author Topic: Compare the Villages  (Read 28633 times)

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rrenaud

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #50 on: August 29, 2011, 09:25:53 pm »
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I was actually thinking of writing up an article comparing the Villages at some point, so I guess I'll just fold those thoughts into a mega-post here.

I think this post is super high quality.  Would you like it to be on the front page?
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tlloyd

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #51 on: August 29, 2011, 09:39:43 pm »
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I think the real problem with shanty town lies in trying to create +card/+action drawing chains. This is usally one of villages best uses but with the increased hand size shanty towns are more likely to conflict and since you need the actions to play something like smithy, for example, you'll often have to play the shanty town first. I think the underlying problem is that when trying to set up action chains you usually want a lot of villages and cards that you want to chain whereas with shanty town if you have that the shanty towns will have trouble getting the extra 2 cards and be worse than the vanilla village.

I once had a very successful game using Shanty Town + Courtyard. The ability to put a card back on your deck really helps you get the full benefit of every shanty town. For the same reason, Shanty Town is also an effective counter to hand-size reduction attacks (especially Ghost Ship).
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DG

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #52 on: August 29, 2011, 10:04:33 pm »
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Chwhite's analysis was good but it ultimately told us that the more expensive villages were better than the cheaper villages. When you take into account the cost of the villages they look far more balanced. A worker's village might be more powerful than a village but how often would you buy worker's village + smithy in preference to village + wharf?
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DG

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #53 on: August 29, 2011, 10:07:04 pm »
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Quote
I once had a very successful game using Shanty Town + Courtyard.

Are you sure that was significantly better than two courtyards?
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greatexpectations

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #54 on: August 29, 2011, 10:14:44 pm »
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Shanty town isn't so bad as an opening depending on the board but you are probably better off opening silver/silver most of the time.

ST/silver actually proves to be a slightly stronger open in a BM/witch game. 

i must apologize for my comments before though, i got a little excited trying to make a case for a personal favorite card.  ST/silver is not a guaranteed $5+ because of course the shanty town can miss the reshuffle. it is still quite likely though, and if you do draw the ST you will trigger a reshuffle which includes your new $5 card.
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tlloyd

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #55 on: August 29, 2011, 10:19:30 pm »
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Quote
I once had a very successful game using Shanty Town + Courtyard.

Are you sure that was significantly better than two courtyards?

If by this you mean to ask whether I have run simulations or done statistical analyses, then no. But I won the (IRL) game handily against decent competition. That doesn't mean that Courtyard + BM isn't better, but I'll wager that Courtyard + Shanty Town is a lot more fun!
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chwhite

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #56 on: August 29, 2011, 10:38:43 pm »
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I was actually thinking of writing up an article comparing the Villages at some point, so I guess I'll just fold those thoughts into a mega-post here.

I think this post is super high quality.  Would you like it to be on the front page?

Sure, I'd be honored!  Feel free to edit for grammar/style and whatnot (and add in stuff, such as the part about Cities jumping a rank in multiplayer or anything else I've forgotten).

Chwhite's analysis was good but it ultimately told us that the more expensive villages were better than the cheaper villages. When you take into account the cost of the villages they look far more balanced. A worker's village might be more powerful than a village but how often would you buy worker's village + smithy in preference to village + wharf?

Well, Worker's Village is only one spot above vanilla Village, and I almost put it in Tier 4 instead.  They're really close: that +Buy is worth the extra buck (or said buck doesn't matter; the difference between $3 and $4 is very small) IMO probably like 60 percent of the time, which is just enough to put it above Village.  And it's not the case that I just ranked the more expensive villages higher: the top 2 are both cheapo, and the most expensive village, University, is below average.
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rrenaud

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #57 on: August 30, 2011, 01:53:44 am »
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I posted chwhite's article to the main site.
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Geronimoo

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #58 on: August 30, 2011, 03:52:39 am »
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No card images, Rob?
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rrenaud

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #59 on: August 30, 2011, 09:56:27 am »
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I am lazy :(
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DStu

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #60 on: August 30, 2011, 10:07:08 am »
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There isn't even a title...
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rrenaud

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #61 on: August 30, 2011, 10:19:51 am »
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I fixed the title problem.
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theory

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #62 on: September 08, 2011, 12:45:37 pm »
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I fixed the images problem.
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rrenaud

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #63 on: September 08, 2011, 12:56:43 pm »
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Haha.  Remember all of your crappy commits to dominionstats that I cleaned up?  Guess who has write access to the front page? I think we've been lacking content recently... :P
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chwhite

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #64 on: October 31, 2011, 03:14:53 pm »
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Basically, if you're buying terminals at all (and not going Bank), there's virtually no reason to buy Silver ahead of this [Fishing Village], ever.

With the advent of Hinterlands, this is no longer true.  Stables is an excellent reason to buy Silver instead, and in general the Hinterlands environment is so heavily skewed towards Big Money, and specifically Silver-heavy BM, that there are likely other Hinterlands scenarios where the FV just doesn't provide the level of advantage over Silver it did in the Action-friendly environment of Seaside/Alchemy/Prosperity/Cornucopia. 

