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Author Topic: Interesting board - what would you do?  (Read 7440 times)

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ddubois

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Interesting board - what would you do?
« on: October 12, 2011, 01:40:30 am »
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Bishop, Bridge, Familiar, Festival, Horse Traders, Ironworks, Mining Village, Monument, Pirate Ship, Potion, and Remake

Assuming both people open 4/3....

I had a heck of a time deciding between Remake, Ironworks, and Potion.  I'm fairly sure my final deck will include all three, but which one is most important to have on the first wave?
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ehunt

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2011, 03:37:26 am »
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I've been staring at this unable to make up my mind for over five minutes now. I think I'd open remake on this board and then lose.
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Geronimoo

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2011, 04:06:15 am »
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Familiar can not be ignored -> Open Potion/Silver. After that probably Remake over Ironworks because the Curses bloat your deck so you'll want to trim it as fast as possible.
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Titandrake

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2011, 04:48:47 am »
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I probably would have gone Remake/Silver, but on retrospect, the odds on getting $4 one hand and being able to trash the 2 coppers you want to trash might not be that high. If you get a bit lucky, the remake might be better, but potion/silver is probably safer.

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DG

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #4 on: October 12, 2011, 05:30:19 am »
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Remake/silver, aiming to get a number of mining villages while keeping the deck small then expanding out with an ironworks and whatever cards are appropriate. They all still come into play. I suspect that once you open with an ironworks you've lost the tempo you need to defend against a familiar.
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Fangz

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2011, 06:58:52 am »
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Potion/silver is fairly risky, though, because there's a significant chance you might draw a $2+P hand which is a big blow.

A safer choice is to open, I think, silver/remake. Your familiar will just be delayed by 1 reshuffle anyway. If they go heavily into familiars, horse traders might be a good option. I'm not that sure that ironworks->mining village is really that good a play - mining village might sound good, but that's just a +$2 on a single later turn paid for by not having a useful card in hand now. I.e. your ironworks are just acting as significantly crappier versions of merchant ship.
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Anon79

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2011, 07:04:57 am »
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Assuming both people open 4/3....

I had a heck of a time deciding between Remake, Ironworks, and Potion.  I'm fairly sure my final deck will include all three, but which one is most important to have on the first wave?
Well, lucky you. I have a heck of a time deciding between Bishop, Bridge, Horse Traders, Ironworks, Mining Village, Monument, Potion and Remake.

(In other words, I have no idea how to play the board, let alone open. The only thing I'm fairly certain of is that Pirate Ship is a dead end.)
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #7 on: October 12, 2011, 08:29:19 am »
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Assuming both people open 4/3....

I had a heck of a time deciding between Remake, Ironworks, and Potion.  I'm fairly sure my final deck will include all three, but which one is most important to have on the first wave?
Well, lucky you. I have a heck of a time deciding between Bishop, Bridge, Horse Traders, Ironworks, Mining Village, Monument, Potion and Remake.

(In other words, I have no idea how to play the board, let alone open. The only thing I'm fairly certain of is that Pirate Ship is a dead end.)

Bishop is a terrible opener (it starts off essentially a Monument with one less coin that also helps you and your opponent almost equally at the cost of your action), Bridge is no better than Woodcutter unless you use more than one buy (which you're not likely to do early with no 2s or 3s on the board). Horse Traders can be excellent in getting you to $5 (not so important with this kingdom, although I would get one at some point to get a game-long advantage from opponent's Familiars), and Monument is probably reasonable if there are no better alternatives. But whenever Familiar is present, the early focus is usually going to be the Curse race, and Potion (obviously) and Remake are both going to be very important for that. I'd probably agree with Geronimoo, Potion/Silver then get a Remake ASAP (without a Potion in hand). But an earlier Remake could be better, I'm not sure.
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DStu

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #8 on: October 12, 2011, 08:34:35 am »
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I'm also not sure at all, but the longer I look on the board the less I see any really good chance for a clever engine. There are lots of interesting terminals, there are good +Actions with MV/Festival, there is Ironworks/Bridge to help building an engine, there is Remake as strong trashing, but there is no +Cards. +1 on the Familiar which definitly is important, but in the end does not help for your own deck and in the long run will be nothing but a Cantrip, +1 on the MV which gives you "nothing" but the actions to play other card, but that's it. You will have at most 5 (6 with Familiaractivated HT) terminals ("including" Festivals and VP) which you can use to buy VP. And you will be distrurbed by Curses.

