Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Game Reports => Topic started by: Asper on January 18, 2014, 05:30:52 pm
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I guess some of you know the situation that you just won a game against a bot, used a clever little strategy to do this, and now you wonder whether it was actually a good strategy or whether the bots just were too stupid.
Example:
I play against two bots. Both of them go for Ambassador and for Rebuild in the next step. Obviously good cards. I go for Secret Chamber(!) and Islands/Gardens. Interestingly i don't lose. Their constant playing of Ambassadors floods my deck with Coppers, which pushes my Gardens, makes me see Money more often and as an attack helps me settle my hands with my SC. Also they harm each other with it and my SC is a great help in making sure i always get to 4$, which allows me to green like silly. I win against them (by a few points), with both having 6 Provinces each and me swimming in Islands and Gardens.
So: Can it really be that two of the best cards in Dominion fail so miserably against Gardens and *cough* Secret Chamber? I see the synergy with the alt-victories as a 4$-enabler and that Ambassador is weak against Gardens, but isn't Rebuild supposed to make the game shorter? How could i get so much green in the first place? I wish i had a Log to at least make sure they didn't ambassador their starting Estates away or something like that...
Anyway, has this ever happened to you? And what do you think of my unexpected win?
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Rebuild makes the game much shorter if you do it deliberately. I doubt the bots were only trying to trash the Province pile, that wouldn't necessarily be a good idea anyway if they have each other to compete with. Also, in a three player game, there are 12 Provinces instead of 8, so it takes longer to trash them all (unless both Rebuild players cooperate, and it's a prisoner's dilemma). Ambassador also tends to make the game much longer, which is great for a Gardens player, besides the obvious reason of increasing his deck size.
Ambassador and Rebuild are each very good cards, but they really antisynergise - Ambassador wants to give away all your Estates, but Rebuild wants to turn them into Duchies. Also, Ambassador wars can take until turn 10+ just to hit $5, whereas Rebuild wants to hit $5 as early and often as possible.
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Gardens offer strong counter strategies in a lot of kingdoms and that's what makes it an interesting card. Human players would probably stop playing ambassadors as soon as you buy some gardens so the bots will have been partially in error.