Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: How...?  (Read 5303 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

SCSN

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2227
  • Respect: +7140
    • View Profile
Logged

SirPeebles

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3249
  • Respect: +5459
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2013, 07:02:23 pm »
0

Scrying Pool/Candlestick Maker is very powerful, particularly with some trashing.  And you didn't even contest the Candlestick Makers.  Silly old Remodel/Fool's Gold.
Logged
Well you *do* need a signature...

jonts26

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2746
  • Shuffle iT Username: jonts
  • Respect: +3668
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2013, 07:19:12 pm »
0

I'm surprised it took 18 turns. That's a serious scrying pool engine.
Logged

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2013, 07:33:47 pm »
0

Scrying pool + storeroom can be really strong too.
Logged

SirPeebles

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3249
  • Respect: +5459
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2013, 07:36:00 pm »
0

Scrying pool + storeroom can be really strong too.

You usually need a village to make use of that, but I suppose Ironmonger is effectively Village once the action density gets this high.
Logged
Well you *do* need a signature...

jonts26

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2746
  • Shuffle iT Username: jonts
  • Respect: +3668
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2013, 07:43:39 pm »
+1

Scrying pool + storeroom can be really strong too.

You usually need a village to make use of that, but I suppose Ironmonger is effectively Village once the action density gets this high.

Not sure you can really count on it, since with really high action density, you're likely to draw your deck befor eyou can play ironmonger.
Logged

ragingduckd

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1059
  • Respect: +3527
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2013, 08:23:14 pm »
+2

---------- SheCantSayNo: turn 9 ----------
SheCantSayNo - plays Remodel
SheCantSayNo - trashes Hovel
SheCantSayNo - gains Fool's Gold
SheCantSayNo - plays 3 Copper
SheCantSayNo - buys Fool's Gold
SheCantSayNo - gains Fool's Gold
SheCantSayNo - draws Fool's Gold, Fool's Gold, Copper, Copper, Necropolis

That's where you lost the game. ;)
Logged
Salvager Extension | Isotropish Leaderboard | Game Data | Log Search & other toys | Salvager Bug Reports

Salvager not working for me at all today. ... Please help! I can't go back to playing without it like an animal!

SCSN

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2227
  • Respect: +7140
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #7 on: June 30, 2013, 08:06:06 am »
+1

I had hoped for more illuminating responses, but I guess that's party due to me not asking any specific questions, which I deliberately refrained from doing because I think this loss is indicative of a huge blind spot in my dominion understanding, and I can only ask questions in terms of things I do understand. Ah well, here's my attempt to probe a bit further:

First, Fool's Gold: I really really really find this the most complex and perplexing card in the entire game. Whenever I pursue it, I lose to something ignoring it. When I ignore it in favor of something else, I get beaten handily by a FG strategy. The best solution I can think of is to just resign when it shows up to save some time and frustration, but the problem with that is that it won't make me a better player. I have read the Fool's Gold article, but it only mentions obvious stuff that anyone can figure out on his own, and reduces the meat of the matter to a mere afterthought:

Quote
Doesn’t work with:
...
Fancy engines

My whole problem is that I consistently misjudge what engine is fancy enough to beat FG.

On to the actual game: is Remodel/FG better or worse than Storeroom/FG? And was his strategy really the best one? It still seems slow to me, and if I had had my Remodel in hand together with a Province at any point in the game (and in particular, if he hadn't been able to discard it on T17), I would have trashed Province-Province and he couldn't have won anymore.

Scrying Pool/Candlestick Maker is very powerful, particularly with some trashing.

Ten Fool's Golds in a deck slightly trimmed by Remodel seems very powerful too. Should it have been obvious that Scrying Pool/Candlestick is stronger? If so, why? Up til the penultimate turn I thought this was going to be an easy win...

Quote
And you didn't even contest the Candlestick Makers.

Why should I contest the Candlestick Makers? And your wording ("didn't even") implies that it should have been the obvious play. Really? Why? Adding any non-FG card to my deck dilutes the density of FGs which I think is very bad, whereas I don't think denying him a few CM's will hurt him that much.

Quote
Silly old Remodel/Fool's Gold.

Why is Remodel/Fool's Gold silly?

I'm surprised it took 18 turns. That's a serious scrying pool engine.

Are you saying that he got unlucky, he played it badly, or that the strategy is less strong than you expected it to be?
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: How...?
« Reply #8 on: June 30, 2013, 08:30:58 am »
+2

Silly old Remodel/Fool's Gold is probably a sarcastic comment - it is pretty strong...
I don't think this one was a super-obvious call, for what it's worth.
And I am considering writing another Fool's Gold article. The one that's up isn't terrible, but it's a complex card with a number of subtleties, and I think that article is missing some reasonably important things.

