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Author Topic: Is this a big money board?  (Read 8526 times)

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love

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Is this a big money board?
« on: September 21, 2013, 07:41:23 am »
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Hi,

look at this board: Vagrant, Watchtower, Woodcutter, Armory, Bridge, Nomad Camp, Rats, Scout, Wandering Minstrel, Jester (Shelter game). (How can I post the card images in this article? Its more beautiful.)


Do you know if on this board big money is stronger than an engine? Because I dont know :(
I just have some ideas: We have 1) +2 action
                                             2) +buy
                                             3) attack
                                             4) some sifting (Minstrel, Scout, Vagrant)
                                             5) a gainer (Armory)

                                We dont have 1) trashing

                                We have more or less 1) card draw (Watchtower).
                                I say more or less, because it is not synergizing well with
                                Wandering Minstrel.

So is it enough to beat big money?
                                                   

Polk5440

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2013, 07:51:34 am »
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brokoli

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2013, 07:55:55 am »
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Big money seems only viable with Bridge, or maybe Nomad camp ?
I would certanly go for an engine, with Watchtower, Bridge, Wandering minstrel and Jester.
Watchtower is not a bad draw card in engines. Here, with the terminal silvers, it's probably possible to draw 3 cards or more.
Rats can work as a trashing card with watchtower. But that's not very good...
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Mr Anderson

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2013, 09:00:17 am »
+1

I would go Jester BM; Watchtower as only draw for engines not consisting of Hamlet, FV, Festival etc. is not that good I think (yes, there is Necropolis), and you will need tons of actions to play your terminal Silver before your Watchtower. If you are not Marin, I would not recommend to try the engine.
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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #4 on: September 21, 2013, 09:10:33 am »
+8

This really needs to not be in Articles.
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brokoli

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #5 on: September 21, 2013, 09:12:32 am »
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Jester BM, Seriously ? because if the opponent play engine, that's not going to be very good for you (you are forced to give him engine pieces)
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Mr Anderson

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #6 on: September 21, 2013, 09:21:51 am »
+1

That is a point, I think BM is the only option, so I think my opponent will also play BM. But still, BM-Watchtower is not terrible if your opponent goes for the engine. So open Silver-Watchtower and see what your opponent does. If he goes engine, buy a second Watchtower, otherwise one or two Jester.
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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #7 on: September 21, 2013, 11:20:38 am »
+1

That is a point, I think BM is the only option, so I think my opponent will also play BM. But still, BM-Watchtower is not terrible if your opponent goes for the engine. So open Silver-Watchtower and see what your opponent does. If he goes engine, buy a second Watchtower, otherwise one or two Jester.

Vagrant, Watchtower, Woodcutter, Armory, Bridge, Nomad Camp, Rats, Scout, Wandering Minstrel, Jester (Shelter game)

There are 5 cards (in bold) in the kingdom which fit quite well when played after a bunch of Minstrels and are followed by Watchtower. Even better, all of these cards are either payload cards or gainer/buys, so they are very welcome for the engine. And Watchtower+Jester works quite well by topdecking cards and drawing them immediately. And with Jester you can either slow down the opponent here (maybe even better than the gaining opportunity) or gain WTs/economy while focussing getting Minstrels and Bridges. Armory is quite veery good here, the only component it can't gain is jester
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brokoli

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #8 on: September 21, 2013, 11:43:31 am »
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Yes, I forgot armory. That's even better for the engine, because Armory is very good with bridge and WM. I can't imagine you seriously think Big money is the only viable option. Engine is great here, and especially with wandering minstrel. WM helps playing several bridges and jesters in a single turn. Actually, wandering minstrel particularly shines in boards with no trashing.
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #9 on: September 21, 2013, 12:05:42 pm »
+1

Here's a sample log with the engine. It's pretty fast, although in general you won't be able to get as many Wandering Minstrels as I am buying here since your opponent will probably contest them whether they play an engine or something with more money. Rats is very good here, you just take one or two and then trash the rest with Watchtowers.

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130921/log.51201cbee4b04e88c8da4f9a.1379779340256.txt
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SCSN

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #10 on: September 21, 2013, 12:56:43 pm »
+43

The engine completely obliterates any big money approach here, to the point that I'd be stunned if it wouldn't win 100% of the time.

You indeed need lots of actions, but fortunately there's this stack of Wandering Minstrels and the engine player can easily get all 10 of them via both Armory gaining and multi-Bridge turns. The BM player can't deny them as buying WM over Silver slows him down quite a bit while it barely affects the engine (unless the BM player gets a ton of them, but then he's playing with a really incoherent deck that's easily crushed by anything with some focus).

