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[2.71828.....]

I generally find it... rude(?) to give advice in a competitive setting such as this, though obviously that doesn't justify any kind of mean-spirited response.

Surprising. I always like it when someone gives me constructive criticism for my play, even during a game.

It depends. If it something that is obviously a mistake, like what appears that it must be a rules misunderstanding (e.g. playing tactician with no cards to discard), or of course if it is solicited advice, then it's not a problem at all. And actually, I am thinking mostly of myself being on the giving - I hardly ever do, because I assume that they know what they are doing, and though it looks strange and wrong to me, I assume that they actually just think it is the right play. Certainly in the case that the OP is giving, I would take the implicit message to be "Your strategy is bad", which is not really a message I am going to send to my opponent unsolicited in a strategy game, except through the play. Indeed, sometimes I'm just the one who's wrong...

Also, I don't at all mind people asking for advice, but I don't like when they feel entitled to it (and get indignant when I, their opponent, refuse to help them whilst competing against them).

Giving advice is one thing.  Babying someone through a game is another.  I agree completely with WW here.  If someone plays KC-tactician, I may mention that his KC is trapped away with the tactician and will not be available for his next turn, but beyond simple rules issues such as that, other advice is appropriate only for a post-game discussion if they choose to stick around and have a friendly discussion about the game

It'd be pretty funny for you to mention their KC is trapped when in fact it isn't.

With KC-durations, you only leave the KC out if they're actually still modifying the duration. With Tactician you know during clean-up that you only get one play of it and remove the KC. It would only be confusing to let the KC out and think you can just draw 15 cards!

KC-Outpost is another case; You only discover on your next turn that the KC can't give you more turns so you have to leave it out during the clean-up for your current turn.

And there I go displaying my own ignorance.  I was sure I was right.  But I am not.  (I admit, I didn't quite believe you, so I went out and played a bot, and sure enough KC-tactician recycled my KC back into the deck).  So I will change my example to the aforementioned "play bank before all my other treasures" example that markusin brought up

[terminalCopper]

I have a dozen or so text files saved with advice from opponents who just crushed me. The oldest one is from the 2nd of September 2012, it's quite amusing:

21:13 SheCantSayNo: I just started learning this game a week ago and have been playing it pretty much fulltime (holiday lol)
21:13 SheCantSayNo: you're obv. much better than me
21:13 Max K.: hah.
21:13 SheCantSayNo: would you mind giving some advice?
21:13 Max K.: Not at all.
21:14 SheCantSayNo: cool
21:14 Max K.: I'm guessing the curses are clogging up your hands a bit?
21:14 SheCantSayNo: e.g. why do you buy a Chapel as your first move with three coppers, rather than, say, a silver?
21:14 SheCantSayNo: yeah lol
21:14 Max K.: So -- that'd be my first piece of advice -- if there are curses to be given, make sure you are giving some.
21:15 SheCantSayNo: so when you bought a witch, I should have bought one as well
21:15 SheCantSayNo: makes sense
21:15 Max K.: Honestly, I bought the chapel, I thought you would be cursing me.
21:15 Max K.: I wanted to be able to get rid of curses, coppers, and estates as quickly as possible, so that I could have hands full of silvers, golds, and witches
21:16 Max K.: I did buy the silver with my first $4 hand, I think.
21:16 SheCantSayNo: yeah
21:16 SheCantSayNo: why that one instead of, say, a bureaucrat?
21:17 Max K.: So -- there were no +actions this game.
21:17 Max K.: Well -- no +2 actions, I mean.
21:17 Max K.: I figured I would want to spend most of my terminal actions cursing you with the witch.
21:17 SheCantSayNo: clear
21:18 Max K.: The bureaucrat would have been a decent choice too, since it gives a silver.
21:18 Max K.: I guess the big points here were not to have too many actions, since I could only do one (and spies) each turn.
21:18 Max K.: (Two), to make sure to send over curses.
21:18 Max K.: and (three) to get less useful stuff out of my way.
21:18 SheCantSayNo: thank you!
21:19 Max K.: No problem.
21:19 Max K.: Hope it helps.   Welcome to the game.
21:19 SheCantSayNo: thanks! gg and gl
21:19 Max K.: gg.  u2.

You made my day
It reminds me the day when I saw chapel for the first time and thought to myself that it's completely useless in a game without witch ...

[markusin]

I generally find it... rude(?) to give advice in a competitive setting such as this, though obviously that doesn't justify any kind of mean-spirited response.

Surprising. I always like it when someone gives me constructive criticism for my play, even during a game.

