SO, my question is this: how might a good Dominion player play this kingdom? ragingduckd / A.I. I'm semi-nudging you (as well as other expert players) since you seem to have a lot to say about Rebuild.
This isn't a great board for Rebuild, but I'd still prefer it to the engine. I'd probably open Silver/Silver (though maybe Silver/Plaza is stronger) and pick up Rebuilds with every $5+ hand and Plazas or Silver with the smaller hands. Against BM I'd grab some Estates too, but against an engine I'd just spam Rebuild and go for a short game with a lot of trashed Provinces. I'd lose the game, but I'd lose it to the PH/Plaza combo, not to the engine your opponent built or to the one that I would have built before reading your post.
I went for Rebuild, he went for Double-Masq into Cultists/Saboteurs. Who wins?
Straight Cultist might be a match for Rebuild. I haven't seen enough games with both to say. But the engine your opponent is building is a good deal slower. Rebuild should beat it handily. Saboteur can help an engine reduce Rebuild's VP lead, but it's not a counter to Rebuild in itself.
ECONOMY: I knew I was unlikely to hit $5 for more Rebuilds due to his Masquerade plays (I wasn't passing my Estates),
What HME said but even louder. This is a
devastating mistake. Rebuild can use Estates, but they're hardly a precious resource. They have more value in a mirror because you're so eager to win the Duchy split, but even there I'd gladly start with 10 Copper and 0 Estates if I could.
I saw Poor House and Plaza and figured that there was some kind of synergy there... Poor Houses guarantee $4 for a Plaza > Plaza lets me save up coin tokens AND discard a treasure (helping any Poor House(s) in hand) AND a Plaza cycles better than a Silver while still helping my economy. QUESTIONS: Was Poor House --> Plaza better than Poor House --> Silver? Was Poor House the best bet for economy? If not, then what?
This is a superb combo. I experimented a bit in solo mode and an engine with PH/Masq/Plaza/CR seems to get to 4-5 Provinces somewhere between T11 and T14. That's faster than Rebuild. It does hand out a few extra cards with CR, but Rebuild doesn't benefit from 6-card hands all that much.
Unfortunately, the combo really only shines once your deck is dense in Plazas, so I don't think that adding just a few PHs and Plazas will help Rebuild as much as Silver does. On the other hand, they could both be rather nice when once you get filled up with Ruins.
On my turn 8, I paid $8 for what was only my second Rebuild. Should I have just bought a Province instead? How many Rebuilds do you buy normally? What about in my deck here, which was filled (and filling more) with junk, and with low economy?
I'd definitely take a second Rebuild here, but it's a pretty unusual spot to be in. Normally, you pick up a Rebuild or two on T3-T4, one or two more on T5-T7, etc. If I already had 3-4 Rebuilds then I'd take a Province on T8. The Masqueraded Coppers are to blame, I think.
On the turn before he lost his connection, he bought 2 Saboteurs -- his engine was already humming. Am I about to get wrecked at this point?
Nah, they're just going to slow you down. Even if the total coin value of your deck is falling, your Rebuilds are still bringing the game to a close, and you have a big VP lead. Getting your Rebuilds hit is bad, but having your Duchies or Provinces hit actually isn't so terrible. The important thing now is to empty the Province pile... gaining VP while doing it is secondary.
So I think you'd have a good chance against Saboteurs alone. He's also got the Cultists, though, and if he adds a couple Poor Houses I think he'll come out on top.
Should I really be trying to get all 5 Estates (he trashed one of his, gave me the other 2) to end up as Provinces via Duchies? When do I start killing Provinces for Provinces?[/b]
Definitely not. You want to get at least your share of the Duchies in a Rebuild mirror, but in a non-mirror it isn't important. You usually want to Rebuild 2 or 3 of your Estates into Provinces and then either start trashing Provinces or add more VP cards, depending on what your opponent is doing.
Against most engines, you want to trash the Provinces pretty quickly. Against BM, you'll need a few more VP to win, so you want to do a little more productive rebuilding first. And a lot of engines can change gears and grab a Province or two early, so you don't want to be sitting around with 4 Rebuilds, 2 Estates and 1 Province when that happens. It's pretty interactive.
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Topic: I'm new to Dark Ages... please give me advice on REBUILD (Read 2841 times)