Watchtower-Rats is excellent trashing (gain one extra Rats before only playing them with a WT in hand), it's in some ways superior to Junk Dealer even, as early on the extra card from the trashed Rats plus the cycling it provides does more for you than the one coin, assuming that you have enough Watchtowers.

Armory is an excellent card when there are lots of spammable engine components costing $4 or less. The top-decking is so nice: you can either gain a card you need right now, draw it and play it directly (instead of waiting a shuffle), or you can top-deck a card you are likely to need next turn, thus making the whole building process a lot smoother by enabling you to make your own draws to some extent, even though here Armory's top-decking is less crucial because WT can do it too, so with WT in hand Armory just becomes a Workshop.

Wandering Minstrel's reordering allows for great reliability: you can chose which card to draw next because you need it and/or set-up your next turn. Do you have spare actions and a Watchtower in hand? Give me the bridge! A bunch of bridges but not that many actions? A Wandering Minstrel or two please! No draw? Ah, let's get the Watchtower!

Getting a Jester is decent in an engine mirror, but would be absolutely terrible against a BM player. He has just no cards you want to steal, to the point that if I'd flip a Gold I'd probably even give him another one. So Golds and Silvers help him alot, Coppers are whatever, and you are so rare to Curse him and the few Curses hurt him so little (especially because you also discard one of his green cards) that it's not worth it to waste a terminal slot on, especially not because there's a great alternative that you really want: Bridge.

You'll ultimately win the game via a Bridge mega-turn that buys the last 5-6 Provinces at once, or maybe the last 4 and a whole bunch of Duchies. You really have all the time in the world, as the BM player is slower than a community of aging turtles and has no endgame control whatsoever.

If you are not Marin, I would not recommend to try the engine.

This is the most dangerous sort of nonsense to listen to if you care at all about improving your Dominion game. If you always take the easy way out, if you never try to build an engine that's slightly more difficult to execute than Wharf-Fishing Village, if you never try something completely ridiculous even, afraid that you might horribly fail (which you inevitably will, over and over and over again), you will never ever become like Marin, let alone become much better than he ever was, which is certainly possible: Dominion play is in its infancy.

What holds most players back is not a lack of innate intelligence or talent, but a failure to express their playfulness and curiosity, lazy habits of thought that process boards in terms of obvious stock-strategies in stead of having an eye for each kingdom's particular splendor, lacking any sort of healthy contempt for conventional wisdom, not trusting their own experience more than anything, but at the same time lacking the courage to go completely against it, just to try out something new. And what's perhaps worst of all is saying to yourself things like "I'm no Marin"; it's at that moment, with that exact phrase, that you resign yourself to mediocrity, as you'll soon start building an identity around it, and from that point onward, whenever your playful spirit wakens and graces you with a creative idea, you'll have this voice in your head that laughs at it and has you saying "nah, that's just not me". Most players, in short, simply deprive themselves of the freedom to discover what's possible.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2013, 12:58:22 pm by SheCantSayNo »
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brokoli

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #11 on: September 21, 2013, 12:57:59 pm »
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Rats can work as a trashing card with watchtower. But that's not very good...
Mea culpa  :D
I thought it would be pretty difficult to line up rats and watchtower. But seems I was wrong, and actually I'm glad to see rats working so well !
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brokoli

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #12 on: September 21, 2013, 01:00:06 pm »
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Most players, in short, simply deprive themselves of the freedom to discover what's possible.
+1000 for this.
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Kirian

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #13 on: September 21, 2013, 01:22:04 pm »
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Most players, in short, simply deprive themselves of the freedom to discover what's possible.
+1000 for this.
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Kirian

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #14 on: September 21, 2013, 01:24:05 pm »
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Rats can work as a trashing card with watchtower. But that's not very good...
Mea culpa  :D
I thought it would be pretty difficult to line up rats and watchtower. But seems I was wrong, and actually I'm glad to see rats working so well !

Rats/WT has been mentioned elsewhere as an actual combo.  In an engine, you're very likely to line them up often, and in that case Rats becomes a Lab plus trash a bad card.  It's huge.
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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #15 on: September 21, 2013, 01:58:22 pm »
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Mr Anderson

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #16 on: September 21, 2013, 04:45:43 pm »
+4

If you are not Marin, I would not recommend to try the engine.

This is the most dangerous sort of nonsense to listen to if you care at all about improving your Dominion game. If you always take the easy way out, if you never try to build an engine that's slightly more difficult to execute than Wharf-Fishing Village, if you never try something completely ridiculous even, afraid that you might horribly fail (which you inevitably will, over and over and over again), you will never ever become like Marin, let alone become much better than he ever was, which is certainly possible: Dominion play is in its infancy.

