Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[catsclaw]

Just got done playing this game, and lost (although it was close) to one of the strangest strategies I've seen: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/31/game-20111031-095801-acb7ee9f.html

My opponent's strategy was to buy Ill-Gotten Gains to stuff curses in my deck, and use the "gain a copper" mechanic when playing it to pump up his buying power to be able to afford more Ill-Gotten Gains.  I was mostly buying Inns to try and help cycle past the curses and reshuffle at useful times, and I vaguely thought I'd Highway down and Smuggle a Province, although it was quickly apparent my opponent wasn't going to be able to afford any Provinces.  I'm not sure what I should have done in defense.  Stuck to Big Money?  Bought Ill-Gotten Gains in retaliation?

[jonts26]

Buying out the IGG pile and then grabbing as many duchies/provinces as you can is a surprisingly strong strategy in the absence of trashing and other cursers. I suspect I'd play this board similarly to your opponent, though he did make a few mistakes. The monument/silver opening was good but I don't know why he bought the spy or the potion. Theoretically, the philo stone would be strong in this type of deck, but I'm not sure its worth the opportunity cost. You waste 2 turns getting it into your deck. Also late game, he should've ignored harems and gone for duchies. The +2 coin is not as helpful as the extra point.

As a defense, well option 1 is to just go for the IGG's yourself and try to beat him on that front. Option 2 is to get an early embargo and embargo the pile of them early, then play a big money game. Trying to use highways to lower the cost of provinces to smuggle was probably a losing proposition even without the curses in your deck. Highway is not strong on this board.

[DG]

On some boards the ill-gotten-gains be as dominant as a sea hag, witch, or mountebank can be. In that respect I don't think your inn based strategy was bad at all but it needed some better action cards in support. The harems were a slight mismatch with the inn , better than gold but still leaving you buying expensive treasures that an inn would leave in the discard pile. The reduced hand size from inns worked badly with the 2 income cards, which meant you needed some highways in a deck that otherwise didn't need them.

It's a shame that the simulators can't choose the timing of inn purchases and let us look at the variations.

[mnavratil]

I have been playing with Ill-Goten Gains in the simulator and came up with the following strategy:

Code: [Select]

<player name="Ill-Gotten Gains Rush" author="mnavratil" description="IGG/VP Rush strat">
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="BigMoney"/>
 <type name="SingleCard"/>
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="Generated"/>
   <buy name="Province"/>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Curse"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Curse"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Ill_Gotten_Gains"/>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
   <buy name="Copper"/>
</player>

The general idea is to rush the IGG pile until curses are gone, then get as much VP as you can.

This absolutley crushes the built-in witch and mountebank strategies. I haven't tried it against much else, but without trashing seems to be better than most of the other cursers.