I started playing Dominion two weeks ago, and starting playing on Isotropic a week ago (before I started playing on Isotropic, I read most of the articles on theory's blog... ¬.¬)
I thought it would be a good idea to look over all the games where I lost and try to figure out where and why I lost. Some of them are more confusing to me than others. I've provided summaries so that you don't have to read the game log, unless you want to see pretty graphs.
1: Alchemist, Fairgrounds, Ghost Ship, Hamlet, Hunting Party, Militia, Mining Village, Potion, Rabble, Vault, and VillageWherein I learn that Hunting Party by itself is not a sufficient draw engine. And furthermore that militia is an effective counter against Hunting Party. And that I should really, really pay attention to what cards my opponent are buying. And that alchemist is quite excellent when combined with Hunting Party.
Summary: I hit 5 provinces by turn 18, my Hunting Party draw engine chokes on the provinces and militia attacks and can't get me up to $8, I buy random cards that do not help, I fail to notice my opponent buying up fairgrounds, and continue to fail to notice until he's got a sizable lead over me. I resign in shame.
2: City, Fishing Village, Harem, Mining Village, Monument, Scout, Torturer, Upgrade, Watchtower, and WharfWherein I learn that Wharf is the best card advantage card ever, especially in the presence of Fishing Village. Or maybe that I need to learn to recognize the kingdom sets in which City is obscenely powerful. I'm not sure I really learned much from this game.
Summary: I have no idea what I'm doing, or which cards I'm supposed to be buying. So I started out copying my opponent somewhat. Over turns 7 through 15 or so, I pursue the BM strategy by mainly focusing on gold and provinces, while my opponent advances his draw engine. I notice around that point that he's got the majority of the wharfs and cities and panic and try to buy up some. It doesn't help.
Question: When do you get monument? How important was monument in this set, for instance? Was wharf/village/city the optimal strategy to pursue?
3: Adventurer, Apprentice, Council Room, Counting House, Haven, Mining Village, Quarry, Secret Chamber, Swindler, and Throne RoomWherein I delay my purchase of the swindler due to a 5/2 split, fail to count VP, and lose by 2 points.
Summary: Pretty much the above.
Question: How powerful is swindler in this set? I opened Apprentice/Haven, should I have opened Swindler/Haven instead?
4: Adventurer, Hamlet, Harvest, Mine, Moat, Monument, Salvager, Steward, Tournament, and Young Witch ( Cellar♦ )Wherein I was under the misconception that Young Witch was a weak curser and tried to power through the curses without even buying the bane. It goes badly.
Summary: Curses clog up my deck and though I don't seem to do too badly, I lose.
Question: I was (and still am) under the impression that Cellar is not a particularly good card. When you should you buy it?
5: Apprentice, Bazaar, Counting House, Hamlet, Mining Village, Nobles, Remake, Salvager, Talisman, and TournamentWherein I discover the might of the Tournament and especially(?) the Talisman.
Summary: My opponent goes for Talisman. This gets him to a province on turn 6, 4 tournaments on turn 7, and a steed on turn 8. The win probability graph says I pretty much lost by turn 6.
Question: Should you get a Talisman pretty much any time there are good 4-cost cards that you want multiple copies of?
6: Caravan, Conspirator, Lighthouse, Mint, Moat, Pawn, Pearl Diver, Sea Hag, Steward, and VillageWherein I am completely confused.
Summary: My opponent opens Lighthouse. I get Sea Hag. He proceeds to buy out the entire stack of lighthouses. I am confused. The sea hag slips in one curse that prevents me from losing the game (it ties instead). I go for caravans and gold, he hits the provinces earlier than I do and I spend the entire game trying to catch up.
Question: It seems like lighthouse is a silver that spends half as much time in your deck. It also repels attacks, which was important in this game. Was it the correct move for my opponent to buy out the entire stack, using lighthouse money instead of silver? Given that my opponent had more than enough lighthouses to prevent the sea hag from landing, what strategy should I have gone for?
7: Bank, Baron, Black Market, Chancellor, Contraband, Forge, Goons, Militia, Pirate Ship, and Young Witch ( Wishing Well♦ )Wherein witches vs. pirates ends up in a tie.
