Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: brokoli on June 28, 2014, 02:21:32 pm
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Is it possible to play engines in these boards ? How would you play the engine ?
A) Cellar, Village, Throne room, Spy, Remodel, Gardens, Council room, Library, Market, Adventurer
B) Chapel, Cellar, Woodcutter, Village, Spy, Smithy, Bureaucrat, Mine, Laboratory, Adventurer
Overall, I feel like engines in base games are surprisingly difficult to play, because there are lots of weak engines cards. I tried these games against bot without real success at building a good engine. Playing these games I noticed that the expansions made me learn things about engines that I had to unlearn with base game. The most important differences in base game are the lack of powerful $5 engine cards (the best is really Festival) and the lack of money in the form of action cards.
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Engines in base games are surprisingly common, the biggest problem with them is lack of villages.
Both of these board are engine boards, I suspect. Engines are almost always the right call when available.
A) I'd open silver/remodel, then build the engine thing with villages, throne room, council room for draw, and golds for payload and remodeling into province. You don't want a second silver probably, but you might want a spy or two before throne room if it is too early.
B) chapel everything, village/smithy engine + 1 woodcutter, golds for money. Other cards might matter a little bit situationally.
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A) I'd open silver/remodel, then build the engine thing with villages, throne room, council room for draw, and golds for payload and remodeling into province. You don't want a second silver probably, but you might want a spy or two before throne room if it is too early.
Council Room is a bad idea for draw in an engine. I learned that the hard way.
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A) I'd open silver/remodel, then build the engine thing with villages, throne room, council room for draw, and golds for payload and remodeling into province. You don't want a second silver probably, but you might want a spy or two before throne room if it is too early.
Council Room is a bad idea for draw in an engine. I learned that the hard way.
no, that sounds right
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A) I'd open silver/remodel, then build the engine thing with villages, throne room, council room for draw, and golds for payload and remodeling into province. You don't want a second silver probably, but you might want a spy or two before throne room if it is too early.
Council Room is a bad idea for draw in an engine. I learned that the hard way.
no, that sounds right
There's no strong trashing, either. I think the engine is too slow on that board, and while it's firing up the BM player would have 6-8 card hands and easily get most of the provinces.
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A) I'd open silver/remodel, then build the engine thing with villages, throne room, council room for draw, and golds for payload and remodeling into province. You don't want a second silver probably, but you might want a spy or two before throne room if it is too early.
Council Room is a bad idea for draw in an engine. I learned that the hard way.
no, that sounds right
There's no strong trashing, either. I think the engine is too slow on that board, and while it's firing up the BM player would have 6-8 card hands and easily get most of the provinces.
The BM here is not that strong. The best BM is probably BM-library, which isn't helped nearly as much by council room as normal BM strategies are. I bet the engine wins at least 2/3 of the time.
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A) I'd open silver/remodel, then build the engine thing with villages, throne room, council room for draw, and golds for payload and remodeling into province. You don't want a second silver probably, but you might want a spy or two before throne room if it is too early.
Council Room is a bad idea for draw in an engine. I learned that the hard way.
no, that sounds right
There's no strong trashing, either. I think the engine is too slow on that board, and while it's firing up the BM player would have 6-8 card hands and easily get most of the provinces.
The BM here is not that strong. The best BM is probably BM-library, which isn't helped nearly as much by council room as normal BM strategies are. I bet the engine wins at least 2/3 of the time.
Yeah, the BM isn't strong, but the engine isn't either. I think BM would win a majority of the time.
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A) I'd open silver/remodel, then build the engine thing with villages, throne room, council room for draw, and golds for payload and remodeling into province. You don't want a second silver probably, but you might want a spy or two before throne room if it is too early.
Council Room is a bad idea for draw in an engine. I learned that the hard way.
no, that sounds right
There's no strong trashing, either. I think the engine is too slow on that board, and while it's firing up the BM player would have 6-8 card hands and easily get most of the provinces.
The BM here is not that strong. The best BM is probably BM-library, which isn't helped nearly as much by council room as normal BM strategies are. I bet the engine wins at least 2/3 of the time.
Yeah, the BM isn't strong, but the engine isn't either. I think BM would win a majority of the time.
The engine has triple-province potential. Want to play it?
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A) I'd open silver/remodel, then build the engine thing with villages, throne room, council room for draw, and golds for payload and remodeling into province. You don't want a second silver probably, but you might want a spy or two before throne room if it is too early.