It depends. If it something that is obviously a mistake, like what appears that it must be a rules misunderstanding (e.g. playing tactician with no cards to discard), or of course if it is solicited advice, then it's not a problem at all. And actually, I am thinking mostly of myself being on the giving - I hardly ever do, because I assume that they know what they are doing, and though it looks strange and wrong to me, I assume that they actually just think it is the right play. Certainly in the case that the OP is giving, I would take the implicit message to be "Your strategy is bad", which is not really a message I am going to send to my opponent unsolicited in a strategy game, except through the play. Indeed, sometimes I'm just the one who's wrong...

Also, I don't at all mind people asking for advice, but I don't like when they feel entitled to it (and get indignant when I, their opponent, refuse to help them whilst competing against them).

Giving advice is one thing.  Babying someone through a game is another.  I agree completely with WW here.  If someone plays KC-tactician, I may mention that his KC is trapped away with the tactician and will not be available for his next turn, but beyond simple rules issues such as that, other advice is appropriate only for a post-game discussion if they choose to stick around and have a friendly discussion about the game

It'd be pretty funny for you to mention their KC is trapped when in fact it isn't.

With KC-durations, you only leave the KC out if they're actually still modifying the duration. With Tactician you know during clean-up that you only get one play of it and remove the KC. It would only be confusing to let the KC out and think you can just draw 15 cards!

KC-Outpost is another case; You only discover on your next turn that the KC can't give you more turns so you have to leave it out during the clean-up for your current turn.

Are you sure about not having to leave KC out with Tactician? Is that written in an FAQ or something, or at least inferred based on a general rule about KC and durations?

EDIT:2.71828 tested this out and proved that what Davio said is true. I'm still curious about where in the rules is that functionality described.

[GendoIkari]

You have to be very careful giving advice. Now, if you're playing against someone who makes an obvious mistake that implies he may not understand a rule, then correcting that is one thing; it's good sportsmanship to explain the correct rule.

But critiquing someone's strategic or tactic decisions, if they haven't specifically asked, is a fine line. First off, I would probably never do it during the game. It just seems like it can cause more problems that way, though I can't give a good argument for why.

Now, if you win the game, you have to be very careful what you say afterwards. I once played an IRL game against someone I didn't know; he won Tournament first (don't remember what he chose). I won Tournament and chose Princess, as it was a board where we were both making lots of money per turn, but there as no other +buy to be had. The +buy won me the game. Afterwards, I commented that he probably would have won if he'd chosen Princess. My intent was to actually complement his overall play, to say "you're clearly a good player, you practically beat me and basically should have won, except for one little thing you would have." But instead it came across as rubbing it in; he already knew how he'd screwed up, and he didn't need his opponent telling him.

If you lose, you probably have more room to work with. Hard to come off as arrogant when you lost, unless you say you felt it was just luck. But either way, it's all in the phrasing. Saying "you should have...." is pretty much always wrong. But I've had games where I've asked my opponent "why did you do ____? I would have thought that ___ would be stronger here, did I miss something?" And that generally is ok, whether you won or lost. The important thing is to not imply that you know better.

If it IS a situation where you're pretty sure you do know better; that you think that you're a stronger player than your opponent, then you should probably start by asking if they are OK with you giving them some advice before doing so.

[Davio]

If you play or modify a Duration card with another card, that
other card also stays in your play area until it is no longer doing
anything. For example if you play Throne Room on Merchant
Ship, both cards stay in play until the Clean-up phase of your next
turn. The Throne Room stays in play to remind you that you are
getting the effect of Merchant Ship twice on that next turn.

Confusing is the following

Because you must discard at
least one card in order to gain the bonuses from Tactician, it is
not possible to Throne Room a Tactician to get + 10 cards, +2
Buys, and + 2 Actions.

This would make you think that you can't even pick Tact as a TR target, but of course you can.

This is funny: http://boardgamegeek.com/article/4119598#4119598
Donald X. says that with TR-TR-Dur-Dur you should leave both TRs out.
Here he amends it: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/5394670#5394670
And says that with KC-KC-KC-Dur-Dur-Dur you only leave the 2nd and 3rd KC out.
But finally he comes to: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=210.msg14030#msg14030
In which he mentions that only KC's and TR's directly affecting Durations stay out.

Here's the part about Tact: http://boardgamegeek.com/article/5397175#5397175

[2.71828.....]

If you play or modify a Duration card with another card, that
other card also stays in your play area until it is no longer doing
anything. For example if you play Throne Room on Merchant
Ship, both cards stay in play until the Clean-up phase of your next
turn. The Throne Room stays in play to remind you that you are
getting the effect of Merchant Ship twice on that next turn.

Confusing is the following

Because you must discard at
least one card in order to gain the bonuses from Tactician, it is
not possible to Throne Room a Tactician to get + 10 cards, +2
Buys, and + 2 Actions.

