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[greatexpectations]

i do believe this is my first ever (non-tournament) game report. it gets a bit long, so it might be more of an annotated game than a game report but whatever. i've actually already mentioned this game before but it is one of the favorite games i have played and i think back on it quite a bit. i think it is a textbook example of Marin's style of play - building a beautiful engine first and then worrying about actually getting points later. anyway, to the game!
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Game Log -
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201209/09/game-20120909-174042-d1745065.html

Kingdom -
Bazaar, Cache, Colony, Counting House, Crossroads, Duke, Embassy, Expand, Forge, Moneylender, Platinum, and Wishing Well

Veto Mode -
so i rarely play veto mode, but in this case Marin had proposed the set to me and i was not about to say no to Marin. i had the first choice of veto and i got rid of nomad camp. Marin followed that up by vetoing stash. there were three reasons for my veto. first off, in any head to head engine building game i felt i was toast. i mean hey, it's Marin. second, i was leaning towards a BM approach and i assumed Marin would go for the engine, so losing the only plus buy hurts. third, nomad camp can cause some swingy openings. getting a nice 4/5 opening could really influence the game. i assume Marin vetoed stash because it would be just about the least useful card on board for an engine.

Potential Strategies -
looking at the board i see three main strategies: Alt-VP, BM, and a basic draw engine.

Alt-VP - Duke would drive this strategy. rely on cache and crossroads to power a Duchy/Duke strategy, perhaps grabbing a province or two when able. i felt this was too weak, especially on a Colony board, as the support was not that strong.

BM - so there are actually two BM approaches i considered here. first, and probably the most obvious, is embassy. embassy is one of the strongest BM options in the game, and i felt that it could play well enough on a board without any real plus buy. the second option is cache/counting House. a bit more of a stretch, but i felt it could play. this strategy would be reminiscent of a philosopher's stone game - you could green earlier than usual because your source of income would stay fairly strong as the game progressed

Draw Engine - Bazaar and Crossroads for actions, Embassy for draw. throw in a Wishing Well or two and then use Moneylender and Expand to thin and improve your deck.

My Strategy -
i decided to go with a BM approach, choosing the Embassy route over Cache/Counting House. i love Counting House, but i just couldn't bring myself to play that strategy against Marin. my basic buying strategy was to open Moneylender to thin a few copper, grab 2 Embassies as quick as possible (and a 3rd/4th later as needed) and then go at it. i would likely favor Platinum over Colony with my first $9+ hand, Cache over silver at 5, and a Crossroads over silver every 2/3 times i would buy a silver. i assumed Marin would play the draw engine.
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Opening Turns -
i picked up my first Plat at turn 8. at that point my deck had a single embassy, a single moneylender, 2 silver, 2 Caches, a gold, and a plat. the cache buys thinned my deck some, but i felt they were worthwhile because of the sifting of Embassy and having the Moneylender. i picked up my second Embassy a turn later and then aimed to buy some Colonies. Marin had played just about as expected, grabbing a few Bazaar's, an Embassy, and then an Expand. no surprises there.

Mid-Game -
i picked up the pace turn 12, buying Colony/Platinum/Colony on consecutive turns. i picked up my 3rd colony turn 16, gaining a nice lead. Marin's only points had come from Forging away some Silvers and an Estate into a Province, though he had worked himself into a nice thin deck. turn 16 proved to be the turning point of the game. whether by design or reaction, this was the point where Marin shifted towards a Duke strategy. he used his expands to end turn 17 with two Duchies and a Cache.

i put on the pressure by picking up my 4th colony that same turn, and Marin responds with two more Duchies turn 19. what really blows me away though is how Marin does it. as mentioned before, the board has no plus buys, with the only ways to gain cards coming from Expand, Forge, and Cache. at this point Marin is able to draw most/all of his deck so he decides to just give himself some virtual +Buys anyway. by gaining a cache each turn he adds two copper too his deck. he has a Forge and two Expands, so he simply Forges a Cache into a Duchy and Expands copper into Silver or Wishing Wells, looking to Expand those cards again into Duchy/Duke next turn. this still blows my mind.

