Advanced Dominion: How to Get Played

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Mean Mr Mustard:
<a href=http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201109/27/game-20110927-014250-7dbae190.html>I Never Had A Chance</a>

In many ways a game of Dominion plays itself; a player makes all of the right moves, and due to draw order or table position loses. The player cannot control the starting hands nor the order in which the deck draws, and must decide how to use the resources presented to him. The function of the Dominion player is mainly to control what is added to the deck and how to play the cards in hand. The mark of good play is be able to to overcome the disadvantages and <a href=http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110926-220617-704e6a4f.html>win anyway</a>. This is a general strategy article about playing habits, not Kingdoms and cards.

Opening As Player Two

The second player has a deficit to overcome before the game even starts, but he also has one advantage. The first player must reveal his strategy first. The smart defender will take this into account before committing to a strategy, and further will mask his own strategy as long as possible by making his first buy as innocuous as he can get away with. This prevents player one from mirroring, while giving the second player the chance to choose a counter or attack strategy or a faster-tempo opening on turn two.

If the first player chooses the obviously dominant strategy, this is moot, and the second player keeps his disadvantage if he mirrors. There is one way to help prevent this from happening: using Veto mode to dismantle dominating combos and cards. The less synergistic Kingdom is an advantage to the second player in the sense that the game will be longer; the opponent does not have the ability to force a fast mirror match. Player one loses his initiative as the game wears on, and instead he gains the burden of losing a tie.

Establishing a Tempo

The single best way to counter bad shuffle luck and starting in seat two is fast early cycling. Cycling cards that seem like weak openers, because they do not add economy, are actually very good at speeding the tempo of a deck. Whatever the strategy, using the best cards more often is key. Superior cycling wins games.

Is is of utmost importance to consider carefully which cards to buy and how each buy effects the tempo. Adding treasure slows the tempo of the deck, but is usually a requirement for deck development. Sometimes the correct move is to <a href=http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201109/26/game-20110926-232417-146aacfb.html>do nothing</a>, as any buy will only disrupt the tempo of the deck. Each Silver stands between a very strong card and the reshuffle, and it is important to be aware of that when deciding what to do when presented with a weak hand.

Squaring the Circle or Sticking To the Plan

Sometime the cards do not cooperate at all, and the player is unable to incorporate a strategy fast enough due to lack of resources. This is a very tough position to be in. A decision must be made on whether and how to abandon a strategy. All I can say is that it is better to recognize a hopeless path earlier in the game rather than later, and that developing a fluid playstyle may help mitigate bad draws on turns three to six. Leaving pathways open by not committing to a hard opening strategy can often pay off when a deck draws badly.

(perhaps more later)

guided:
I think probably 75% of the time I buy Saboteur it's because I'm clearly behind and have no other hope. Once in a blue moon it even works :)

The one upside of rotten shuffle luck in general is that I get to try really exotic, out-there stuff when it's my only chance to get back in the game. Like recently a full-on switch from a Province deck to a Vineyards deck, buying my first Potion like 3 turns before the end of the game and then pulling the victory out of nowhere. Very satisfying when you win against a competent opponent after getting way behind.

ChaosRed:
I got DESTROYED yesterday on Isotropic. Destroyed.

The opponent went for a Duke/Duchy combo, which he didn't reveal until mid game (he spammed militia and accrued +Buy, +Action cards and some money) early in the game.

The militias were consistently stopping me from reaching gold...but when I bought the first Province, I thought I could maintain momentum. Then of course, once the engine was tuned, he starts gobbling Dutchies and Barons like a machine. It was awful, I think the final score was 69 to 27 (or something like that).

My point is, I should have assessed the board better. My standard noob play, which is to go BM with two or three complementary cards (in this case Chapel and Library) was clearly going to get beat on well-played Duke/Duchy combo. I needed to assess that at the start. I thought that realization jived well with the spirit of the OP, which is to pick a strategy early and stick with it. He had turned on point tracking too, as if he knew the combo would be there? I thought that if you did this, the game did not adjust ratings, but I reviewed the leader board and it clearly did. I HATE point-tracker it ruins one of the game's required skills and I'd like to request that point-tracker games do not count on Iso ratings, perhaps I'll share that on the Iso suggestion thread.

One problem I have is pressure to get my first turn underway, rather than taking a few minutes to assess the board. One thing I might do, is let my opponent know I need a few minutes to read the board (sometimes cards come up that I am very unfamiliar with). After that my pace resumes to normal speed, but I need to resist pressure to just "get going".

jsh357:

--- Quote from: ChaosRed on September 27, 2011, 01:54:16 pm ---One problem I have is pressure to get my first turn underway, rather than taking a few minutes to assess the board. One thing I might do, is let my opponent know I need a few minutes to read the board (sometimes cards come up that I am very unfamiliar with). After that my pace resumes to normal speed, but I need to resist pressure to just "get going".

--- End quote ---

Anyone who rushes you on the first turn is a jerk. It's pretty standard to spend a while during the first 2 turns thinking ahead, even when you know all the cards. I would say don't pressure yourself, as it'll give them time to think about the situation too.

Razzishi:

--- Quote from: Mean Mr Mustard on September 27, 2011, 08:33:45 am ---
Is is of utmost importance to consider carefully which cards to buy and how each buy effects the tempo. Adding treasure slows the tempo of the deck, but is usually a requirement for deck development. Sometimes the correct move is to <a href=http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201109/26/game-20110926-232417-146aacfb.html>do nothing</a>, as any buy will only disrupt the tempo of the deck. Each Silver stands between a very strong card and the reshuffle, and it is important to be aware of that when deciding what to do when presented with a weak hand.

--- End quote ---

Generally when people talk of improving tempo, they mean doing things faster, not slower. You are disrupting your own tempo early on in order to gain consistency long-term. A Silver buy does not disrupt the early tempo in your deck because it does not cause you to ever have less coins available until your engine is practically built, and might even help build that engine. It would give you a practically dead card late game though, so you decided that any potential early gains from having an extra coin early would be outweighed by having a very smooth and consistent deck when it mattered more.

To explain things a bit differently, consider the reason why you want early cycling: to hit your more powerful cards faster. Why do you want to hit them faster? So you can either mess with your opponent more, trash more cards, or buy better cards. You want to do those things in order to improve your own deck at a faster rate than your opponent improves theirs. There's no point in cycling through your deck faster if all you want to do is cycle through your deck faster. Buying Silver early on would have increased the overall quality of your deck, or at least been neutral, for around 8 turns in that game. During those turns you would have had a better, or at least not reduced, opportunity to buy better cards. While you'd have been drawing your Labs and Coppersmiths slightly less often, you'd potentially have been able to buy more of them. In particular, if you had bought a Silver in the opening, you'd most likely have hit $4 either turn 3 or 4 and been able to buy an engine card instead of nothing. There was a slight tempo advantage in that you significantly decreased the chance that you wouldn't hit Feast turn 3 or 4 and so increased the chance your second shuffle included the Lab you eventually Feast for, but you decreased the chances of hitting $4 and $5 those turns; is putting off Feast until turn 5 that bad when you could have bought something instead of nothing the other turns? Looking at it from a short-term perspective of increasing buying power, not buying Silver is horrible; it only shows its power once the engine is built.

Thus, not buying Silver because of "tempo" is a mischaracterization. They weren't bought because you they would have negatively effected the long-term consistency of the deck, and weren't particularly needed to reach the coin amounts that were necessary to build the engine you were going for.

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