Under this conditions I more and more ask myself it is worth the efford to buy a MV to play the terminal, in contrast to just go for the money with as many terminals I can afford without colliding. When this is the case, IW/Bridge looses a lot of interest.
For the actions:
Bishop conflicts with Familiar, unless the op has trashed most of the trash.
Familiar is of course no question, esp. as we can get rid of the Potion and of the Familiars when the job is done.
Festival is a better silver, but also not more if you're not going to have colliding terminals. Can be remade to Golds!
HT is interesting as long as there is something to discard, depends on how the Cursesplit goes and ->Remake. Esp. as long as the opponent has not trashed his Familiars, HT gives you +1 Card when he play them.
Monument is a better silver as long as you can effort the actions.
Remake is essential to defend against Familiar.

So my suggestion. Potion/Silver for Familiars, Remake asap, but then more or less BM+(Festival>Silver)+1-2 Remakes + probably Monument/HT depending on the deck.
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DG

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #9 on: October 12, 2011, 10:34:44 am »
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Quote
I'm also not sure at all, but the longer I look on the board the less I see any really good chance for a clever engine.
I wouldn't be surprised to see this kingdom end with a 3 pile depletion so an engine doesn't have to be big and fancy. A cut down engine with a bishop or monuments can accumulate steady points while keeping control of the deck. Remakes, ironworks, and bridges can empty stacks quickly for someone with a small vp lead. 
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Toskk

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #10 on: October 12, 2011, 12:21:40 pm »
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As much as I love Familiars, I've won a number of games with Bishop + Ironworks crunching and ending with 3 pile depletion, and we've got a Remake to support that engine here, too (not to mention to defend against curses). I'd probably still open Remake/Silver for the quickest deck-thinning available (also in anticipation of a Familiar coming out), and then grab Ironworks quickly and start grabbing as many 4-cost cards as possible to feed to Bishops. Perhaps a Bridge for extra buys to even more quickly take out 3 piles.. it should be over quick.

A quick edit: looking over the Councilroom.com data for Best and Worst Openings, here's how it rates Remake / Silver vs Bishop / Silver:

Bishop / Silver: 2.322 ± 0.911
Remake / Silver: 2.222 ± 0.914

Or probably too close to really call. Personally, though, I'd really want to have the Ironworks in place before grabbing the first Bishop and starting thinning my opponent's deck.. gaining 3 vp (trashing a cost 4 card) per Bishop while giving away a free trash is considerably better than gaining only 2 vp per Bishop (trashing an Estate).
« Last Edit: October 12, 2011, 12:41:17 pm by Toskk »
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #11 on: October 12, 2011, 08:13:47 pm »
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A quick edit: looking over the Councilroom.com data for Best and Worst Openings, here's how it rates Remake / Silver vs Bishop / Silver:

Bishop / Silver: 2.322 ± 0.911
Remake / Silver: 2.222 ± 0.914

Or probably too close to really call. Personally, though, I'd really want to have the Ironworks in place before grabbing the first Bishop and starting thinning my opponent's deck.. gaining 3 vp (trashing a cost 4 card) per Bishop while giving away a free trash is considerably better than gaining only 2 vp per Bishop (trashing an Estate).

Surprising that the two are so close. The way I see it, if you use Bishop early, you can ignore the trashing benefit as it almost always benefits your opponent as much as you (in the absence of better early trashing). So if you Bishop a Copper the result is +1 VP. Way worse than Monument. If you Bishop an Estate, the result is +2 VP (compared to your opponent trashing Estates to your Bishop), +$1. I would say this is worse than Monument early, since $ are way more important than VP tokens in building your deck.

For the record, Monument / Silver is 2.329 ± 0.906.

According to this, Remake is a significantly better opener than either of the other two (I guess it's more acceptable to open Remake / non-Silver since it can get you up to 3 Silvers), although they are all best bought in the first 2 turns, which I find particularly surprising for Bishop.