End Game -
i was getting nervous of a huge comeback and knew i had to end the game soon. the question was how. i would have little control over piling out, so it had to be the provinces or colonies. the question then becomes buy priorities. do i spend $9 on a province for points, or do i get the plat which can lead to a colony later? Embassy for the draw at $5 or a duchy/duke to rob from Marin? these are really hard decisions to make, and i suspect that this is where i let the game slip away.

my large 4 colony lead had dwindled fast. i had added 3 colonies and 2 provinces to that total, but in the end it wasn't enough. Marin was still drawing his deck, and his super powered dukes were able to cover most of that colony difference. Marin finished it all off with flair on turn 27, expanding into 2 provinces and a colony to win it by 3 points.
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Takeaways -
first and foremost, i think Marin showed me that the normal conventions don't matter. he made dukes effective on a colony board, he created a workaround for not having a proper way to buy/gain extra cards, and he maintained control over the game by not allowing me the ability to pile out for the win. it is quite frustrating to have a large lead in a game and yet still feel like you don't have any control over it.

second, i think it showed me that you need to work on your contingency plans earlier rather than later. take Marin out of the game entirely by ensuring i can end the Colonies myself quickly by maintaining a good money density and draw power. the casual side buys of duchy or province need to be well thought out.

third, playing BM against someone 10-15 levels higher than you is a chump move.

[eHalcyon]

Curious about the best veto to kill the engine.  +Buy makes sense, but yeah, there's Expand on the board too.  What about vetoing Bazaar or Embassy?  Crossroads still fills in actions and draw, but the actions would be limited and the draw would be generally unreliable, no?

Nice game.

[timchen]

Interesting game! One thing I find amusing is that if it becomes an engine vs.engine game, then it seems that dukes will not be relevant as the other player can deny by buying it then expanding it into Provinces. Only when the BM player is NOT going for dukes that the engine player can take advantage of it. (If it happens in reverse, again the engine player can deny by buying and expanding.)

[greatexpectations]

Curious about the best veto to kill the engine.  +Buy makes sense, but yeah, there's Expand on the board too.  What about vetoing Bazaar or Embassy?  Crossroads still fills in actions and draw, but the actions would be limited and the draw would be generally unreliable, no?

it's very possible, but as i mentioned i really don't play veto ever. i'd be shocked if i've played ten games out of the 4-5k i've played total. i usually check the no veto box, so i only play it when other higher level folk propose games to me.

getting rid of expand or forge would help, but i think that the $2 and plus buy would be more useful. you could easily build a draw engine with a plat or two which could do double colony turns. double colony turns would be more tricky to do consistently with just an expand or forge. bazaar was probably the second best option. but you could still build something with crossroads and embassy so i felt that nomad camp was better. i could be wrong though.

Interesting game! One thing I find amusing is that if it becomes an engine vs.engine game, then it seems that dukes will not be relevant as the other player can deny by buying it then expanding it into Provinces. Only when the BM player is NOT going for dukes that the engine player can take advantage of it. (If it happens in reverse, again the engine player can deny by buying and expanding.)

very true! but at the same time i felt that the lack of a plus buy would be enough to kill dukes off sufficiently. if you could play 2-3 nomad camps a turn then yeah dukes would be a great way to close a deficit. i just didn't foresee Marin's expand/cache trick.

[dondon151]

You won't really have enough actions to pull off the engine without Bazaar. Removing that from the kingdom would have killed the engine completely. Crossroads just doesn't give you enough actions on a single play when you start with a 5-card hand and you need to be matching up lots and lots of cards.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I think this is a great example of why engines are generally better than Big Money decks. And I think Marin is one of the best at consistently demonstrating this. Your big problem here is you can't end the game. There are too many different sources of points out there. And he is in complete control of the game. You feel like you have a lot of tough choices because you have no idea what your draws are going to look like. He's drawing his whole deck every turn, so he knows what he can do. And when he can draw his whole deck, he keeps a lot of options open. I'm sure he didn't think from the start that he was going for a Duke strategy, but he knew that if you decided to rush the Colonies like you did, he could get his points from Dukes instead.

