Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: andy on December 04, 2012, 01:47:18 pm
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My first "real" contribution to F.DS. I generally play 3p on Isotropic without restricting the levels of my opponents, and so I play against beginners plenty. (I'm not excellent but I'm decent - level 30 at present writing.) There are many general principles, discussed on this forum and on places like Dominion Strategy, that beginners can follow to improve their play. But I think concrete illustrations may be a more helpful way to understand them, and to that end I thought I'd flag a couple of common traps with reference to specific cards into which I see beginners fall.
Festival as Silver
This is a big one. If your play consists of playing Festival, playing one other action card, and then buying one card, then you have effectively used the Festival as a Silver - paying $5 for something you could have gotten for $3. If you're not using the extra buy or you're not playing two actions on top of the Festival, then you're not getting mileage and you need to ask yourself whether there wasn't a better $5 or even a better $4 you could have bought instead.
This illustrates two principles nicely. One: think about a purpose for your cards rather than buying lazily on some perceived "value." If you're considering Festival you should think about what other action cards will combo nicely, or how you'll work that extra buy. Two: as people know +actions are classically overrated by beginners (over-buying Villages is such a well-known issue that I'm not listing it here). The way I like to pose the question is, imagine an action card that gives you +1 action, +$2. What do you think that's typically worth? If the answer is more than $3 then you might be overrating the actions.
Quarry on "value"
I think beginners sometimes buy Quarry because they think it's just a good card to have around on value, like a Silver or something. They don't appreciate how severely specialized it is towards action-heavy decks. It's miserable when you need to buy other treasures and victory cards, an extra Copper in your deck. And the money you save often ends up as wasted surplus. For example, you might play your Quarry and have $4 total, and let's say the most expensive action cards are $5. So you have $4 to buy a $3 action - but you could have bought it anyway with Silver instead of Quarry (paying $5 for $5)!
If you buy a Quarry, you should have some clearly specific action combos in mind. Obviously Quarry is much improved with extra buys on the board, but even then you need to be thinking about combos, and specifically combos that are realistically affordable on the budgets you'll have in a given hand. If you play a Quarry with an extra buy but you only have $4 total to spend (not uncommon), you can afford to get two $4 actions, or a $5 and a $3. Do you see such pairs that will work well? Are you sure that buying Quarry to get the discount beats traditional money + full-price?
Envoy on "value"
Envoy is effective when you have lots of extra actions, so that your opponents cannot let you keep actions that you draw, or when you're just pursuing big money, so that even though you lose your best treasure you may still pull an extra $3-$5 worth of money into your hand. If you don't have than extra action and your deck is mixed between action and money, then any action you pull is a dead card that your opponent doesn't have to worry about, and you may end up with all of $1 or even $0 to show for your troubles. Like Quarry, I think Envoy is more specialized than beginners think. You need to really consciously minimize the number of dead cards you're going to draw.
Over-pursuing Gold with Hoard
It's easy to look at the Gold-gaining abilities of Hoard and get too excited. I often see players buying an Estate to gain a Gold or a Duchy to gain a Gold. Think about this as buying two cards worth $1.5 and 0.5 (or 1.5) victory points each. As far as money goes, this is worse for your deck than adding 2 Silvers. You of course receive compensation in the form of victory points - but maybe that won't be enough to keep up with the opponent who is building her deck in a more straightforward manner and will start pulling down Provinces (or worse, Colonies) before you.
Somewhat related is overbuying Tunnels in a Tunnel engine. You get really excited about building a Gold-generating machine and then rush out and buy 4 Tunnels near the start of the game. Meanwhile a more prudent opponent only buys 2 Tunnels and builds up a concentration of money more efficiently. Buy enough to get things going but then stop.
Highway for the cantrip and +$1
On most boards, a card that gives you +1 card, +1 action, and +$1 is not worth $5. (For newbies: a "cantrip" is a +1 card +1 action). Consider that Bazaar gives you that and 1 more action, or that Market gives you that and 1 more buy, or that Oasis requires a discard but only costs $3. If you don't have extra buys and you don't have a card that plays off of lowered costs (ex: Ironworks, Workshop) or extra action plays (ex: Conspirator, Peddler), the cantrip and the $1 in cost savings is all that you're getting. Look at the other $5 cards you could be buying before settling on Highway.
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An article like this can't go without mention of City and, to a lesser extent, Treasure Map, among other cards. I also think Talisman would fit in here, too.
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Pawn always choosing +1 Card / +1 Action
Much too often it's played as a cantrip out of fear that you'll draw an action card dead.
Deck tracking is pretty essential and if you know a lot of money is coming up, why not choose +1 Card / +$1 or +1 Card / +1 Buy?
If you're always choosing +1 Card / +1 Action it's no better than a Great Hall, minus the 1 VP.
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An article like this can't go without mention of City and, to a lesser extent, Treasure Map, among other cards. I also think Talisman would fit in here, too.
Treasure Map definitely needs mention. It took me a while to realize that it was as powerful as it seemed mostly because everyone would buy a pair ASAP. Once we realized that other strategies could beat it, then we stopped buying it every time.
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Pawn always choosing +1 Card / +1 Action
Much too often it's played as a cantrip out of fear that you'll draw an action card dead.
Deck tracking is pretty essential and if you know a lot of money is coming up, why not choose +1 Card / +$1 or +1 Card / +1 Buy?
If you're always choosing +1 Card / +1 Action it's no better than a Great Hall, minus the 1 VP.
Not just money coming up... also if you have a lot of dead cards (green/curses/ruins) you should do the same. Take the +1 card and then something that helps you (buy/coin).
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Workshop is one that I think many players first over-buy (filling they're decks with terminals, for example), then with some experience under-buy (not noticing when it can accelerate an engine deck), before finding a good balance.
Spy is another one that I think many beginning players buy too often.