Mic Qsenoch

  • 2015 DS Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1709
  • Respect: +4329
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #9 on: June 30, 2013, 09:47:19 am »
+2

This game was incredibly close, so it doesn't say much about which strategy is better one way or the other. For specific advice, I think you want a second Rabble at some point on one of your $5 turns where you buy Fool's Gold. And the only way to learn how to play these cards better (at least for your high skill level) is to play games with them, you aren't going to find a strategy article that can describe (even approximately) all the unique situations that come up in any given game of Dominion (but you probably already realize this).
Logged

ragingduckd

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1059
  • Respect: +3527
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #10 on: June 30, 2013, 12:17:37 pm »
+2

I agree with WW that this isn't an obvious call at all. I think I slightly prefer the SP engine, but it's awfully close either way. I also agree with Mic about how close the game was and how little it tells us about the strategies' relative strengths. You'd have come out on top if you'd picked up another Province or Duchy or if you'd remodeled a Province into a Province.

I think your FG/Remodel deck performed about as well as expected. I tried a few solo games Remodel/FG (no Rabble) and was running out Provinces around T15-T18, which sounds about right. Here you're moving a little slower because of SP's ok-but-not-great topdeck attack. Yudai214's Scrying Pool engine didn't do quite as well as I might have expected, but I think that's mostly because of how slowly he trashed. By the end of T10 he had 9 Candlestick Makers but he still had 8 non-actions.

I think more aggressive use of Remodel would improve both strategies.

As the FG/Remodel player, I'd pick up a second Remodel pretty early, either on T3-T4 or T5-T7 depending on my draws, planning to use it early for Copper-->FG and later for Gold-->Province, and Province-->Province. You were unlucky that Scrying Pool caught so many of your Remodels -- you only played it three times, and never after T12 -- but it would have been harder for him to do that if you'd had a second one.

As the Scrying Pool player, I'd open CM/Remodel or Remodel/TR instead of TR/Potion. Remodeling Coppers into Candlestick Makers is better than trashing them for $0 or $1 with Trade Route, better enough to justify a 1-2 turn delay on SP at least. Regardless of my open, I'd want a second trasher pretty quick and again I think 2 Remodels is better than 1 Remodel and 1 Trade Route.
Logged
Salvager Extension | Isotropish Leaderboard | Game Data | Log Search & other toys | Salvager Bug Reports

Salvager not working for me at all today. ... Please help! I can't go back to playing without it like an animal!

jonts26

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2746
  • Shuffle iT Username: jonts
  • Respect: +3668
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #11 on: June 30, 2013, 01:23:38 pm »
+2

Remodel is definitely much stronger for the engine than trade route. The biggest issue is you cant open with it and potion. I'd be tempted to open potion/TR and get a remodel next $4, but remodel/CSM may be the better opening. Either way, the engine has to be making use of remodel. Copper -> CSM is really really strong here.

Also, as the engine player, I'd probably try to deny maybe 3 or so FG's. They don't hurt the scrying deck all that much once it's up and running (and an extra $9 to spend will work quite nicely with your million +buys). Also, the attack from SP hurts the FG deck more than a more typical big money deck. Colliding 3 FG's is much harder to do in the space of 4 cards than 5.

Still, in the end, remodel/FG is a good strategy. It will probably win at least some significant percentage of games here. But I do think its inferior to the engine.

EDIT: Oh man, I just realized this is a shelters game. This changes a couple things. One: An opening of remodel/CSM gives the possibility of not getting a potion turn 3/4. Probably too small to care about, but its there. But the much more important thing is you can play 2 terminals. Storeroom can probably generate $15 or so once you're drawing your deck. Also, you can use ironmonger to actually get more actions. Draw deck, discard actions with storeroom, playing IM gives you a village. This makes the engine much stronger I think. Much stronger.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2013, 01:28:30 pm by jonts26 »
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #12 on: June 30, 2013, 04:01:11 pm »
+1

I think that the SP engine should be the stronger strategy for the reasons outlined by jonts, but I also think you could have played the FGs better. Turn 10 is way too late to be getting your Rabble. You should probably get Rabbles on turns 6 and 8. You have plenty of FGs to buy Provinces if you can get 7-card turns, and you need the draw to resist the SP attack. In general, once you have a few FGs, drawing more cards is more effective than slightly increasing the FG density.
Logged

lespeutere

  • 2012 German Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 488
  • Respect: +390
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #13 on: June 30, 2013, 04:28:25 pm »
0