Regarding veto meta-strategy, maybe you want to veto Expand instead because it reduces the chance of a Colony game, in which case Embassy BM is much stronger. But I think dondon is right that removing Bazaar is the biggest engine-killing move here.

[philosophyguy]

So, what happens if you veto Duke? Duke adds almost half again as many VP to the board. That's a lot of time for an engine to take off.

Still, an incredible game.

[WanderingWinder]

I don't believe Marin's strategy is superior here. Willing to test with anyone who wants to on iso. Details later if time permits.

[greatexpectations]

I don't believe Marin's strategy is superior here. Willing to test with anyone who wants to on iso. Details later if time permits.

i'm not convinced it's the best strategy either, but he made it work this game. it's very possible i misplayed some things: the moneylender and crossroads buys, prioritizing cache over silver or embasssy at 5, not picking up a second duchy earlier, etc. of course a couple of draws could have fallen one way or the other too to hand it to me.

[eHalcyon]

So, what happens if you veto Duke? Duke adds almost half again as many VP to the board. That's a lot of time for an engine to take off.

Still, an incredible game.

Marin builds an engine with actual +Buy and uses multi-Colony/Province turns to catch up.

[Eevee]

I don't believe Marin's strategy is superior here. Willing to test with anyone who wants to on iso. Details later if time permits.

How would you test it though? I can't think of a method that would produce meaningful results.

[WanderingWinder]

I don't believe Marin's strategy is superior here. Willing to test with anyone who wants to on iso. Details later if time permits.

How would you test it though? I can't think of a method that would produce meaningful results.

Play a bunch of test games?

[greatexpectations]

How would you test it though? I can't think of a method that would produce meaningful results.

well you could (relatively) easily simulate BM/embassy with 1/2/3 embassies and test it with/without moneylender and cache. marin won by the skin of his teeth, so if i could have ended it 2 turns faster with a cleaner BM play Marin's odds of winning drop quickly.

of course, even if Marin's play was the suboptimal strategy i'm not sure he changes his strategies much anyway. he seems quite fond of engines and frankly pulling off what he did is usually more fun than a BM approach. throw in the fact that he is skilled and creative enough to make it work (maybe more often than it should) and i can see why he woud go for it anyway.

[dondon151]

Duke engine: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/28/game-20121128-201505-b35c7576.html
Embassy BM: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/28/game-20121128-202337-957f42c0.html

Duke engine is unoptimized; it takes a really long time to solitaire and I don't feel like playing it more than once.

Modest luck on the Embassy BM. Solitaire doesn't quite capture the interaction with Embassies, but it should speed up both parties by relatively fair amounts (maybe ~1 turn?) because both strategies like the free Silver, Embassy BM perhaps moreso. Duke engine looks a little overbuilt with the Embassies, and I maybe could have done with just 3, but it's hard to get Crossroads to match up well in such a large deck.

BM Embassy really needs to focus on ending the game; with bad shuffle luck, especially with Embassies and high valued Treasures missing the reshuffle, I was getting as much as 27 turns.

Anyway greatexpectations's takeaways are still valid and accurate, which I guess is the point of the thread.

[Eevee]

I don't believe Marin's strategy is superior here. Willing to test with anyone who wants to on iso. Details later if time permits.

How would you test it though? I can't think of a method that would produce meaningful results.

Play a bunch of test games?

No one or almost no one builds a complicated engine like that as well as Marin. I dont know how good GE is (if Marin thinks he is way better, he probably wants to avoid a mirror?). Also, how well Marin expects GE to execute the BM matters too, right?