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Workshop is one that I think many players first over-buy (filling they're decks with terminals, for example), then with some experience under-buy (not noticing when it can accelerate an engine deck), before finding a good balance.
Agreed! I have only recently started actually considering it in Highway/Bridge situations, too. Definitely a card that I under-utilize.
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Workshop is one that I think many players first over-buy (filling they're decks with terminals, for example), then with some experience under-buy (not noticing when it can accelerate an engine deck), before finding a good balance.
Spy is another one that I think many beginning players buy too often.
We definitely overbought Ironworks, just gaining more Ironworks with Ironworks, without a clear purpose for them all. One of the most popular cards in Intrigue for weeks. We played some rubbish games :)
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Envoy on "value"
Envoy is effective when you have lots of extra actions, so that your opponents cannot let you keep actions that you draw, or when you're just pursuing big money, so that even though you lose your best treasure you may still pull an extra $3-$5 worth of money into your hand. If you don't have than extra action and your deck is mixed between action and money, then any action you pull is a dead card that your opponent doesn't have to worry about, and you may end up with all of $1 or even $0 to show for your troubles. Like Quarry, I think Envoy is more specialized than beginners think. You need to really consciously minimize the number of dead cards you're going to draw.
You're probably right that this is particularly the case with Envoy, but I think it's also true in general with terminal draw. You either want very few action cards, or else plenty of spare actions. I tend to try to avoid Big Money strategies, as I don't find them particularly interesting, so I usually won't buy Smithy or Envoy etc if there's no villages.
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First, thank you for this post—you've brought up some great material, and it's great to see this level of detail around beginner play.
I think your Festival example is an interesting one, because one of the things that makes +Buy so hard to evaluate is that it's situational. You definitely want a +Buy if you hit $7 when there's only one Province left, but the decision to get sources of +Buy into the deck usually happens long before you hit that point. Since Festival is strictly superior to Silver (barring terminal draw situations), I think the really interesting comparison is between Festival and other terminal Silvers at the $3/$4/$5 price point.
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I think the really interesting comparison is between Festival and other terminal Silvers at the $3/$4/$5 price point.
Agreed. If I hit $5 and was going to be buying Silver anyways, I'll take Festival over Silver unless my game plan is something like Smithy-BM or Envoy-BM. However, in such a deck, I'll generally have something like Militia, Monument, Haggler, Jester, Mountebank or even Fortune Teller or Chancellor which will take a terminal Silver spot.
The other comparison point for Festival is some of the alt-treasures at $5. I will typically take Festival over Contraband, but Venture wins pretty much any day and Royal Seal comes close. Cache is also a good choice at this price range.
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I'm very guilty of the Tunnel trap. If I see Tunnel/Warehouse I'm not likely to buy anything but. Even with $6, sometimes!
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I'm not sure I agree completely with what you're saying about Hoard. Either that or it's just unclear what you're saying. If you have a Hoard in play, I think the right choice is to buy VP cards -- even Estates and Duchies -- most of the time. $1.5/card is just about enough to buy Provinces anyway, and you do want the points. If you really can't stand to have the VP cards in your deck, then the mistake is not the choice to buy the Duchy/Estate while the Hoard is in play, it's the choice you previously made to have bought the Hoard in the first place.
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It's also good to remember that Gold+Estate isn't always worse than Silver+Silver. If you have good sifting, I think the Gold is preferable.
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It's also good to remember that Gold+Estate isn't always worse than Silver+Silver. If you have good sifting, I think the Gold is preferable.
I strongly agree with this. I recently played a game with Beyond Awesome where he went Mine/Hoard and I went Storeroom/Hoard. Let me tell you, Storeroom/Hoard is pretty awesome.
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Thanks for the feedback all.
An article like this can't go without mention of City and, to a lesser extent, Treasure Map, among other cards. I also think Talisman would fit in here, too.
I hear you on City. I think it's a more severe trap in 2 player than in 3. You've still got 10 cards to drive a pile but now you've got 3 people working at it. And in 2p you can just disregard cities while your opponent bloats with them, but in 3p sometimes both your opponents go after City and all of a sudden it becomes more problematic for you. :P
I think your Festival example is an interesting one, because one of the things that makes +Buy so hard to evaluate is that it's situational. You definitely want a +Buy if you hit $7 when there's only one Province left, but the decision to get sources of +Buy into the deck usually happens long before you hit that point. Since Festival is strictly superior to Silver (barring terminal draw situations), I think the really interesting comparison is between Festival and other terminal Silvers at the $3/$4/$5 price point.
Yeah, agreed - the other terminal Silvers are exactly what to look at as alternative buys. I bring up the Festival-Silver comparison and the comparison of Silver to a hypothetical "+1 action +$2" because I think beginners sometimes see Festival and think "+2 actions, +1 buy, +$2 - lots of good stuff, and I won't ever be screwed with a terminal I can't play!" (For beginners - "terminal" = a card that doesn't give extra actions.) What they don't realize is that too often they're effectively only using the $2.
Spy is another one that I think many beginning players buy too often.
I think this often happens when beginners open 4/3 and they feel like they have to buy a $4 card rather than a Silver, because they don't want to "waste" the surplus.
You're probably right that this is particularly the case with Envoy, but I think it's also true in general with terminal draw. You either want very few action cards, or else plenty of spare actions.
Agreed, also a problem with Smithy, I just think it's worse with Envoy. I think some beginners look at Envoy and think "+4 cards!" when in fact what they should be thinking is "+ the worst 4 cards of my next 5," which is in fact considerably worse than +4 cards - in fact priced at the same level as Smithy which is +3 cards. And every dead card in the hand makes the opponent's option to discard a little better.
