Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Game Reports => Help! => Topic started by: AndrewisFTTW on March 23, 2014, 10:52:16 pm

Title: The engine that couldn't
Post by: AndrewisFTTW on March 23, 2014, 10:52:16 pm

(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/5/58/Contraband.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Contraband) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/2/2f/Embassy.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Embassy) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/1/13/Graverobber.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Graverobber) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/e/ea/Farmland.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Farmland) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/8/81/Grand_Market.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Grand Market)
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/0/0f/Pawn.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Pawn) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/7/79/Scrying_Pool.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Scrying Pool) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/c/c6/Lookout.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Lookout) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/c/c8/Caravan.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Caravan) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/e/ed/Butcher.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Butcher)

Code: [Select]

Pawn, Scrying Pool, Lookout, Caravan, Butcher, Contraband, Embassy, Graverobber, Farmland, Grand Market
http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/logprettifier.html?20140323/log.516ddc20e4b082c74d7cbc04.1395629116964.txt

So first of all, I took a couple weeks or so off from Dominion so I'm rusty. Second of all, I suck at Dominion anyway. I know this is a strong engine that SHOULD win no problem here. But I never got to the GMs, barely got a couple scrying pools, and just couldn't build this engine up fast enough. I hit 1p twice but I'm sure I made some mistakes here. Maybe I should've picked up a butcher or two and used them to get caravans and GMs? I don't know. What do you guys think?

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: TrojH on March 23, 2014, 11:09:43 pm

I would've done the same thing as you on turns 1 and 2.

Turn 3, bad luck. Nothing you could do about it.

Turn 4, I definitely would've grabbed a Butcher.

Turn 5, I would've grabbed another Butcher. A Gold would've been my second choice, but there's no way I would've bought that Farmland. Think about what would've happened on your turn 7 if that Farmland was a Butcher: you trash a Copper with the Lookout, then you Butcher the Estate into a Pawn, and then you use a Coin token to buy a Scrying Pool. A far better outcome than what actually happened.

Turn 5 is where you lost it, I think.

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: GeoLib on March 23, 2014, 11:30:50 pm

Butcher is rarely a card to be ignored and Farmland is just not very good early game. Essentially, you've just bought a caravan for $6 and replaced a junk card with a more expensive junk card.

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: 2.71828..... on March 23, 2014, 11:54:07 pm

1.  Your opponent had perfect shuffle luck with his embassy-BM game.  I mean, his embassies did not stack together a single time.

2.  This is definitely an engine board.  However, you did not trust the engine and grabbed way too many treasure cards.  You need engine components.  That means butcher primarily.  Once you have your butcher you can do things like trash an estate into a caravan and still buy something else (maybe a scrying pool).

Here is an example (http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140323/log.515f2508e4b09ee2d2aa5c19.1395632631450.txt) of what an engine can do on this board.  I may not have played an optimal game against the bot, but it shows just how powerful the engine can become.  I ended up with 5 provinces in 16 turns.

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: AndrewisFTTW on March 23, 2014, 11:57:55 pm

I didn't know how well butcher would work in the context of an engine but I think butcher pretty much works everywhere. I was also concerned about buying too much money but I felt like I had to buy something every time I hit 3, which is also wrong and probably a really common mistake.

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: eHalcyon on March 24, 2014, 12:00:06 am

Quote from: 2.71828..... on March 23, 2014, 11:54:07 pm

1.  Your opponent had perfect shuffle luck with his embassy-BM game.  I mean, his embassies did not stack together a single time.

2.  This is definitely an engine board.  However, you did not trust the engine and grabbed way too many treasure cards.  You need engine components.  That means butcher primarily.  Once you have your butcher you can do things like trash an estate into a caravan and still buy something else (maybe a scrying pool).

Here is an example (http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140323/log.515f2508e4b09ee2d2aa5c19.1395632631450.txt) of what an engine can do on this board.  I may not have played an optimal game against the bot, but it shows just how powerful the engine can become.  I ended up with 5 provinces in 16 turns.

Not to say that the engine isn't viable (it probably is), but I'm pretty sure Embassy-BM can manage 5 provinces in 16 turns easily. 

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: HiveMindEmulator on March 24, 2014, 01:10:35 am

This is a bit of a tough call because the Scrying Pool attack isn't as powerful against Embassy as other kinds of BM, since it has the filtering. And there's no gainers to build super fast or villages to gain a bunch of Provinces at once with Graverobber or Butcher. So you actually have to accumulate a bunch of GMs and then use that money to buy Provinces, which isn't the fastest thing on the planet.

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: Davio on March 24, 2014, 04:35:12 am

I think this is an engine board as well, but it doesn't win by a large margin, because Embassy and money can work really well, meaning:

An engine strategy with moderate or good luck and good execution should beat the Embassies.
If the engine strategy is less fortunate and/or not executed as well, I'm not surprised if it loses.