It just depends so much on factors like that. To me it didnt look like GE was asking what's the optimal strategy on this board (he isnt ever going to see this board again). Maybe Marin's crazy engines work because his opponents dont know how to play the board optimal on their first try.

[dondon151]

It just depends so much on factors like that. To me it didnt look like GE was asking what's the optimal strategy on this board (he isnt ever going to it again). Maybe Marin's crazy engines work because his opponents dont know how to play the board optimal on their first try.

It's still an important question, however. There is a very small difference between executing a brilliant, if unlikely, engine and just spinning your wheels. The latter is what happens when you just try for an engine willy-nilly without the right parts.

[greatexpectations]

Duke engine is unoptimized; it takes a really long time to solitaire and I don't feel like playing it more than once.

during/after the game we talked over a few points. he mentioned he should have grabbed crossroads earlier, likely in favor of some of those wishing wells. you might be able to play it optimally and pick up a turn, maybe two, but that is really starting to push it i think.

and then there is the fact that we have the benefit of knowing how he went about it. im guessing that many lvl 40+ players wouldn't be able to beat Marin's play if told to empty all of the duchies and dukes. and we also don't know if duke was his full intention coming in, or merely a reaction to falling quite far behind.

Modest luck on the Embassy BM. Solitaire doesn't quite capture the interaction with Embassies, but it should speed up both parties by relatively fair amounts (maybe ~1 turn?) because both strategies like the free Silver, Embassy BM perhaps moreso.

as suspected after the game, i got a bit too cute in my BM approach. i can get away with some sloppy play like that against lower levels and when it works well it's great. but i probably should have played a simpler BM. i'm still unsure about cache vs. silver though, i might have to simulate that. my gut says cache over silver for hitting 8 colonies but silver over cache for hitting 4 colonies.

Anyway greatexpectations's takeaways are still valid and accurate, which I guess is the point of the thread.

true enough. i also wanted to do some analysis on all phases of the game, going through what i was thinking. i don't do videos, so this is about as close as i will come to that.

[greatexpectations]

No one or almost no one builds a complicated engine like that as well as Marin. I dont know how good GE is (if Marin thinks he is way better, he probably wants to avoid a mirror?). Also, how well Marin expects GE to execute the BM matters too, right?

at the time of the game Marin was 51 and i was 38. this was the second game of a set we played, and i beat him (comfortably if i recall) with an engine in the first game. also he proposed to me, so i was likely the highest level player in the lobby at the time and he knew my skill level coming in.

It just depends so much on factors like that. To me it didnt look like GE was asking what's the optimal strategy on this board (he isnt ever going to see this board again).

i wasn't quite asking for the optimal strategy, but i am still interested in seeing it. i knew after the fact that i could have played a little better, but of course that also comes with the knowledge of how Marin played it. maybe a moneylender and crossroads would actually be useful for a straight up colony race that leads to province dancing. who knows. being a colony board with alt vp makes it all a very responsive thing. not quite rock/paper/scissors, but each strategy will be somewhat influenced by the opponent's.

Maybe Marin's crazy engines work because his opponents dont know how to play the board optimal on their first try.

haha as it happens the reverse of this is how i am able to get a lot of wins against lower level players. i personally think i can play a pretty tight BM when needed, so without a quality engine i will defer to the BM and let the opponent struggle. i'm not quite Marin or -Stef-, but i am still good enough to get a decent read on the strength and progress of my opponent's engine and then adjust accordingly.

[Eevee]

awesome report by the way, best thread in this forum i can remember!

[dondon151]

and then there is the fact that we have the benefit of knowing how he went about it. im guessing that many lvl 40+ players wouldn't be able to beat Marin's play if told to empty all of the duchies and dukes. and we also don't know if duke was his full intention coming in, or merely a reaction to falling quite far behind.