What holds most players back is not a lack of innate intelligence or talent, but a failure to express their playfulness and curiosity, lazy habits of thought that process boards in terms of obvious stock-strategies in stead of having an eye for each kingdom's particular splendor, lacking any sort of healthy contempt for conventional wisdom, not trusting their own experience more than anything, but at the same time lacking the courage to go completely against it, just to try out something new. And what's perhaps worst of all is saying to yourself things like "I'm no Marin"; it's at that moment, with that exact phrase, that you resign yourself to mediocrity, as you'll soon start building an identity around it, and from that point onward, whenever your playful spirit wakens and graces you with a creative idea, you'll have this voice in your head that laughs at it and has you saying "nah, that's just not me". Most players, in short, simply deprive themselves of the freedom to discover what's possible.

In fact I totally agree to that point (and attitude). I know I still have to improve my skills to become a good player, and I thank you for pointing out that trial and failure is the better way as I am convinced this will help me.
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Jdaki

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #17 on: September 21, 2013, 05:11:59 pm »
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SCSN's post deserves to be an article by itself.
The game is really tilted towards engines (Dominion that is, yet alone the board) and not only is it beneficial to one's skill to try for engines more often, but also probably more fun. I am as guilty as the next player for often taking a easy BM way out when playing players that randomly pick up "stupid" cards, but I have been trying to go engine more, especially on boards like this, where to be honest, my initial look would be "nah engine too hard".
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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #18 on: September 21, 2013, 05:24:29 pm »
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I always am sad when I'm forced to go for BM...

There was that game recently against AI that I played where I went for Native Village/Ghost Ship/Rats/Remodel/Saboteur against DoubleJack.  And I lost by one point...
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dondon151

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #19 on: September 21, 2013, 05:35:15 pm »
+5

There was that game recently against AI that I played where I went for Native Village/Ghost Ship/Rats/Remodel/Saboteur against DoubleJack.  And I lost by one point...

You always learn something if you try to build an engine but just come up short. You don't always learn something by playing monolithic-BM.
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blueblimp

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #20 on: September 22, 2013, 04:47:28 pm »
+1

There was that game recently against AI that I played where I went for Native Village/Ghost Ship/Rats/Remodel/Saboteur against DoubleJack.  And I lost by one point...
I wonder if a NV/Jack/GS/Rats/Remodel engine would do well here. GS is not great draw, but NV, Rats, and Remodel all decrease your hand-size so work well with Jack. Plus Remodel is happy to have Rats to trash (and is also happy eating the Silvers from Jack). Maybe skip the Saboteur because it's not good against Jack. (A lot of the time the Saboteur will just hit a Silver, which doesn't even cancel out a single play of Jack.)
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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #21 on: September 26, 2013, 08:10:37 am »
+9

I got reminded of this thread after playing this board earlier today:




Of course it's not the same but it feels like it a lot.
Chaining with Watchtower is still there, just Wandering Minstrel got replaced by Mining Village+Hamlet.
The payload of the engine is still there, although Bridge and Armory got replaced by Monument.
And most importantly: The "awkward" trashing of Rats/Watchtower got replaced by the far-more-awkward trashing of Transmute/Watchtower.

Still worth building an engine? Oh yes.
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Mr Anderson

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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #22 on: September 26, 2013, 10:19:36 am »
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Still worth building an engine? Oh yes.

Yes for sure: Hamlet, Watchtower, Monument, (Market), Mining Village, (Jester). This is an engine an idiot like me sees.

There is no trashing, but +Buy, and sifting with Hamlet->Watchtower. And you can get to engine components really quickly despite the absence of Armory as both Hamlet and Watchtower are pretty cheap.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2013, 10:24:55 am by Mr Anderson »
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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #23 on: September 26, 2013, 03:58:07 pm »
+2

Still worth building an engine? Oh yes.

Yes for sure: Hamlet, Watchtower, Monument, (Market), Mining Village, (Jester). This is an engine an idiot like me sees.

There is no trashing, but +Buy, and sifting with Hamlet->Watchtower. And you can get to engine components really quickly despite the absence of Armory as both Hamlet and Watchtower are pretty cheap.
no trashing except transmute, which is apparently playable if you're stefwith watchtower.
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Re: Is this a big money board?
« Reply #24 on: October 02, 2013, 01:46:45 pm »
+2

Quote
The engine completely obliterates any big money approach here, to the point that I'd be stunned if it wouldn't win 100% of the time.

Confirmed via simulation that you can win quite easily over 95% of the time vs big money using the approach outlined above.   If you are interested in the details, please visit us in the simulation forum:

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=9554.0
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