Council Room is a bad idea for draw in an engine. I learned that the hard way.
no, that sounds right
There's no strong trashing, either. I think the engine is too slow on that board, and while it's firing up the BM player would have 6-8 card hands and easily get most of the provinces.
The BM here is not that strong. The best BM is probably BM-library, which isn't helped nearly as much by council room as normal BM strategies are. I bet the engine wins at least 2/3 of the time.
Yeah, the BM isn't strong, but the engine isn't either. I think BM would win a majority of the time.
The engine has triple-province potential. Want to play it?
Alright, meet me in outpost. I'll play BM, you play engine.
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Not the same board, but there was some nice analysis about the base set in this article by Geronimoo:
http://dominionstrategy.com/2012/07/30/building-the-first-game-engine/
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http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140628/log.50a43f07e4b0addfc4f4304a.1403982657430.txt
It was really close.
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yeah. I misplayed it a little bit, turn 11 should have been throne/throne/village probably instead of gold/market. gold/throne would be better for sure, at least.
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My main thing is that I didn't expect the Remodel to be used THAT much.
Also, I shouldn't have gotten the Library, because I had big hands every time.
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yeah, throne room turns remodel into a real trasher. I got rid of almost all my starting cards by the end of the game. It's really good at the end for turning all your cards into points.
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http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140628/log.50a43f07e4b0addfc4f4304a.1403982657430.txt
It was really close.
proof via example. q.e.d
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A) I'd open silver/remodel, then build the engine thing with villages, throne room, council room for draw, and golds for payload and remodeling into province. You don't want a second silver probably, but you might want a spy or two before throne room if it is too early.
Council Room is a bad idea for draw in an engine. I learned that the hard way.
I learned that too ;D
From my experience against banker bot (log here (http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/logprettifier.html?20140628/log.505c7bfd51c32492827890f9.1403978661599.txt), but it's not at all an example of good play :P) there are two cards that make Council room in the engine not that awful :
- Spy, because played before council room it makes the +1 card for the opponent at least less useful
- Gardens, because with all these multiples buys the engine player can have more control on the end of the game, as shown in the log I was far behind but almost managed to win on the last turn.
I like your game against liopoil because I didn't expect remodel to be so powerful here, I mean there are no real interesting cards to turn estates and coppers into, so I thought remodel would be "only" useful for the gold => province thing.
Still, engine doesn't win so easily.
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A) I'd open silver/remodel, then build the engine thing with villages, throne room, council room for draw, and golds for payload and remodeling into province. You don't want a second silver probably, but you might want a spy or two before throne room if it is too early.
Council Room is a bad idea for draw in an engine. I learned that the hard way.
I learned that too ;D
From my experience against banker bot (log here (http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/logprettifier.html?20140628/log.505c7bfd51c32492827890f9.1403978661599.txt), but it's not at all an example of good play :P) there are two cards that make Council room in the engine not that awful :
- Spy, because played before council room it makes the +1 card for the opponent at least less useful
- Gardens, because with all these multiples buys the engine player can have more control on the end of the game, as shown in the log I was far behind but almost managed to win on the last turn.
I like your game against liopoil because I didn't expect remodel to be so powerful here, I mean there are no real interesting cards to turn estates and coppers into, so I thought remodel would be "only" useful for the gold => province thing.
Still, engine doesn't win so easily.
You are forgetting library, which if the opponent has in hand completely nulls the council room effect. Gardens is important for there to be more VP in the supply for the engine player to pick up. Engine does not win easily, but I made several errors. I think with optimal play the engine player will win by more and more often, and I stick to my at least 2/3 estimate.
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140628/log.50a43f07e4b0addfc4f4304a.1403982657430.txt
It was really close.
proof via example. q.e.d
yeah, good point, but I think the point is an example of how a game on this kingdom might go.
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the best cr enabler in the base game is without a doubt milita
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the best cr enabler in the base game is without a doubt milita
well of course, but it isn't in the kingdom so I didn't mention it.
I wonder what the strategy would be in that kingdom if you replaced adventurer with smithy. Now the BM is much stronger, but smithy has use in the engine so I think that is still the way to go.