To be fair, I didn't read past the kingdom section of your OP before I opened Iso. I remember someone posting a log awhile back of Marin winning on a Colony board with an unorthodox Duke strategy that employed Crossroads, so I pretty much knew exactly how he won after reading the first ~5 sentences.

If Duke was not his intention coming in, he would not have bought Bazaar on turn 4 vs. Embassy, nor would he have bought Expand on turn 5.

[RisingJaguar]

Disclaimer, I would not have thought of this in-game.  This is hindsight analysis. First try, and like DonDon, playing a second seems tiring. 

Also great piece, I usually jump to the game log to figure out player's intentions, but the report was very nice.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/29/game-20121129-060022-1d0f284c.html

21 Turns - 88 points.  Just straight duchy/dukes.  One crossroads away from piling out.  The intention is to show the... my version of 'max speed', similar to how BM would try to get all 8 colonies as fast as possible.  Differences in gameplay:
 - One wishing well then crossroads for <$5.  I'm thinking two wouldn't be horrible, but crossroads should be the drawer...
 - No embassies, the +2 net cards isn't the greatest.  It does help with crossroads drawing, but I think that's where wishing well comes in to provide more green in hand. 
 - 5 bazaars only - Ideally I'd be drawing out my hand and still have enough dollars, this didn't always work so 6-7 could be better for consistency.  Though I think any more is excessive and should be duchies (they help with drawing your deck too). 
 - 2 Moneylenders - I think this helps with drawing out your deck a lot more (lining up green with crossroads).  These can be expanded later. This could have probably been purchased on T4.

I think most of these changes helped in getting duchy/dukes, maybe aside from 5 bazaars, probably could have grabbed a 6th.  What this deck doesn't provide is flexibility that Marin's and Dondon's provides, because my sole intention is to go duchy/duke. That probably sway things a little on my favour. 

Things to fix with my strategy:
 - Copper/cache management.  I did not use cache's as well as the other two.  Marin's was incredibly streamlined and Dondon ran the pile so i assume it was used well. 
 - Timing of expand purchases.  I think this goes hand-in-hand with bazaars.  I had a couple turns where I would not be able to expand all my treasures to pieces because I only had $4.  I think this is a problem so either needed to gain more bazaars or limit myself to two expands. 

Other notes: BM players should be buying duchies freely if they see the player acting like me (restricted to duchy/dukes).  Each one would ideally be worth 3VP to you, and -8VP to the opponent.  That's pretty similar to province which is 6VP to you, and -6VP to your opponent.  That's only a difference of 1 VP (is this logical to think of VP?).  This wouldn't hurt embassy's strategy too much right (after getting the required amount of embassies of course). 

[HiveMindEmulator]

I don't believe Marin's strategy is superior here. Willing to test with anyone who wants to on iso. Details later if time permits.

I think I agree. Crossroads and Expand help an early greening player, so you can probably get enough points fast enough if you start buying Provinces at $8 really early. Skip the Caches, which aren't great for Colony BM, and get Crossroads or Embassies/Duchies instead. Crossroads or Crossroads+Embassy should set up enough gain-and-buy VP card turns to keep a lead.

[shark_bait]

It's possible to end the game on piles very rapidly on Colonies using Expand/Forge.  I was able to finish with an average of about 18 turns while maintaining at least 4-5 Colonies. 

*Edit*  Faster so far is 16 turns
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/29/game-20121129-100748-b5be623f.html

[HiveMindEmulator]

I took a couple stabs at these buy rules:

Code: [Select]

Colony
Plat
Expand if < 1 Expand
Province
Expand
Gold
Moneylender if turn 1-2
Embassy if < 2 Embassy
Crossroads if < 3 Crossroads
Bazaar
Silver if < 1 Embassy
Crossroads

and was surprised at how fast it collected all 8 Colonies.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/29/game-20121129-100345-67c5ed22.html
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/29/game-20121129-095853-6f69cc53.html

This is not a BM deck or a draw-your-whole-deck engine. It's in between -- a Crossroads cycling engine.