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Author Topic: When to green  (Read 3249 times)

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amalloy

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When to green
« on: August 23, 2013, 03:57:09 am »
+1

I was practicing against a bot, and although I won, and felt I was playing well, I realized later by looking at the score graph that I may have made an important mistake; I'd like to see if you all agree with my assessment. Incidentally, is this the right sub-forum for such questions? I don't want to clog up the "general discussion" forum if there's a better location.

Basically I tried to build an engine with festival/laboratory/smithy. I added a throne room  for flavor/flexibility, but I'm not sure it was a good choice. I was a little cautious about taking this approach because the lack of a chapel meant I'd have ten junk cards in my deck to overcome, but I think the other engine-friendly cards available still made this better than big-money. Does that sound right?

Anyway, I noticed that I picked up my first province on turn 11, but the game didn't end until turn 16, and I wonder if I should have built up a little longer. Obviously the first two provinces slow down my later turns, and I might have been able to double-province multiple times, or perhaps even triple-province, if I had skipped them. I think I was afraid the game was about to end, because my opponent was buying provinces, but given his big-money approach I should perhaps have realized he wouldn't be able to keep buying them forever. How do I know when to say "enough is enough" and start trying to grab provinces?

Thanks in advance for your time!
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Robz888

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Re: When to green
« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2013, 04:27:50 am »
+7

A couple things.

The big one is--don't practice too much against bots. Really, they don't prepare you for the real thing very well.

But setting that aside... you should always think about what you want to do with your deck. Okay, big picture, you want to win. You want half the VP (or close to half) before your opponent gets there.

Right off the bat, we see Smithy. You probably know that just buying Smithy and money nets you, on average half the Provinces in 15 turns (with luck, a little better, with bad luck, a little worse), which of course puts you well on the way to winning in games like this, where there are no VP chips or alt-VP cards.

Here, it doesn't look like you beat that, unfortunately (you buy Provinces 4 and 5 on Turn 16). This means your deck wasn't good enough to beat our baseline strategy of Smithy + Big Money. Let's see what you did wrong.

(Erm, you did nothing on Turn 1? Okay, well, that was just a mistake, or something?)

So, right away I see a problem--you want Workshop, here! If you're going to outrace Big Money, you need to pick up components for your engine really rapidly. Gainers are your friend, and extra buys are your friend. Workshop can really soak up Throne Rooms and Smithies here, allowing you to spend your $5s on Festivals, maybe with a Laboratory or two sprinkled in. Library works well with cards with give +actions and don't replace themselves (like Festival), but Smithy is cheaper and is probably accomplishing much the same thing for you here.

Now, even playing this engine fairly well, it may not be enough! That's because engines need to do something, other than buy lots of Provinces. In engines with better cards, you can reduce the price of everything to $0 and buy all the Provinces at once (King's Court-Bridge), you can earn unlimited VP (Monument, Goons), you can trash all your opponents cards (Swindler, Saboteur), etc. Here, what can you do that makes the engine worth it? Two things, basically: 1) build up to about 2-3 megaturns where you buy multiple Provinces and Duchies, likely stealing the win from behind, and 2) constantly attack your opponent with Militia. This second thing is very non-trivial. Money decks have a very hard time getting to Province without a full hand. For you, it's not about buying multiple Militias (although you might get 2 here), it's about playing 1 every turn. And with Workshop, Throne Room, Smithies, Festivals, and Labs, you should easily and quickly be able to get there. The Militia slows your opponent down, and gives you time to make your engine worth it.

I would open Militia/Workshop here on 4/3 split. The much, much worse split here, 5/2 is trickier. Probably Festival/nothing is best, allowing you the chance to pick up the all-important Workshop next shuffle.
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ftl

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Re: When to green
« Reply #2 on: August 23, 2013, 04:36:40 am »
0


(Erm, you did nothing on Turn 1? Okay, well, that was just a mistake, or something?)

2/5 start, with no $2 cards.
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amalloy

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Re: When to green
« Reply #3 on: August 23, 2013, 04:46:56 am »
+25

The big one is--don't practice too much against bots. Really, they don't prepare you for the real thing very well.

I'd prefer to practice against humans, but goko's multiplayer lobby just makes it so frustratingly difficult to find a game that I often fall back on the bots. If you know a better way to find humans, please let me know.
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PitzerMike

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Re: When to green
« Reply #4 on: August 23, 2013, 05:17:42 am »
+1

In addition to what Robz wrote I think you'd want Festival over gold in your deck.
It adds almost the same amount of $ but unlike gold it adds extra reliability to your deck + a buy and it can be throned.
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markusin

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Re: When to green
« Reply #5 on: August 23, 2013, 08:45:49 am »
0

Something I'd like to emphasize that Robz said: While playing Militia every turn is a good way to take advantage of  your deck's reliability, don't wait to get the Militia after your engine starts running. Militia is especially powerful in the early game, so you want to open with it in order to slow your Big Money opponent.

Also, Workshop is your friend here. When you consider how much draw you're getting, the Workshop will end up being played very often, and you might even draw the cards you gain from Workshop mid-turn.
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Kirian

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Re: When to green
« Reply #6 on: August 23, 2013, 01:06:25 pm »
+3

The big one is--don't practice too much against bots. Really, they don't prepare you for the real thing very well.

I'd prefer to practice against humans, but goko's multiplayer lobby just makes it so frustratingly difficult to find a game that I often fall back on the bots. If you know a better way to find humans, please let me know.

Grab the extension (in the Dominion Online sub forum) and use auto match.
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Polk5440

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Re: When to green
« Reply #7 on: August 23, 2013, 02:59:16 pm »
+1

Don't be too afraid about playing against bots. I think it's better than playing solitaire. And several people on this forum really advocate playing some solitaire games. You know they are going to play instantaneously (unlike, say, an opponent like me). And you get a clock of sorts to beat -- you know the bot isn't generally going to do the best strategy out there, so if your complicated idea loses, it's probably not so good.
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popsofctown

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Re: When to green
« Reply #8 on: August 23, 2013, 05:56:29 pm »
0

OP is awesome
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