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If you're playing against an engine that's using CR for draw wouldn't BM+CR be a better BM option? That way you can actually take advantage of the extra card
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If you're playing against an engine that's using CR for draw wouldn't BM+CR be a better BM option? That way you can actually take advantage of the extra card
I think that usually when you're playing against an engine, CR is better than Library even if your opponent doesn't use CR for draw. The extra card isn't as useful for an engine as it is for big money, so it's beneficial for you to give an extra card for both of you, especially since it comes with a +buy.
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http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140628/log.50a43f07e4b0addfc4f4304a.1403982657430.txt
It was really close.
BM player should really be using CR instead of Library.
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If you're playing against an engine that's using CR for draw wouldn't BM+CR be a better BM option? That way you can actually take advantage of the extra card
I think that usually when you're playing against an engine, CR is better than Library even if your opponent doesn't use CR for draw. The extra card isn't as useful for an engine as it is for big money, so it's beneficial for you to give an extra card for both of you, especially since it comes with a +buy.
More importantly, playing CR speeds up the game for both players, and engines are about having an explosive late game after spending turns building up. CR means you get less build time, the +1 card doesn't offset the turns you don't get to have for building purposes.
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http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140628/log.50a43f07e4b0addfc4f4304a.1403982657430.txt
It was really close.
BM player should really be using CR instead of Library.
I realized that Library was horrible too late. I'm not so sure about getting CR, Market is a fairly viable option here and the CR card could help your opponent (lio got a few dud turns in that game, an extra card could have changed that).
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(lio got a few dud turns in that game, an extra card could have changed that).
...or me just buying things in the right order.
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I realized that Library was horrible too late. I'm not so sure about getting CR, Market is a fairly viable option here and the CR card could help your opponent (lio got a few dud turns in that game, an extra card could have changed that).
dude market is one of the most underpowered 5$'s in terms of how much it actually does. it's only good because of its reliability, something that's not important in BM, because you dont have lots of action cards. market-BM is not a thing.
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I realized that Library was horrible too late. I'm not so sure about getting CR, Market is a fairly viable option here and the CR card could help your opponent (lio got a few dud turns in that game, an extra card could have changed that).
dude market is one of the most underpowered 5$'s in terms of how much it actually does. it's only good because of its reliability, something that's not important in BM, because you dont have lots of action cards. market-BM is not a thing.
It's better than silver, and CR can help the opponent. I'm not saying it's the best thing every, I'm just saying it should be considered.
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I realized that Library was horrible too late. I'm not so sure about getting CR, Market is a fairly viable option here and the CR card could help your opponent (lio got a few dud turns in that game, an extra card could have changed that).
dude market is one of the most underpowered 5$'s in terms of how much it actually does. it's only good because of its reliability, something that's not important in BM, because you dont have lots of action cards. market-BM is not a thing.
It's better than silver, and CR can help the opponent. I'm not saying it's the best thing every, I'm just saying it should be considered.
CR is infinitely better for BM than Market. I'm sorry, but CR BM is solid. Market/BM? That has to be pretty much a super, super weak bored for me to even consider that.
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When your opponent plays CR several times per turn, the huge card draw from your own CR lets you play it more often, and those extra cards make it more likely that you hit fatal double-Province turns against the engine.
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CR can help the opponent.
But it helps you a lot more.
Engines typically buy a lot of cheap cards in the early game and draw the entire deck anyway in the late game. If the opponent already has a hand which will result in drawing his entire deck, the +1 card for him means nothing. If the opponent already has a hand which will result in getting the engine piece he's going to buy this turn, the +1 card for him means slightly faster cycling and nothing more.
The big money player wants a lot of expensive cards such as Golds and Provinces, and will never draw his entire deck no matter what. The 4th card you draw from CR has a significant chance of getting you over the $8 threshold, or the $9 threshold to buy Gold+Silver, or the $11 threshold to buy Province+Silver, or the $12 threshold to buy Gold+Gold, or the $13 threshold to buy Province+Duchy, etc. Not all of these are useful compared to a lower price point in all situations, but very often, even a single +$1 can enable something better than what you otherwise would have had, and at the very least, it removes a Copper from your next hand. The worst is probably getting a Silver to get you from $8 to $10, but even that allows you to buy an extra Estate in the late game, or the Gold+Silver rather than just Gold in the early game, or double Duchy in situations which probably will never happen against an engine. These are significant changes, unlike the "cycle 1 random card" that your opponent is getting.
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Engines in base games are surprisingly common, the biggest problem with them is lack of villages.