To illustrate that last point, let's say the probability of your drawn cards being "useful cards" (not dead on a terminal draw) is p. Smithy is straightforward, gives you +3p useful cards on average. With Envoy your opponent is always going to knock out a useful card if there's one available, and moreover your most useful card. So the possibilities and their probabilities are:
p^5: +4 "worst useful cards," i.e. the worst 4 of 5 usefuls
5 * p^4 * (1-p): +3 worst useful cards
10 * p^3 * (1-p)^2: +2 worst useful card
10 * p^2 * (1-p)^3: +1 worst useful card
5 * p * (1-p)^4: all dead cards
(1-p)^5: all dead cards
Putting some real numbers in there, let's say p = 0.5. Smithy gives you +1.5 useful cards on average. Envoy gives you +1.53 worst useful cards. I think we'd agree that +0.03 cards on average doesn't outweigh the difference in average quality between useful and worst useful, and so with that kind of deck and no extra actions to help Envoy, Smithy is a better buy. The exact valuation of the worst useful versus useful, as with any financial option (my background :) ), depends on the volatility of your card draw - if they're all the same card there's no difference, but if you've got Platinums and Coppers in there it's a big difference. So it's hard to say at what values of p Envoy beats out Smithy. But you can at least make a little table to get an idea:
p Smithy usefuls Envoy worst usefuls
0.3 +0.9 +0.67
0.4 +1.2 +1.08
0.5 +1.5 +1.53
0.6 +1.8 +2.01
0.7 +2.1 +2.50
0.8 +2.4 +3.00
0.9 +2.7 +3.50
1.0 +3.0 +4.00
I'd say you're probably hoping for at least a 70% and maybe more like 80% chance of non-dead terminals before Envoy has an edge. All of which is to say, with more potential dead cards Envoy gets more problematic than Smithy does.
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I'm not sure I agree completely with what you're saying about Hoard. Either that or it's just unclear what you're saying. If you have a Hoard in play, I think the right choice is to buy VP cards -- even Estates and Duchies -- most of the time. $1.5/card is just about enough to buy Provinces anyway, and you do want the points. If you really can't stand to have the VP cards in your deck, then the mistake is not the choice to buy the Duchy/Estate while the Hoard is in play, it's the choice you previously made to have bought the Hoard in the first place.
I think that the mistake is the Hoard in the first place - people buy it with the idea in mind that they'll gain Golds in this manner when there is a more efficient way to build your money that beats it in the long run. Sorry if unclear.
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I agree with the OP with regards to Hoard. People should not autobuy green with Hoard in play. Particularly in the middle parts of the game, it's often much better to take Gold or Hoard (or $5 action) instead of Duchy + Gold. People tend to start greening too early with Hoard.
And just because your deck isn't ready for Duchies and Estates yet doesn't mean you shouldn't have gotten Hoard. Sometimes draws just fall against you and you have less than $8 with your Hoard. That doesn't mean it's time to dip for Duchies, and it doesn't mean buying the Hoard was a mistake.
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Nobles - I usually consider it a Trap Card.
First Impression: It has everything you need! Draw, and Actions! You can build a whole self-drawing engine using just Nobles! And it has VP to boot!
Reality: Nobles does not have everything you need. The amount of Draw is mediocre, and the Actions are paltry. The engines you can build from only Nobles are terrible, terrible engines. The VP is not that much.
Nobles are expensive, competing for Gold in your deck at $6, but all they give you is the option of being either a $4 card or a sub-$2 card, which makes them incredibly cost-inefficient. Playing 2 Nobles together is the equivalent of playing a single Laboratory, gaining one net card. And that draw isn't useful unless you actually have cards worth drawing. Like Gold. Which cost as much as Nobles, and which you probably didn't buy if you were rushing buying Nobles.
Nobles can be useful, but they are not the linchpin of a deck. They are nice for smoothing out variance in Action+Terminal Draw decks that are built around other cards, but if they are the core of your engine, it will put-put along at a snail's pace. The draw is better when you have cards worth drawing, so pick up a Gold (or three) before your first Nobles. The extra purchasing power will probably result in you tying or winning the Nobles split anyways.
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Nobles can be useful, but they are not the linchpin of a deck.
You're right that Nobles can't be the linchpin of a deck, and trying to build an engine out of only Nobles is indeed a trap.
But Nobles are more than "useful." Nobles fit nicely into almost any engine, and give VP at the same time. That's why they're so croosh, they allow you to build your engine while increasing your VP total at the same time. The only other card that allows you to do that is Great Hall, and that's mainly just good with Crossroads, also Ironmonger (yeah also Ironworks, but Ironworks-Great Hall rush is not really an engine strategy). I think you really need a source of +Actions other than the Nobles, but in that situation it's really good because it can usually be used to give you +Cards, but can also bail you out in a pinch.
Here's another way to look at it: when you're building an engine, a Nobles buy is kind of like buying a Smithy and paying an extra $2 for 2 VP chips. Which is pretty damn good, think about it.
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Nobles can be useful, but they are not the linchpin of a deck.
Here's another way to look at it: when you're building an engine, a Nobles buy is kind of like buying a Smithy and paying an extra $2 for 2 VP chips. Which is pretty damn good, think about it.
Assuming that you have some sort of Village on the board. Remember, we're talking about beginner trap cards. Using Nobles as a Village competes with just buying Nobles in terms of bad engine strategies.
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That's why they're so croosh, they allow you to build your engine while increasing your VP total at the same time. The only other card that allows you to do that is Great Hall
Goons says hi. :P
But I agree with everything else you said. Nobles is an awesome card in the right circumstances. But noobs don't always know when that is.
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That's why they're so croosh, they allow you to build your engine while increasing your VP total at the same time. The only other card that allows you to do that is Great Hall
Goons says hi. :P
But I agree with everything else you said. Nobles is an awesome card in the right circumstances. But noobs don't always know when that is.
Oh right, I meant besides the VP chip cards.