Summary: My opponent goes for pirate ship, I go for young witch. He trashes my coin, I flood his deck with curses. I use a chancellor to try to increase the rate at which I draw witches. I have problems reaching $8, and towards the end the pirate ship's income begins to kick in. He catches up and manages a tie.
Question: Was there something else I could have done? There certainly were no action sources of money I could have invested more in.
8: Colony, Embargo, Festival, Mint, Monument, Pawn, Platinum, Shanty Town, Smugglers, Spy, Talisman, and TournamentWherein I buy tournament in a Colony game, and for the first time experience the power of Monument.
Summary: Tournament turned out to be a foolish choice, so I decided to copy my opponent in pursuing monuments, managing to split them 5/5. I lacked the villages that made them effective, however, and so slipped behind in the points standings.
Question: To reiterate from game 2: In what kind of situation should you pursue a monument based deck?
9: Alchemist, Bureaucrat, Contraband, Cutpurse, Lighthouse, Lookout, Navigator, Potion, Treasure Map, Upgrade, and VillageWherein I, overenamored of draw engines, pursue alchemists, tie the score and lose the game. And probably lost the game due to not doing anything at three points in time when I could have bought a card.
Summary: My opponent goes for treasure map; I go for alchemist. I get fairly regular draws of my potion, but my engine suffered overall from a lack of cash. On turn 1 and turn 3 I fail to buy anything; I think now I should have probably gotten a lighthouse in one or both instances. On turn 17 I had $5 in hand but failed to buy anything; I'm pretty sure I should have bought a duchy there.
Question: Is lighthouse good enough to buy in the absence of (powerful) attack cards? On the other hand a smaller deck here may have allowed me to draw my potion more often and buy alchemists more consistently, at the cost of wasting two turns.
10: Black Market, Coppersmith, Hoard, Library, Moneylender, Potion, Rabble, Thief, Transmute, Wharf, and WorkshopWherein I... notice now that I completely forgot to transmute an estate at one point. And it would have won me the game... if I had drawn the cards a turn earlier.
Summary: Fairly boring, we transmute estates to gold, I try to get more wharves while my opponent gets much more gold through use of his hoard (12:4 by the end of the game). It was a fairly close game.
11: Bridge, Chapel, Colony, Farming Village, Fortune Teller, Hoard, King's Court, Navigator, Nobles, Platinum, Shanty Town, and VentureWherein my opponent buys all 8 provinces in a single turn, whereas I am sitting on top of a train rushing towards the cliff edge and all I can do is watch.
Summary: My opponent goes for villages/bridges/KC. I go for money. The money fails. It was a colony game.
12: Apprentice, Cellar, Laboratory, Lookout, Moneylender, Nobles, Potion, Shanty Town, University, Upgrade, and WitchWherein my opponent starts off with a 5/2 split, and gets the witch.
Summary: My opponent gets the witch. I try to catch up in order to play witches of my own. He grabs a potion and a university while I'm trying to catch up on the witch end. Then he constructs laboratories within his university. I'm pretty sure I've lost and so I resign.
Question: Should I have opened potion to try to snag the university faster in response to his witch? Also, he seemed to make use of cellar somewhat effectively, especially given the preponderance of curses. When should you buy a cellar?
13: Alchemist, Apprentice, Conspirator, Council Room, Golem, Goons, Hunting Party, Laboratory, Moat, Philosopher's Stone, and PotionWherein I win only because my opponent's connection drops before I can resign.
Summary: Wow, look at all those engine cards! Blinded by the flashy cards, I completely miss seeing the goons and focus on building a hunting party/alchemist deck. I really should have vetoed those goons...
Question: When you play goons, should you buy copper whenever you can to get that victory point? Other than KC, what cards will generally enable a Goons deck? Here it was primarily golem, which either played the goons or generated extra actions to play the goons, combined with massive card draw. My hunting party based draw could pull out a single copy of goons consistently, but would be pretty much unable to play more than one copy.
Finally: I'm sure I will lose badly to a bishop based deck at some point. Any suggestions on how to handle a bishop in the kingdom?
I hope that was interesting and I apologize if this isn't the right place to post this.