I'm quite sure the ratio of villages is more or less costant over all expension with 1 village : 10 cards, and base is exactly on this spot with 2.5 villages (village, festival, tr)
But it might be kind of true in the sense that there are not really good combos for festival, as Festival/Lib usually lacks usefull cards for $3/$4.
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Engines in base games are surprisingly common, the biggest problem with them is lack of villages.
I'm quite sure the ratio of villages is more or less costant over all expension with 1 village : 10 cards, and base is exactly on this spot with 2.5 villages (village, festival, tr)
But it might be kind of true in the sense that there are not really good combos for festival, as Festival/Lib usually lacks usefull cards for $3/$4.
A bigger problem is that you need a chapel/cellar/millitia to make a festival+library work
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Engines in base games are surprisingly common, the biggest problem with them is lack of villages.
I'm quite sure the ratio of villages is more or less costant over all expension with 1 village : 10 cards, and base is exactly on this spot with 2.5 villages (village, festival, tr)
But it might be kind of true in the sense that there are not really good combos for festival, as Festival/Lib usually lacks usefull cards for $3/$4.
A bigger problem is that you need a chapel/cellar/millitia to make a festival+library work
I would say that militia doesn't help that much in a board with library.
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Engines in base games are surprisingly common, the biggest problem with them is lack of villages.
I'm quite sure the ratio of villages is more or less costant over all expension with 1 village : 10 cards, and base is exactly on this spot with 2.5 villages (village, festival, tr)
But it might be kind of true in the sense that there are not really good combos for festival, as Festival/Lib usually lacks usefull cards for $3/$4.
A bigger problem is that you need a chapel/cellar/millitia to make a festival+library work
I would say that militia doesn't help that much in a board with library.
Of course it does, When opponent plays millitia a library becomes a discard 2 cards, draw 5 cards which is often must-buy in millitia games.
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1) I'd prefer BM - Library in this case, with some cellars for sifting. The best engine case here may be Library - Market - Cellar with a few silvers and golds (but I think it's weaker.) Council room's extra card for opponents is like them playing a laboratory, which is by far so strong. I try to avoid this card unless discard attacks are available.
Additional note (edited): Going Library also allows Council Room player to go for this strategy safely because the extra card is mitigated by draw-up-to-X card. It's a Council Room paradox and it's hard to figure out whether to go for this or not.
2) I prefer Laboratory/Village (may add Smithy) and Woodcutter engine. The presence of Chapel means engine building should be easy.
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1) I'd prefer BM - Library in this case, with some cellars for sifting. The best engine case here may be Library - Market - Cellar with a few silvers and golds (but I think it's weaker.) Council room's extra card for opponents is like them playing a laboratory, which is by far so strong. I try to avoid this card unless discard attacks are available.
Additional note (edited): Going Library also allows Council Room player to go for this strategy safely because the extra card is mitigated by draw-up-to-X card. It's a Council Room paradox and it's hard to figure out whether to go for this or not.
2) I prefer Laboratory/Village (may add Smithy) and Woodcutter engine. The presence of Chapel means engine building should be easy.
You don't want any Cellars for sifting in BM, definitely not over Silver. Council Room's extra card for opponents might be like them playing a Laboratory, but its extra card for you is also like you playing a Laboratory. And that effect is a lot stronger for BM than it is for engines, as has been stated before (in this situation, when there isn't an actual Lab that the BM player is just going to draw dead). Council Room being a soft counter against Library is just the last nail in the coffin.
Library/Market/Cellar is certainly not the best engine case there, I actually wouldn't even call that an engine at all. TBH, I'm not even sure if it counts as a strategy.
You don't need Village in a Laboratory engine, unless your payload requires multiple actions. You definitely want both Villages and Smithies, though.
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For the first kingdom I would pick engine! But its by far not 2/3 for the engine! Really even banker bot can beat you with this.
The base set is very very balanced for engine vs bm!
Generally heavy village is bad in base game. Without workshop you cant just spend ~ 8 turns buying village and smithy. If you do that you reach the peak around turn 10 and draw your 7 coppers reliably... Even rebuild into village/smithy is mediocre!
When I go engine I might buy 1 or maybe 2 villages to chain my single terminals (chapel/woodcutter/militia). As Op stated festival is the mvp here.
Even more generally my base games are either workshop/garden witch/bm or lab engine. Festival/cellar/library is solid though!