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You're right that Nobles can't be the linchpin of a deck, and trying to build an engine out of only Nobles is indeed a trap.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/02/game-20121202-015232-4cad11ad.html
I don't know, I've been burned ignoring Nobles way more often than I've benefited from ignoring them. The VP differential, especially in a Province game, makes it hard to ignore them entirely, but picking up just a couple doesn't help your own deck very much either. verikt himself admitted post-game that his big mistake was letting me get 6 Nobles.
(But in a Colony game, engines usually win, so the Nobles are good there as well.)
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The thing I've noticed about Nobles is that you can't let your opponent get 6 or more of them.
So if he starts dipping into them, just sigh and pick up 3 or 4 yourself.
With 6 or more they tend to turn into labs and that's bad.
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In BM, buy Harem. In Engine, buy Nobles. The biggest mistake I see many players make is purchasing Nobles over Harem on BM boards. Almost every beginner does this.
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In BM, buy Harem. In Engine, buy Nobles. The biggest mistake I see many players make is purchasing Nobles over Harem on BM boards. Almost every beginner does this.
...In the same way buying Smithy over Silver is a mistake on BM boards? ???
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In BM, buy Harem. In Engine, buy Nobles. The biggest mistake I see many players make is purchasing Nobles over Harem on BM boards. Almost every beginner does this.
...In the same way buying Smithy over Silver is a mistake on BM boards? ???
It probably isn't a BM board if you don't already have your +draw handled by the time you hit $6. At that point it's probably a mistake to buy a Smithy over a Silver, so, yes.
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The thing I've noticed about Nobles is that you can't let your opponent get 6 or more of them.
So if he starts dipping into them, just sigh and pick up 3 or 4 yourself.
With 6 or more they tend to turn into labs and that's bad.
I'll let my opponents pay $12 over two buys for a single inconsistent lab any time they want.
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Gold and Silver
Buy enough of them. All the Smithies and Villages in the world won't help if you can't ever buy a Province at the end of your turn.
Gold and Silver
Don't buy too many of them. Do your actions give you enough money? Are you trying to draw your whole deck? Maybe an action (or two) would be better for your deck than Silver or Gold.
Is the game about to end? Buy VP. Any VP. Not Gold. It's how you win.
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My rule of thumb with Hoard is if I would buy the "next tier" up of VP without Hoard, I'll buy this tier with Hoard. So, almost always Duchies, and only Estates if I'd buy naked Duchies.
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Hunting Party
This card works best if you have relatively few unique cards in your deck, because this means you will hit the unique ones you do have much more often. So don't spend that extra $2 or $3 on a Pawn or Great Hall, just because you can. That single Great Hall may be the reason you didn't skip everything until you hit your Mountebank.
1 Gold + 1 Silver +1 Copper +1 terminal providing at least $2 (Mountebank, Monument, Horse Traders, Mandarin, etc..) = Province
Beware of cantrips and make sure you play them before your last Hunting Party, otherwise you'll trigger a reshuffle with all of the skipped cards (most likely Coppers and Estates).
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1 Gold + 1 Silver +1 Copper +1 terminal providing at least $2 (Mountebank, Monument, Horse Traders, Mandarin, etc..) = Province
Or even non-terminal. I've done Hunting Party stacks with Bank, Royal Seal, Harem, Festival, and even Quarry. (Quarry's not so great, buy hey, what are the odds I won't get a second copper naturally somewhere along the way?)
Also, Counting House. With Counting House as your terminal, you don't even need to buy the Gold.
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In BM, buy Harem. In Engine, buy Nobles. The biggest mistake I see many players make is purchasing Nobles over Harem on BM boards. Almost every beginner does this.
I recently won a Silk Roads game by going for Harem instead of Nobles. (With multiple buys available.)
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I agree with the OP with regards to Hoard. People should not autobuy green with Hoard in play. Particularly in the middle parts of the game, it's often much better to take Gold or Hoard (or $5 action) instead of Duchy + Gold. People tend to start greening too early with Hoard.
And just because your deck isn't ready for Duchies and Estates yet doesn't mean you shouldn't have gotten Hoard. Sometimes draws just fall against you and you have less than $8 with your Hoard. That doesn't mean it's time to dip for Duchies, and it doesn't mean buying the Hoard was a mistake.
I think the amount of times your deck can tolerate Prov+Gold but can't tolerate Duchy+Gold are quite few. If you're still interested in buying actions or Gold, then it really doesn't make much sense to have bought a Hoard last shuffle. You should have bought that action or Gold instead of the Hoard, and then you could have used them on this turn to buy the Hoard. I think that Hoards should generally be acquired on the last shuffle before you want to start greening.
Nobles can be useful, but they are not the linchpin of a deck. They are nice for smoothing out variance in Action+Terminal Draw decks that are built around other cards, but if they are the core of your engine, it will put-put along at a snail's pace. The draw is better when you have cards worth drawing, so pick up a Gold (or three) before your first Nobles. The extra purchasing power will probably result in you tying or winning the Nobles split anyways.
I agree with most of the rest of your post, but I don't think this is true. Nobles can be the primary focus of your deck a lot of the time. You don't want to use them as a village (trying to use Nobles as a village IS a beginner trap), but they function as ably as most other sources of +cards. And the extra VPs can make up for the slowness of building the engine. You do of course need some way of being able to afford the Nobles, but THREE Golds is way overdoing it. Usually a couple Silvers and money from actions is good enough.
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Oh, here's a good one that I had to explain to a friend recently: if your opponent buys a Curser, buying Moats will not help you win. Not that you should never buy Moat, but only buying Moat as your response to a Cursing attack is just not going to cut it. I find that new players often struggle with the concept that sometimes Moat isn't actually very good at protecting you. Especially in two-player. And their misunderstanding of Moat can prevent them (or delay them) from realizing that often the best way to keep Curses out of your deck is to get them into your opponent's deck.
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Also, Counting House. With Counting House as your terminal, you don't even need to buy the Gold.