Going back to the Potion or Remake first question, this predictably shows that Remake and Familiar are both best bought ASAP, but the benefit of Remake drops by more if you delay it. Although, I don't think it's clear what you should open with if both are present.

Actually, the Familiar graph is quite interesting. Compare opening Potion and buying a Familiar in turn 3 or 4 to Potion missing your re-shuffle and buying a Familiar in turn 5, to opening something else, then potion in 3 or 4, then Familiar in turn 6. It's obviously more complicated than that, but I think that explains the shape of the first few turns of the graph.
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guided

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #12 on: October 12, 2011, 08:43:11 pm »
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The main strength of Bishop as an opener (at least in my experience) is in mono-Bishop strategies, where you buy no (or very few) other action cards and load up on Bishops, trying to play one pretty much every turn.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #13 on: October 12, 2011, 09:09:20 pm »
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I think that for the large size samples from council-room, bishop is going to be skewed too high because there are lots of not great players who don't trash nearly as much as they should to their opponent's bishop.

Anon79

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #14 on: October 12, 2011, 09:43:58 pm »
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Surprising that the two are so close. The way I see it, if you use Bishop early, you can ignore the trashing benefit as it almost always benefits your opponent as much as you (in the absence of better early trashing).
Thing is, if opponent opens Remake (see your following para) and you open Bishop, the trashing effect is helping you more than it's helping him.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #15 on: October 12, 2011, 11:41:15 pm »
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Potion/silver is fairly risky, though, because there's a significant chance you might draw a $2+P hand which is a big blow.

A safer choice is to open, I think, silver/remake. Your familiar will just be delayed by 1 reshuffle anyway. If they go heavily into familiars, horse traders might be a good option. I'm not that sure that ironworks->mining village is really that good a play - mining village might sound good, but that's just a +$2 on a single later turn paid for by not having a useful card in hand now. I.e. your ironworks are just acting as significantly crappier versions of merchant ship.
You can't always play for the worst case. Opening remake because it's "safe" is akin to standing on 12 in blackjack because you have a 4/13 chance of busting. Even though you can't bust, you'll often lose. When you're going for something like alchemist, I like a remake opening, since getting the alchemist a little later isn't that big of a deal. But familiar is another story. You need it asap. If you play "safe" and your opponent doesn't, you're going to find yourself behind more often than not.
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #16 on: October 12, 2011, 11:43:35 pm »
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Surprising that the two are so close. The way I see it, if you use Bishop early, you can ignore the trashing benefit as it almost always benefits your opponent as much as you (in the absence of better early trashing).
Thing is, if opponent opens Remake (see your following para) and you open Bishop, the trashing effect is helping you more than it's helping him.

Right, of course. I had forgotten that we were comparing it to Remake in the same kingdom. Obviously the more your opponent has or will trash (EDIT: with their own trasher), the better Bishop becomes. I would still tend not to open with Bishop, but it is a lot better with Remake on the board. On the other hand, if trashing Coppers and Curses is your aim, Remake is obviously twice as good at it.
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Anon79

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #17 on: October 13, 2011, 02:04:53 am »
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What actually happened: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111011-211538-c84003f0.html
Player 1 opened 3/4 (Silver first), while ddubois in second seat (Player 2 henceforth) opened 4/3 and grabbed a Potion. Player 1 responded with an Ironworks with his own 4.

Player 1 then bought Festivals on both Turns 3 & 4 (gaining Potion with Ironworks on Turn 4), which probably isn't the best move... At any rate, Player 2 had three Familiars to Player 1's two, and with the trimmer deck (having opted for Remake on Turn 4, versus Player 1 gaining cards with Ironworks and going for Bishop before Remake) managed to get a 3-7 split of curses.

The game ended on Provinces (not 3 piles), with Mining Villages playing a significant role in Player 2's acquisition of green.

Thoughts? Commentary?
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Zaphod

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #18 on: October 13, 2011, 10:00:17 pm »
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In my experience, it's a bad idea to buy a Bishop when Curses are being dealt.  If I trash a Curse and allow you to trash a Curse, the one VP coin I gain is less significant than the fact that I used an action to do this, and you didn't.  I only like Bishop when I'm  trashing more valuable cards and gaining major coin.