This would make you think that you can't even pick Tact as a TR target, but of course you can.

This is funny: http://boardgamegeek.com/article/4119598#4119598
Donald X. says that with TR-TR-Dur-Dur you should leave both TRs out.
Here he amends it: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/5394670#5394670
And says that with KC-KC-KC-Dur-Dur-Dur you only leave the 2nd and 3rd KC out.
But finally he comes to: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=210.msg14030#msg14030
In which he mentions that only KC's and TR's directly affecting Durations stay out.

Here's the part about Tact: http://boardgamegeek.com/article/5397175#5397175

I don't like it. 

When you Throne Room or King's Court a Duration, the Throne Room / King's Court also stays in play until the Duration is cleaned up, to remind (emphasis mine) you that the Duration's next-turn effect needs to happen twice or thrice.

It seems to me that the only reason to keep the KC or TR out with a duration is to "remind" you that you need to multiply the duration effects for your next turn.  Why can't you just put a token or two on the card to "remind" you and reshuffle the KC/TR back in the deck.

You only keep TR and KC in play if they directly played (emphasis mine) a duration card.

It seems to me that TR and KC directly play tactician.  Note that Donald X. does not say "directly affects the duration card on the player's next turn." (I know, I know.  I am being slightly unreasonable here.  But still....) They play it once, discard hand, gain benefit for next turn.  Play it twice, discard hand, no cards left so do not gain benefit.  Play it three times, discard hand, no cards left for no next turn benefit.

I think that people should be "reminded" that they unnecessarily played KC/TR with their tactician even though they don't gain the benefit.  I know that this isn't actually the rule, but to me it just feels like this is the way it should be played.  I know I am directly disagreeing with Donald X., but I still want to make my case

Now from Donald X. here: (scroll up to the previous comment-I just copied Davio's link)

You do not leave out Tactician if it is not actually doing anything on your next turn (and similarly don't leave out a Throne for Tactician).

the argument can be made that the "second and third tacticians" from the KC-tactician should be discarded since they aren't actually doing anything, but that still does not convince me that the KC should be discarded as well.

So again, I don't like it.  I am not saying that it is wrong or that it should be changed (Unless Donald X. comes out and modifies his previous rules clarifications no changes should be made), it just doesn't feel right to me

[jaybeez]

I have a dozen or so text files saved with advice from opponents who just crushed me. The oldest one is from the 2nd of September 2012, it's quite amusing:

21:13 SheCantSayNo: I just started learning this game a week ago and have been playing it pretty much fulltime (holiday lol)
21:13 SheCantSayNo: you're obv. much better than me
21:13 Max K.: hah.
21:13 SheCantSayNo: would you mind giving some advice?
21:13 Max K.: Not at all.
21:14 SheCantSayNo: cool
21:14 Max K.: I'm guessing the curses are clogging up your hands a bit?
21:14 SheCantSayNo: e.g. why do you buy a Chapel as your first move with three coppers, rather than, say, a silver?
21:14 SheCantSayNo: yeah lol
21:14 Max K.: So -- that'd be my first piece of advice -- if there are curses to be given, make sure you are giving some.
21:15 SheCantSayNo: so when you bought a witch, I should have bought one as well
21:15 SheCantSayNo: makes sense
21:15 Max K.: Honestly, I bought the chapel, I thought you would be cursing me.
21:15 Max K.: I wanted to be able to get rid of curses, coppers, and estates as quickly as possible, so that I could have hands full of silvers, golds, and witches
21:16 Max K.: I did buy the silver with my first $4 hand, I think.
21:16 SheCantSayNo: yeah
21:16 SheCantSayNo: why that one instead of, say, a bureaucrat?
21:17 Max K.: So -- there were no +actions this game.
21:17 Max K.: Well -- no +2 actions, I mean.
21:17 Max K.: I figured I would want to spend most of my terminal actions cursing you with the witch.
21:17 SheCantSayNo: clear
21:18 Max K.: The bureaucrat would have been a decent choice too, since it gives a silver.
21:18 Max K.: I guess the big points here were not to have too many actions, since I could only do one (and spies) each turn.
21:18 Max K.: (Two), to make sure to send over curses.
21:18 Max K.: and (three) to get less useful stuff out of my way.
21:18 SheCantSayNo: thank you!
21:19 Max K.: No problem.
21:19 Max K.: Hope it helps.   Welcome to the game.
21:19 SheCantSayNo: thanks! gg and gl
21:19 Max K.: gg.  u2.

Thanks for sharing this.  I'm kind of amazed (and mildly bummed out) that you went from this to where you are in about 14 months, considering how long it's taken me to get where I am in terms of my Dominion game...