Why have I never heard this mentioned before?? Is this legit? Does it beat HP + other simple terminal Silver, like Woodcutter? If so, I'm really disappointed that this combo hasn't been mentioned in either the HP or Counting House articles!
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Also, Counting House. With Counting House as your terminal, you don't even need to buy the Gold.
Why have I never heard this mentioned before?? Is this legit? Does it beat HP + other simple terminal Silver, like Woodcutter? If so, I'm really disappointed that this combo hasn't been mentioned in either the HP or Counting House articles!
This is pretty awesome, as long as you get your deck into the discard it replaces the terminal silver AND the gold. I got 5 provinces by turn 12 on a particularly lucky playthrough of it.
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Also, Counting House. With Counting House as your terminal, you don't even need to buy the Gold.
Why have I never heard this mentioned before?? Is this legit? Does it beat HP + other simple terminal Silver, like Woodcutter? If so, I'm really disappointed that this combo hasn't been mentioned in either the HP or Counting House articles!
A quick simulation suggests that HP + CH isn't that great. But, Geronimoo's simulator kept crashing for me, so I don't know if there are better parameters.
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Oh, here's a good one that I had to explain to a friend recently: if your opponent buys a Curser, buying Moats will not help you win. Not that you should never buy Moat, but only buying Moat as your response to a Cursing attack is just not going to cut it.
An excellent point.
I remember the old days of Dominion where the response to getting hit by an attack (any attack; not just cursers) was, "I clearly don't have enough Moats to deflect attacks, so I'll use my 2 Buys to get two more Moats!"
I see this with newbies too. I'd like to mention that they don't need so many Moats, but that could be construed by the newbie as a trick to screw them over. It depends on whether the newbie knows me or not. I don't want to give good advice and then be accused of sabotaging his play if I do trounce him. After the game, I would point it out, though that then leads the newbie to possibly accuse me of withholding information so I can win. As long as I get the advice in there somewhere, I'm good.
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Also, Counting House. With Counting House as your terminal, you don't even need to buy the Gold.
Why have I never heard this mentioned before?? Is this legit? Does it beat HP + other simple terminal Silver, like Woodcutter? If so, I'm really disappointed that this combo hasn't been mentioned in either the HP or Counting House articles!
This is pretty awesome, as long as you get your deck into the discard it replaces the terminal silver AND the gold. I got 5 provinces by turn 12 on a particularly lucky playthrough of it.
The thing is, since it costs $5, you can't usually buy it at the outset like the $4 terminal Silvers, so it's really just replacing the Gold, while you're replacing the terminal Silver with another Silver. So it's not really any faster. Plus you actually have to have enough HPs to get most of your deck into the discard, so can't start buying Provinces as quickly as with other terminals. And the Counting House doesn't add any other benefits that you'd get from that other terminal Silver. Of course, if you make it a Colony game, it's a different story since you will actually be able to use the excess money provided by Counting House.
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I think the really interesting comparison is between Festival and other terminal Silvers at the $3/$4/$5 price point.
Agreed. If I hit $5 and was going to be buying Silver anyways, I'll take Festival over Silver unless my game plan is something like Smithy-BM or Envoy-BM. However, in such a deck, I'll generally have something like Militia, Monument, Haggler, Jester, Mountebank or even Fortune Teller or Chancellor which will take a terminal Silver spot.
The other comparison point for Festival is some of the alt-treasures at $5. I will typically take Festival over Contraband, but Venture wins pretty much any day and Royal Seal comes close. Cache is also a good choice at this price range.
Well, how are you comparing Festival to the $5 alt-treasures? If you're comparing them in a vacuum over the entire range of possible boards, I'll frequently take Festival over Venture and almost always over all the others, because most boards (especially boards with Festival) will have some engine potential that wants the +2 Actions and/or the +Buy.
If you're limiting your analysis to Big Money-favoring setups, then I'd agree Venture is certainly superior. But the others are all pretty mediocre even then, and I'd often prefer Festival, even if for just the +Buy, over the Seal or Cache.
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Trade Route
I see newbies buy this, then buy an estate to power it up. I always assumed this was wrong, but I'm not positive.
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Trade Route
I see newbies buy this, then buy an estate to power it up. I always assumed this was wrong, but I'm not positive.
I've assumed the same.
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Trade Route
I see newbies buy this, then buy an estate to power it up. I always assumed this was wrong, but I'm not positive.
Well, I'd argue it's not very efficient. After all, your opponents could then by Trade Route and benefit from it too, but it's you that has the extra garbage in your deck. At least if you buy a Great Hall or Island, then it's not a wasted buy (aside from whether or not a Silver is better).
Trade Route is a pretty weak trasher, so buying it for that seems like a generally poor move. Getting that Estate makes it a weak trasher that's at least worth a copper, but I don't know if it's worth it.
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The thing I've noticed about Nobles is that you can't let your opponent get 6 or more of them.
So if he starts dipping into them, just sigh and pick up 3 or 4 yourself.
With 6 or more they tend to turn into labs and that's bad.
Meh, it takes two nobles colliding to equal one lab. 6 Nobles is 3 labs, so really not that big a deal. The bigger deal is the points really. 6 nobles is 2 provinces. And they aren't dead cards. But nobles are really their best when you have a village already. Using them for +3 cards and then only +2 when you have to is much more powerful.
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But nobles are really their best when you have a village already. Using them for +3 cards and then only +2 when you have to is much more powerful.
+1
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The thing I've noticed about Nobles is that you can't let your opponent get 6 or more of them.
So if he starts dipping into them, just sigh and pick up 3 or 4 yourself.
With 6 or more they tend to turn into labs and that's bad.
Meh, it takes two nobles colliding to equal one lab. 6 Nobles is 3 labs, so really not that big a deal. The bigger deal is the points really. 6 nobles is 2 provinces. And they aren't dead cards. But nobles are really their best when you have a village already. Using them for +3 cards and then only +2 when you have to is much more powerful.