I'd go Potion/Silver here, then get a Remake at my next opportunity.  Remake would not only dump my Curses, it would let me draw my Familiars more frequently.
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hobo386

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #19 on: October 14, 2011, 06:50:31 am »
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This is an interesting board. But I do think ignoring Pirate ship is a huge mistake.

Assuming I go second and my opponent opens potion+silver, Pirate ship should be an effective counter. It can stop or slow down their first familiar, and it will be a reliable way to get money later on.

If they don't open with a pirate ship or a potion, I would go potion+silver.  If they open with a Pirate ship, I would grab either a monument or a remake(probably a momument so I can get some festivals quick), and if they open with a Potion, I would go Pirate ship in hopes of screwing them over.
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Fangz

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #20 on: October 14, 2011, 07:10:17 am »
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It's pretty damn unlikely for you to hit potions in the first reshuffle. If you hit coppers - and that's the most likely possibility, you'll just speed up the cycle time of his familiars. If someone was really going pirate ship, I'd just go ironworks earlier, get mining villages/festivals, and probably have an easy win.
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hobo386

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #21 on: October 15, 2011, 02:51:03 pm »
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It's pretty damn unlikely for you to hit potions in the first reshuffle. If you hit coppers - and that's the most likely possibility, you'll just speed up the cycle time of his familiars. If someone was really going pirate ship, I'd just go ironworks earlier, get mining villages/festivals, and probably have an easy win.

My thought is that even hitting a coppers at first should be enough, since you need to get $3 and a potion to get a familiar (which doesn't even always happen if you go potion silver normally). I often get potion +3 estates or potion +2 estates +2 copper, even in normal circumstances.  If I hit a potion on my second time, I stop your second familiar (and I might have a potion by then as well).  By the time you get enough actions for it to matter, they will give me +$3 or +$4, then I just use them as gold/merchant ships.

If you want to try this board, I'd be glad to.
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Fangz

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #22 on: October 16, 2011, 07:44:17 pm »
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Consider this. Instead of drawing normally at the start of a turn, draw 2 cards, throw them away, then draw. Do you reduce the value of your hand? Surely not. In the same way, pirate ship, unless you hit his potion, doesn't reduce his chances of picking up a familiar.
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hobo386

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #23 on: October 17, 2011, 06:35:20 am »
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Actually, assuming it doesn't hit two estates (much less likely than hitting a potion or a silver), it will reduce the value of turns 4 and 5.  The average value of 7 coppers , 1 silver, 1 potion, and 3 estates is $.75 per card. The average value of 6 coppers, 1 silver, 1 potion, and 3 estates is .75, while the value of .727.
The average value of 7 coppers, one potion, and 3 estates is .636.

When getting that first familiar, every copper counts.

Also, if you go ironworks in response, that makes things worse on your end, since it slows down your initial ability to buy familiars as opposed to going straight for a mining village, or silver.

The smart response would be to go horse traders. Since a horse trades + potion hand guarantees you a familiar, and its reaction would give you a good advantage over the pirate ship player.  (Luckily, most people who go for familiar spams don't seem to realize the value of horse traders).
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Fangz

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Re: Interesting board - what would you do?
« Reply #24 on: October 17, 2011, 06:50:32 am »
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Quote
Actually, assuming it doesn't hit two estates (much less likely than hitting a potion or a silver), it will reduce the value of turns 4 and 5.  The average value of 7 coppers , 1 silver, 1 potion, and 3 estates is $.75 per card. The average value of 6 coppers, 1 silver, 1 potion, and 3 estates is .75, while the value of .727.
The average value of 7 coppers, one potion, and 3 estates is .636.

This is only after a reshuffle. For the first few turns, you are still drawing from the original set of cards. In the second reshuffle, presumably you'd have additional cards with higher values than coppers, so removing coppers actually further increases your chances of getting familiar. Not that you want too many familiars anyway.

Quote
Also, if you go ironworks in response, that makes things worse on your end, since it slows down your initial ability to buy familiars as opposed to going straight for a mining village, or silver.

No, you don't want to load up on familiars. Going ironworks lets me flood my deck with mining villages enroute to festivals, and simultaneously play remake to trash my coppers, making your pirate ships dead cards.

EDIT: I'm online right now if you want to try.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2011, 06:54:07 am by Fangz »
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