__________

I've been thinking a little bit about how the Hinterlands villages stack up in this list, and also if Hinterlands shuffles any of these rankings- I don't know yet, but I'd be inclined to keep the rest of this list pretty much the same. Briefly, and these rankings are subject to change, here's how I'd slot them:

Border Village is, I think, in Tier 1 for sure, probably second behind Fishing Village.  I think, in fact, it's by far the best card in Hinterlands (I am going to pretend here that the "let's all stop having fun and play like simulators" JoaT doesn't exist).  Obviously it is best when there are $5 terminals you want to chain- Torturer, Wharf, Margrave, that sort of stuff, in that case the Border Village basically erases the often-substantial opportunity cost of getting your engine up and running, buy a power terminal and we'll throw in a Village for only $1 more that you don't need to waste a Buy on!  And like Peddler it is awesome with cards that care about other card costs (Salvager, Apprentice, Bishop, etc.).  It drastically lowers the difficulty of setting up action chains in a way that is only rivaled by FV- and also drastically increases the chance of 3-piling, which is a powerful effect if you can leverage it correctly.  And even when you don't want power $5 terminals, it's still often worth buying: with a $4 terminal the BV is merely $2 extra, and if you have $6 and there are strong $5 non-terminals you want or it's Duchy time, then why not get the Border Village too? 

I have bought Border Village literally every time it's been on the board so far.  This is not likely to last forever, but I have every expectation it'll stay on top of my Buy% until isotropic disappears.

Inn is a good deal trickier.  +2 Actions, +2 Cards, discard 2 cards is not actually that powerful: it's basically a Village (mini-)Warehouse, which I suspect would be a reasonable but probably weakish $4 card.  Obviously discard effects combo with things like Tunnel, Menagerie, and Library, but you're still at -1 Card overall, which normally is going to make it harder to actually use those two actions. 

However, Inn is probably the very best example of a card whose true power is tied up in the when-gain effect: selectively returning your best actions to the deck before reshuffle can be quite powerful when timed right (and luckily, Inn being a Village makes it easier to play them).  If you buy an Inn right before reshuffle, you can often get an entirely designer hand.  But even here there are pitfalls: chief among them actions you've played this turn don't get reshuffled.  My sense is that Inn is thus a fairly tricky card to play, and it gets somewhat overbought among the Isotropic populace at large. (I have a very high Win Rate With, but overall its numbers are quite weak.)  Bought mindlessly, it is an overpriced waste of a $5, in the hands of an experienced player it provides for some incredibly strong tactical plays.  I would be inclined to put it between City and Farming Village, at the bottom of Tier 2.

Crossroads is super-trappy and not nearly as good as it looks, and Rinkworks has already said far more intelligent things about it in his front-page article than I could dream of.  And yet I've bought it like 90 percent of the time anyway- early on, because I fell for the trap HARD, but lately because I've been taking its presence as an invitation/compulsion to green early, so a late-game Crossroads on a bad turn becomes an easy buy.  One thing I do want to highlight, though, is that it's not a great source of +Action.  +3 Actions is more than any card gives on this turn (Fishing Village does it over two), but it only works for the first one, so a dedicated Crossroads deck is going to be spending them on more Crossroads, and like Shanty Town the two parts of the card work at cross-purposes.  If you draw lots of cards from your first Crossroads, you likely have a hand of inert green and the Actions are a waste, if you can play all those Actions, chances are your Crossroad didn't draw you any cards.

To be honest, I have a real hard time ranking Crossroads: sometimes you can build massive engines with it, sometimes it's a bad trap, often it's basically a late-game Cellar, and almost always the +Card is more important than the extra Actions and it'd play much the same if it just always gave +1 Action.  I want to punt on this one, if I had to rank it maybe it would go between University and Worker's Village, or perhaps just below vanilla Village, but I'm really not sure?
« Last Edit: October 31, 2011, 04:54:54 pm by chwhite »
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chwhite

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #65 on: October 31, 2011, 08:35:50 pm »
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I have bought Border Village literally every time it's been on the board so far.  This is not likely to last forever, but I have every expectation it'll stay on top of my Buy% until isotropic disappears.

Finally found a setup where I was happy to skip the Border Villages.  It took Masq-BM to make it happen:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/31/game-20111031-172937-6e02a342.html
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hobo386

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Re: Compare the Villages
« Reply #66 on: November 01, 2011, 12:55:34 pm »
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I have bought Border Village literally every time it's been on the board so far.  This is not likely to last forever, but I have every expectation it'll stay on top of my Buy% until isotropic disappears.

Finally found a setup where I was happy to skip the Border Villages.  It took Masq-BM to make it happen:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/31/game-20111031-172937-6e02a342.html

Yep, the biggest time you don't want BV is when there's not an action worth chaining.
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