2 Nobles is actually 2 labs. First is two actions. Second is three cards. You are left with one action remaining and three cards which is the same as playing 2 labs. So, 6 Nobles is six labs assuming you get them to match up.
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The thing I've noticed about Nobles is that you can't let your opponent get 6 or more of them.
So if he starts dipping into them, just sigh and pick up 3 or 4 yourself.
With 6 or more they tend to turn into labs and that's bad.
Meh, it takes two nobles colliding to equal one lab. 6 Nobles is 3 labs, so really not that big a deal. The bigger deal is the points really. 6 nobles is 2 provinces. And they aren't dead cards. But nobles are really their best when you have a village already. Using them for +3 cards and then only +2 when you have to is much more powerful.
2 Nobles is actually 2 labs. First is two actions. Second is three cards. You are left with one action remaining and three cards which is the same as playing 2 labs. So, 6 Nobles is six labs assuming you get them to match up.
Playing 2 nobles for +2 action/+3 cards gives you a hand size of 6. Used two cards to get three. That's one lab.
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The thing I've noticed about Nobles is that you can't let your opponent get 6 or more of them.
So if he starts dipping into them, just sigh and pick up 3 or 4 yourself.
With 6 or more they tend to turn into labs and that's bad.
Meh, it takes two nobles colliding to equal one lab. 6 Nobles is 3 labs, so really not that big a deal. The bigger deal is the points really. 6 nobles is 2 provinces. And they aren't dead cards. But nobles are really their best when you have a village already. Using them for +3 cards and then only +2 when you have to is much more powerful.
2 Nobles is actually 2 labs. First is two actions. Second is three cards. You are left with one action remaining and three cards which is the same as playing 2 labs. So, 6 Nobles is six labs assuming you get them to match up.
No, 2 Nobles is actually 1 lab. First is two actions. Second is three cards. You are left with one action remaining and a 6 card hand which is the same as playing 1 lab. So, 6 Nobles is three labs assuming you get them to match up.
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Lab used to be a trap card for me, as was Thief.
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I agree with the OP with regards to Hoard. People should not autobuy green with Hoard in play. Particularly in the middle parts of the game, it's often much better to take Gold or Hoard (or $5 action) instead of Duchy + Gold. People tend to start greening too early with Hoard.
And just because your deck isn't ready for Duchies and Estates yet doesn't mean you shouldn't have gotten Hoard. Sometimes draws just fall against you and you have less than $8 with your Hoard. That doesn't mean it's time to dip for Duchies, and it doesn't mean buying the Hoard was a mistake.
I think the amount of times your deck can tolerate Prov+Gold but can't tolerate Duchy+Gold are quite few. If you're still interested in buying actions or Gold, then it really doesn't make much sense to have bought a Hoard last shuffle. You should have bought that action or Gold instead of the Hoard, and then you could have used them on this turn to buy the Hoard. I think that Hoards should generally be acquired on the last shuffle before you want to start greening.
Can you imagine a situation where your deck wants a Province but not a Duchy? Then you should be able to imagine a situation where your deck wants Prov+Gold but not Duchy+Gold.
And the second part has some good advice, but I think you're overestimating the player's ability to see the future. Sure you want to build your deck so that the Hoards are used most effectively, but you can't control your draws in Dominion. If I buy a King's Court and I draw it dead, does that mean I shouldn't have bought a King's Court? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The same thing applies to Hoard.
The main thing, and the point of the original post as I understood it is: don't auto buy green just because you have a Hoard in play. It's similar to the (very good) advice I've seen you give about the price of cards: don't be afraid to overspend if that is the best play for your deck. Don't use the Gold gaining if its not the best play. Think about it first.
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I agree with the OP with regards to Hoard. People should not autobuy green with Hoard in play. Particularly in the middle parts of the game, it's often much better to take Gold or Hoard (or $5 action) instead of Duchy + Gold. People tend to start greening too early with Hoard.
And just because your deck isn't ready for Duchies and Estates yet doesn't mean you shouldn't have gotten Hoard. Sometimes draws just fall against you and you have less than $8 with your Hoard. That doesn't mean it's time to dip for Duchies, and it doesn't mean buying the Hoard was a mistake.
I think the amount of times your deck can tolerate Prov+Gold but can't tolerate Duchy+Gold are quite few. If you're still interested in buying actions or Gold, then it really doesn't make much sense to have bought a Hoard last shuffle. You should have bought that action or Gold instead of the Hoard, and then you could have used them on this turn to buy the Hoard. I think that Hoards should generally be acquired on the last shuffle before you want to start greening.
Can you imagine a situation where your deck wants a Province but not a Duchy? Then you should be able to imagine a situation where your deck wants Prov+Gold but not Duchy+Gold.
And the second part has some good advice, but I think you're overestimating the player's ability to see the future. Sure you want to build your deck so that the Hoards are used most effectively, but you can't control your draws in Dominion. If I buy a King's Court and I draw it dead, does that mean I shouldn't have bought a King's Court? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The same thing applies to Hoard.
The main thing, and the point of the original post as I understood it is: don't auto buy green just because you have a Hoard in play. It's similar to the (very good) advice I've seen you give about the price of cards: don't be afraid to overspend if that is the best play for your deck. Don't use the Gold gaining if its not the best play. Think about it first.
With a lot of strategies, you don't want to start buying Duchies as early as you want to start buying Provinces because you worry about eroding your deck value. But if you're in a position where you already have a Hoard in play, your deck should already be in a position where you're not that concerned about your deck value eroding. My point is that the advice for beginners regarding Hoard should not be about what to buy when Hoard is in play, it should be about when to buy Hoard. The one sentence version should be: "You should not buy a Hoard unless you're ready to start fully greening once it gets into play."