Because of the Embassies' raw power, you don't have a lot of margin to screw around, either due to bad luck or bad execution.

I'm wary of the Lookout/Potion-opening; I think a Pawn/Potion opening is just as fine if not better. You might be able to make due without trashing with lots of Pawns and Caravans. Opening Pawn over Lookout can get you to a lucky Butcher on the reshuffle or you can use its +Buy if you happen to draw something like Pwn-Potion-3C or Pwn-3C-E.

So where's the payoff? What do you do when you've drawn your deck? The only virtual money is Grand Market, but it may be a long time before you get to it. Butcher can help you with this by saving the coins when you trash Estate for Pawn for instance.

All in all I think it's doable, but as I said, going for the engine doesn't automatically beat the Embassy player. You have virtually no way to stop him (Scrying Pool shouldn't hurt him that badly) and only Farmlands as a way to deepen the VP pool. Only near flawless execution will do here.

I'm surprised that you bought Gold and Silver, that's a bit of a half hearted commitment. I think you either go with the engine and buy Pawns over Silver and a Butcher over that Gold than trying to do both the engine and some treasures. I mean, the treasures and Embassy are a perfect match, the treasures and a Scrying Pool deck are not.

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: yed on March 24, 2014, 04:47:56 am

You can buy more butchers here and when they collide butcher them to GM.

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: terminalCopper on March 24, 2014, 05:24:30 am

More general, if your opponent doesn't like silver, embassy is awesome. And a scrying pool engine doesn't need silver at all.

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: WanderingWinder on March 24, 2014, 07:33:13 am

Quote from: 2.71828..... on March 23, 2014, 11:54:07 pm

2.  This is definitely an engine board.  However, you did not trust the engine and grabbed way too many treasure cards.

So, he grabbed a potion, which you seem to need he thinks, a gold, and... no other treasures. Yeah, he ends up with two silvers, but he didn't grab them - he was given them. So the gold is pretty bad here, but I don't think that "one too many" is "way too many"

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: AndrewisFTTW on March 24, 2014, 10:45:09 am

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm looking forward to trying this out again in a little bit and I'll post the results.

Question: At what point should I stop playing lookout? Trashing a good card to lookout is one of my least favorite things in Dominion.

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: Mic Qsenoch on March 24, 2014, 10:58:09 am

Quote from: AndrewisFTTW on March 24, 2014, 10:45:09 am

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm looking forward to trying this out again in a little bit and I'll post the results.

Question: At what point should I stop playing lookout? Trashing a good card to lookout is one of my least favorite things in Dominion.

Early on it shouldn't be risky at all to play the Lookout. In the middle of the game your Scrying Pools should give you enough control to guarantee hitting coppers. The idea is that once you've discarded a Copper with SP, keep drawing your deck until you have 0-2 cards left in the deck. Now your Lookout has a 100% chance of hitting a Copper. It's also pretty easy to track the coppers in this deck, just count how many are in the trash and in your hand. This may let you know that a Lookout play is safe with 3-4 cards left in your deck.

Once you are drawing your deck reliably, you'll want to Butcher the Lookout into a Grand Market.

I tried a few solitaire runs of the engine and it definitely didn't develop as quickly as I'd like. The Silvers from opponent's Embassy should help a bit, but I'm not sure how much.

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: AndrewisFTTW on March 24, 2014, 11:23:25 am

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140324/log.516ddc20e4b082c74d7cbc04.1395674242671.txt

Ok here it is. I opened pawn/butcher and I think I should've gotten a second butcher just to butch more often. This game is still rife with mistakes such as not picking up an early lookout, misplaying things, miscounting, and not using scrying pools with lookout to trash coppers, as Mic Qsenoch suggested in the last post. I think the biggest problem with this deck is it's hard to get a decent amount of money quickly. I could butcher into GMs but buying them is tough considering I only bought one silver a little late in the game. Let me know if I missed anything.

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: DG on March 24, 2014, 11:54:22 am

Income shouldn't be the main obstacle here since you can buy pawns, possibly the entire stack, and use them for income or drawing. Butchering copper for pawns is fine but you still need a lookout to trash the rubbish, maybe even two lookouts since you can butcher/graverob the lookouts later. Once you've started this deck as a scrying pool deck you pretty well have to commit to it and build until you can draw the deck each turn and get double or triple province turns (with butcher/graverobber).

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: dondon151 on March 24, 2014, 12:33:48 pm

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20140324/log.516d4fd3e4b082c74d7b96c1.1395678088506.txt

49 VP in 16 turns with only 3 Provinces is decent, I guess. I could have played the last turn differently and ended the game with 48 VP and 2 Provinces. I'll leave it up to you guys to decide.

There's no way that an engine can win by chasing after Provinces, though.

Title: Re: The engine that couldn't
Post by: AndrewisFTTW on March 25, 2014, 11:50:12 am

Thanks for all the feedback. For some reason I didn't think about utilizing pawns or farmland, both of which should've been pretty obvious.