Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Titandrake]

You were winning, but now you're suddenly losing quite badly. Or maybe you were losing from the start. Either way, isn't your day. Here's some tips.

Case 1: Your openings are different
Let's say you open 5/2 instead of the 3/4 you wanted, in a game with Steward. The early trashing from Steward is key, and unfortunately if you want it, you're going to have to buy nothing with your 2. So don't open Steward unless you have to. Presumably your opponent will open Steward/Silver, or some variant thereof. If you try to follow the same opening as your opponent without the silver, you're purposefully placing yourself in a worse position from the start. Try to see if there are any other cards, particularly $5 cards, that are reasonable openings. If there is really no better alternative, buy the Steward, and hope you have better luck or enough play skill to overcome the gap. Even if there is a $5 card you want, you still want to pick up a Steward turn 3 or 4 though, because it's too strong to ignore entirely.

Case 2: Your opponent is ahead 2 or more provinces
It's hard to explain how exactly you want to play in this situation. On one hand, if you don't buy duchies, you're going to get blown out when the other player buys them. But if you buy too many, your deck will just die, and you won't be able to do anything. Remember that your opponent's deck is getting clogged as well. Watch to see if their deck seems to falter or slow down. You will want to buy more duchies than you think you need. However, if your opponent's deck has faltered, and you're near a reshuffle, consider getting a Gold over a Duchy. This increases your variance for the better. If you have enough good cards, you'll have a reasonable chance of drawing a pretty good hand that can help swing the game.

Case 3: You were ahead, but now you're not
The best way to deal with this by far is to try not to have it happen in the first place. If you're ahead by a comfortable amount, you can afford to buy one or two non-victory cards. Although this doesn't help increase your lead, it does help you improve your deck's ability to continue functioning, especially if it's an engine deck that requires certain combinations of cards.

If you're already in this situation, it likely happened because your deck has stalled, often because of all the victory cards you've been buying. Unfortunately, if you had a lead, then lost it, the game is probably going to end very soon. Play like you normally would, except you're probably going to break the PPR. Your goal at this point should be to last long enough to trigger a reshuffle, because that gives you a second chance at drawing a good hand.

Above all else, remember that it's not the end of the world if you lose. 

Edited to fix typos, missing words, etc.

[tlloyd]

Above all else, remember that it's not the end of the world if you lose. 

AMEN!

(the rest of the article was good too)

[timchen]

I have the exact opposite suggestion for case 3.

Well, it depends on the definition of being ahead I guess. It seems that you define being ahead by having more points at the current turn. This seems to suggest that the point is actually based on the situation where you jump-start at the VPs too early.

But the opposite case is also important. If you find yourself ahead (in the true sense of ahead, i.e., ahead in the engine/treasure cards if say you and your opponent play similar strategies),  sometimes it is very important to capitalize that lead so that it is not wasted. I've played numerous games that I became behind in the early/mid game due to bad draws while my opponent kept buying more gold, for example. The problem is that you only need so many gold so that your deck will not stall before 4 provinces for a 2-player game. Too many of them, might still not make  double provinces, and lose your timing to the duchies. It is quite common, in this case, to find that you end up with a significantly better deck but still lose.

[Titandrake]

I have the exact opposite suggestion for case 3.

Well, it depends on the definition of being ahead I guess. It seems that you define being ahead by having more points at the current turn. This seems to suggest that the point is actually based on the situation where you jump-start at the VPs too early.

But the opposite case is also important. If you find yourself ahead (in the true sense of ahead, i.e., ahead in the engine/treasure cards if say you and your opponent play similar strategies),  sometimes it is very important to capitalize that lead so that it is not wasted. I've played numerous games that I became behind in the early/mid game due to bad draws while my opponent kept buying more gold, for example. The problem is that you only need so many gold so that your deck will not stall before 4 provinces for a 2-player game. Too many of them, might still not make  double provinces, and lose your timing to the duchies. It is quite common, in this case, to find that you end up with a significantly better deck but still lose.

Yeah, I don't want to give the impression that you should keep buying treasure until your opponent catches up. Ideally, if you have the better deck you want to buy duchies when your deck can handle it and their deck can't. It comes down to playing enough games to notice when it's time to switch.

[Geronimoo]

This is all too general advice and might actually make people play worse...

Case 1: you seem to be saying that if you don't have the opening that fits the dominant strategy, you should play the strategy that fits the opening, even if it's not the best strategy...

Case 2: so you're way behind in points and you advice to wait a little longer to buy points... this is only applicable if you're building an engine that will come from behind with one or more mega turns, but if you're any other strategy this is probably terrible advice

Case 3: a good rule of thumb is "once you're greening, don't stop". Instead of trying to fix your stalling deck by buying treasures and actions in the greening stage you should have waited a little longer to start greening.

[Fangz]

Case 3: a good rule of thumb is "once you're greening, don't stop". Instead of trying to fix your stalling deck by buying treasures and actions in the greening stage you should have waited a little longer to start greening.

I think there's a few good exceptions to case 3's rule of thumb. Grabbing a remodel can be very useful, and usually definitely preferable to an estate.

[Titandrake]

Honestly in the end there is a lot of variation in how you define losing, ahead, and there isn't really a clear-cut way to play. The article was written more in terms of when you're losing badly or beginning to lose badly.

In case 1, I meant to say that although you still want to follow the dominant strategy, you don't want your opening to be a subset of your opponent's.  I'll edit the post, some of it does look bad in retrospect.