King's Court is entirely different because you buy KCs while building up your deck, and things are bound to not be lining up right at that stage. But when you have enough money to buy basically anything, and you opt to purchase essentially a Silver that gives you Gold when you buy VP cards, your deck should already be in the state where it's as stable as it's going to get. Buying a Hoard is a commitment to greening and you should usually follow through.
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Hunting Party
This card works best if you have relatively few unique cards in your deck, because this means you will hit the unique ones you do have much more often. So don't spend that extra $2 or $3 on a Pawn or Great Hall, just because you can. That single Great Hall may be the reason you didn't skip everything until you hit your Mountebank.
1 Gold + 1 Silver +1 Copper +1 terminal providing at least $2 (Mountebank, Monument, Horse Traders, Mandarin, etc..) = Province
Beware of cantrips and make sure you play them before your last Hunting Party, otherwise you'll trigger a reshuffle with all of the skipped cards (most likely Coppers and Estates).
This, but sometimes I get the feeling people have forgotten you CAN just use HP as a Lab. It's a little niche because HP engines are so strong that they're usually the best option, but not always. Sometimes they're counterindicated by things like Shelters/Ruins/Swindler, and on rare occasions there might just plain be something better available.
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I agree with the OP with regards to Hoard. People should not autobuy green with Hoard in play. Particularly in the middle parts of the game, it's often much better to take Gold or Hoard (or $5 action) instead of Duchy + Gold. People tend to start greening too early with Hoard.
And just because your deck isn't ready for Duchies and Estates yet doesn't mean you shouldn't have gotten Hoard. Sometimes draws just fall against you and you have less than $8 with your Hoard. That doesn't mean it's time to dip for Duchies, and it doesn't mean buying the Hoard was a mistake.
I think the amount of times your deck can tolerate Prov+Gold but can't tolerate Duchy+Gold are quite few. If you're still interested in buying actions or Gold, then it really doesn't make much sense to have bought a Hoard last shuffle. You should have bought that action or Gold instead of the Hoard, and then you could have used them on this turn to buy the Hoard. I think that Hoards should generally be acquired on the last shuffle before you want to start greening.
Can you imagine a situation where your deck wants a Province but not a Duchy? Then you should be able to imagine a situation where your deck wants Prov+Gold but not Duchy+Gold.
And the second part has some good advice, but I think you're overestimating the player's ability to see the future. Sure you want to build your deck so that the Hoards are used most effectively, but you can't control your draws in Dominion. If I buy a King's Court and I draw it dead, does that mean I shouldn't have bought a King's Court? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The same thing applies to Hoard.
The main thing, and the point of the original post as I understood it is: don't auto buy green just because you have a Hoard in play. It's similar to the (very good) advice I've seen you give about the price of cards: don't be afraid to overspend if that is the best play for your deck. Don't use the Gold gaining if its not the best play. Think about it first.
With a lot of strategies, you don't want to start buying Duchies as early as you want to start buying Provinces because you worry about eroding your deck value. But if you're in a position where you already have a Hoard in play, your deck should already be in a position where you're not that concerned about your deck value eroding. My point is that the advice for beginners regarding Hoard should not be about what to buy when Hoard is in play, it should be about when to buy Hoard. The one sentence version should be: "You should not buy a Hoard unless you're ready to start fully greening once it gets into play."
Why shouldn't advice to beginners be about both things? When to buy Hoard and whether to buy green with it. I think both are important. Also, you should always be worried about your deck value eroding if it prevents you from getting the points you need to win (i.e. missing out on Provinces by picking up Duchies too soon).
King's Court is entirely different because you buy KCs while building up your deck, and things are bound to not be lining up right at that stage. But when you have enough money to buy basically anything, and you opt to purchase essentially a Silver that gives you Gold when you buy VP cards, your deck should already be in the state where it's as stable as it's going to get. Buying a Hoard is a commitment to greening and you should usually follow through.
Hoard as silver is okay for building up your deck in lots of situations, it's perfectly fine for purchasing more actions, Gold, or more Hoards. And more importantly, buying Hoard earlier than you are suggesting gives you the chance to make the very powerful Province+Gold buy. And again, your advice is too restrictive and assumes too much foresight in the mind of the player. When I buy a Hoard, I sure don't know what my next shuffle through my deck will look like, and I'm definitely not committing myself to buying Duchies or Estates just because those are the hands I draw with a Hoard.
Anyway, that's all I'll probably say about this since I think its clear we won't come to agreement. But I do think most of what you said is true, I just think you are placing too much emphasis on one aspect and ascribing too much predictive power to the Dominion player. I just want people to not automatically buy green with Hoard, and of course I also want them to think about when they should buy Hoards.
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I agree with most of the rest of your post, but I don't think this is true. Nobles can be the primary focus of your deck a lot of the time. You don't want to use them as a village (trying to use Nobles as a village IS a beginner trap), but they function as ably as most other sources of +cards. And the extra VPs can make up for the slowness of building the engine. You do of course need some way of being able to afford the Nobles, but THREE Golds is way overdoing it. Usually a couple Silvers and money from actions is good enough.
I don't think we're disagreeing all that much. When I say linchpin, I mean that I've seen green players think that Nobles is sufficient as a primary source of Draw and Actions simultaneously, which we agree will always end in tears. Nobles can be a significant engine component, but not the only engine component, especially at its price point. Three golds may be overdoing it, but I've won more games than I've lost by being patient and building my deck, while my opponent rushes for Nobles and buys the first two.
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Switching topics, I see rookies mis-play Trash for Benefit cards with regularity. Inexperienced players are often uncomfortable sacrificing decent cards to a TfB. This severely limits their ability to make the best use of what these cards have to offer.