Against heavy FG, I think I would've tried a SP engine with some ironmongers and rabbles thrown in. Once you draw your whole deck you can play storeroom after necropolis to discard some actions to let ironmonger go +action and play some rabbles to let the FG player consistently have 2-3 card hands. Maybe it's too fancy and takes too long to set up, I'm not sure.
Logged

dondon151

  • 2012 US Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2522
  • Respect: +1856
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #14 on: June 30, 2013, 05:47:10 pm »
+2

SP wrecks a lot of money decks. Go for it all the way. The engine here can be absolutely huge. I wouldn't rely on a CSM-fueled megaturn, but go for Ironmonger/Storeroom instead. The presence of 3 $2-cost Actions in the kingdom, along with a ton of surplus buys, indicates that this strategy can build up very quickly.
Logged

PitzerMike

  • Young Witch
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 131
  • Longtime Pearldiver
  • Respect: +110
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #15 on: July 02, 2013, 09:01:50 am »
+1

In your position I would have really liked a Storeroom to

A) connect more FGs and
B) get a second buy in there.

I think it speeds up the FG strategy a lot cause you can buy Province + FG on the side and it helps you connect the 3 FGs that you need for that.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2013, 09:11:05 am by PitzerMike »
Logged

Polk5440

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1708
  • Respect: +1788
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #16 on: July 23, 2013, 09:46:14 am »
0

In your position I would have really liked a Storeroom to

A) connect more FGs and
B) get a second buy in there.

I think it speeds up the FG strategy a lot cause you can buy Province + FG on the side and it helps you connect the 3 FGs that you need for that.

I was going to say, no one is recommending Storeroom? It's cycling with plus buy and limited money is so good with Fool's Gold. I would consider opening Storeroom-Remodel if the other player is going engine. Definitely Storeroom > Trade Route.
Logged

blueblimp

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2849
  • Respect: +1559
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #17 on: July 26, 2013, 03:41:28 am »
+6

The Scrying Pool engine is pretty nuts here, because of the Necropolis->Storeroom->Ironmonger combo as jonts mentions. The amount of $ you generate from Storeroom is absolutely ridiculous. Vagrants, Pawns, Ironmongers, and Scrying Pools are all freely spammable cantrips, so it's completely doable to net $30 or more off a single play of Storeroom. Candlestick Maker is actually a trap here because it can't do +1 card, so it makes it harder to draw your pools. You get your cash from Storeroom, not CM.

For example, I ran this solo a couple times and after realizing CM was a trap after the first attempt, hit a 7 province megaturn on turn 14:
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130726/log.5066a4d70cf20e086dc89e71.1374824227898.txt
I'm sure this could be optimized further (it's a very tricky engine to play and set up), to a bigger or earlier megaturn. I can't imagine FG strategies would compete with this, especially given that they'll be attacked by the pool.
Logged

Polk5440

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1708
  • Respect: +1788
    • View Profile
Re: How...?
« Reply #18 on: July 26, 2013, 08:30:30 am »
0

The Scrying Pool engine is pretty nuts here, because of the Necropolis->Storeroom->Ironmonger combo as jonts mentions. The amount of $ you generate from Storeroom is absolutely ridiculous. Vagrants, Pawns, Ironmongers, and Scrying Pools are all freely spammable cantrips, so it's completely doable to net $30 or more off a single play of Storeroom. Candlestick Maker is actually a trap here because it can't do +1 card, so it makes it harder to draw your pools. You get your cash from Storeroom, not CM.

For example, I ran this solo a couple times and after realizing CM was a trap after the first attempt, hit a 7 province megaturn on turn 14:
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130726/log.5066a4d70cf20e086dc89e71.1374824227898.txt
I'm sure this could be optimized further (it's a very tricky engine to play and set up), to a bigger or earlier megaturn. I can't imagine FG strategies would compete with this, especially given that they'll be attacked by the pool.

I am going to have to agree. I tried my darndest, but playing various combos of Fool's Gold with Storeroom-Remodel, Remodel only, Storeroom only, and Storeroom-Vagrant (this seemed to be the best; get 3 Storerooms and Vagrants with the extra buy when Fool's Gold is out), any time I went against Conqueror Bot and the bot choose Scrying Pool - Ironmonger - (Rabble) or Scrying Pool - Ironmonger - anything, really, I had a really tough time and the bot outright beat me once. And that's considering the bot does not really play Scrying Pool for a megaturn; it just buys Provinces on 8. I never got more than 5 Provinces by turn 14 (and that was in the one game where the bot never attacked me).
Logged
Pages: [1]
 

Page created in 0.053 seconds with 21 queries.