Part of this, especially with Remodel, is seeing the word "Trash" and thinking the card is a trasher, and using it mostly on Copper and Estates. Trashing a single copper for no or small benefit is not effective use of a card from your hand, and is usually a waste of a turn. Remodel is better used to gain Golds than trash Coppers, and I've been pleased more often than disappointed when I cross my fingers and draw 5-6 cards with an Apprentice. Newbies don't make those big plays, or even mid-range plays, often enough to make those cards worthwhile.
By contrast, Upgrade is pretty efficient working on your starting deck, so it's harder to mis-use.
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Playing 2 nobles for +2 action/+3 cards gives you a hand size of 6. Used two cards to get three. That's one lab.
No, 2 Nobles is actually 1 lab. First is two actions. Second is three cards. You are left with one action remaining and a 6 card hand which is the same as playing 1 lab. So, 6 Nobles is three labs assuming you get them to match up.
I'm going to be pedantic here and assert that 2 Nobles is equivalent to 2 Labs because you also have the 4 VP that you wouldn't have otherwise. Imagine that you play 2 Labs and you always draw the equivalent of Fairgrounds with 10 - 14 unique cards in the deck.
I suppose if one is purely concerned with equivalencies that have no practical meaning outside of discussion, buying 2 Nobles is equivalent to buying 2 Labs and a Fairgrounds, or spending $12 and 2 buys to get $16 and 3 buys worth of value into your deck.
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Playing 2 nobles for +2 action/+3 cards gives you a hand size of 6. Used two cards to get three. That's one lab.
No, 2 Nobles is actually 1 lab. First is two actions. Second is three cards. You are left with one action remaining and a 6 card hand which is the same as playing 1 lab. So, 6 Nobles is three labs assuming you get them to match up.
I'm going to be pedantic here and assert that 2 Nobles is equivalent to 2 Labs because you also have the 4 VP that you wouldn't have otherwise. Imagine that you play 2 Labs and you always draw the equivalent of Fairgrounds with 10 - 14 unique cards in the deck.
I suppose if one is purely concerned with equivalencies that have no practical meaning outside of discussion, buying 2 Nobles is equivalent to buying 2 Labs and a Fairgrounds, or spending $12 and 2 buys to get $16 and 3 buys worth of value into your deck.
I know we love pedantry here, but this is taking hair splitting to a new level. It's pretty obvious we were only talking about the on play effects.
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Obviously, Nobles is not Nobles without the VP to consider.
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In my RL experience, Throne Room is often a beginner trap. "Cool, with a $4 card I can get double-worth out of that awesome $5 card on the table! WHAT VALUE!" Then at the end of the game: "Man, I can't believe how many times I drew that Throne Room dead!"
Obviously TR has its times to shine, but beginners have trouble realizing how TR really wants action-density (and how to best go about creating that action-density). It's a similar issue as Treasure Map, but I think more insidious, because I think a beginner is more likely to realize "oh I need to trash to increase the odds of getting my Treasure Maps together" then they are to realize "hmm to get real value out of my Throne Rooms I need some tighter deck management here."
It's especially bad when a beginner thinks "my Throne Rooms aren't hitting my actions so the obvious solution is to buy more Throne Rooms." One reshuffle later: "oh God I drew my two Throne Rooms together without any other actions!"
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Obviously, Nobles is not Nobles without the VP to consider.
No one's disputing whether Nobles are good value for the money, they certainly are in many situations. We're disputing whether inexperienced players will mis-use them, by prioritizing them too high and/or buying them too early. Mid-game, I would usually rather have the 2 labs without a farmland if I had the option, so I would be spending $12 over two buys to pick up something I consider inferior to what costs $10 over two buys. Investing in Nobles too early is essentially equivalent to greening too early, but it's more common for newbies to make that mistake because Nobles look more useful than they really are.
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Part of this, especially with Remodel, is seeing the word "Trash" and thinking the card is a trasher, and using it mostly on Copper and Estates. Trashing a single copper for no or small benefit is not effective use of a card from your hand, and is usually a waste of a turn. Remodel is better used to gain Golds than trash Coppers, and I've been pleased more often than disappointed when I cross my fingers and draw 5-6 cards with an Apprentice. Newbies don't make those big plays, or even mid-range plays, often enough to make those cards worthwhile.
Great point. Develop as well. I feel like I've often seen players buy Develop with seemingly no goal other than to make one or two Estates into Silver and maybe get rid of Copper here and there (at least they get to topdeck the Silvers). In particular Develop gives you more surplus the higher value your trashed card is.
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In my RL experience, Throne Room is often a beginner trap. "Cool, with a $4 card I can get double-worth out of that awesome $5 card on the table! WHAT VALUE!" Then at the end of the game: "Man, I can't believe how many times I drew that Throne Room dead!"
Sounds like you're thinking of less "noob" beginners than I do when I think of Throne Room... the fact that they are thinking of it as a copy of a $5 card that only costs $4 is thinking that I see as beyond the beginner phase... I know that when I first thought Throne Room was so great, I would be using it on Spy and Village and such... never thinking about the fact that a second copy of the card I played with Throne Room could have been there instead of Throne Room.
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In my RL experience, Throne Room is often a beginner trap. "Cool, with a $4 card I can get double-worth out of that awesome $5 card on the table! WHAT VALUE!" Then at the end of the game: "Man, I can't believe how many times I drew that Throne Room dead!"
Sounds like you're thinking of less "noob" beginners than I do when I think of Throne Room... the fact that they are thinking of it as a copy of a $5 card that only costs $4 is thinking that I see as beyond the beginner phase... I know that when I first thought Throne Room was so great, I would be using it on Spy and Village and such... never thinking about the fact that a second copy of the card I played with Throne Room could have been there instead of Throne Room.
To be fair, I'm more likely to buy Spy in a game with Throne Room. You end up with an extra Action, which you wouldn't if you just played two Spies. It's not as good as Throne Room/Laboratory, but it's still a decent enough faux Village when you need one.
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Remodel, obviously. Remodel copper-estate-remodel-gold-province.