Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Bench of Bishops on November 17, 2014, 10:31:21 pm
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Hey, I'm fairly new, and I still consider myself sort of an advanced beginner. So, lots to learn. Can you give me advice about what went so horribly, horribly wrong on this board with my Gardens strategy? Here's the gamelog: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20141117/log.545b2bd1e4b00b1c1dc7f5a8.1416265919336.txt (http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20141117/log.545b2bd1e4b00b1c1dc7f5a8.1416265919336.txt).
As you can see, I went for gardens, got 9 of them, and lost pretty badly to the other 2 players.
Here are my thoughts:
- Maybe I should have rushed the Workshops first, so I could pick up 2 cards/turn most turns (even if it's just an estate+copper), which would have inflated my deck faster and emptied the piles faster. By running for the gardens first, maybe I just ended up going really slow.
- Also, I shouldn't have bought 2 villages; they were emptying that pile themselves.
- So, Gardens is a rush strategy. In 2 player, that means that a standard gardens player (with Workshop or Woodcutter) can empty 3 piles, and at that point, often have more points than the other player. Maybe that dynamic changes quite a bit on a 3-player board? I have to pick up 50% more Gardens and Estates to end the game, while the other two players may end the game sooner on just 6 provinces each (or 5/7), instead of 8 provinces for one person in the 2-player situation. That actually means things might end even sooner, which maybe is a good thing? Except maybe Gardens wants things to end soon, but not so soon that your deck is still small (and so your gardens are still weak)?
- I actually don't like the gardens rush - it's boring. But I play it if I think it's the winning strategy. So here, I lost out doubly - played a boring strategy, and lost embarrassingly, haha. Help me learn!
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Your deck has under 40 cards, meaning Gardens are only worth 3 points to you. Your opponents have Provinces that are worth 6 each and they used a fast strategy (Council Room engine) to get them before you could end the game. If you want to rush Gardens and win early when they are worth less, you need a more effective way of depleting piles. Workshop is actually pretty bad at this on its own contrary to conventional wisdom, though it's OK in base only games. In a 3 player game, it's also somewhat unlikely you can manage to deplete all three piles unless somebody else is contesting you.
Your opponents also have the Council Room/Militia combo punishing the other players, which is pretty nasty.
Another problem is that you opened Militia. if you planned to rush Gardens in the traditional manner, it would have been better to open with Workshop and forgo Militia (their Militias would hurt each other for you anyway).
I think a better question to ask is "why go for Gardens here?" The engine seems too powerful and fast enough to either a) win regardless of the other guy getting Gardens or B) Contest the Gardens while also getting plenty of Provinces and winning on points easily. I do think a Gardens strategy works, but Council Room is pretty good vs a deck that plans to play 1 terminal and buy something cheap anyway.
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If you're the only one going Gardens, there is no rush to start buying them. Getting your 1st, or 5th, or 7th one sooner makes no difference. You want to get the cards that are more useful first, like Bureaucrat and Workshop. Just like in any other strategy, you want to get all the non-VP cards first and the VP cards last.
Now this specific game, you probably don't want to Gardens at all.
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This may be the first time I've seen an intentional reference to Gardens being thrashed on f.DS.
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A Garden rush in 3P is already slow if you're the only one doing it, especially with the powerful Village/CR+Militia - which gives you a hand like Village/Workshop/Militia at best every turn, and Militia is not really needed anyway in a gardening deck.
Militia isn't a power card against Gardening decks obviously, but it's still decent enough to hold you back when you've got 'good' hand cards
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The three player dynamics are more important here than any single strategy. If you try to build a council room engine against two garden rushing opponents you will lose. With that in mind, gardens are not necessarily good or bad.
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OK, I guess part of my problem was putting the gardens rush up on a pedestal. So that game, and the advice in this thread, help me see that it's not necessarily a dominant strategy. Whew! That also means I can sometimes go for more interesting strategies, if I think they'll do better faster.
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you could if there were any interesting strategies in the base game.
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you could if there were any interesting strategies in the base game.
Festival/Library is interesting.
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you could if there were any interesting strategies in the base game.
Festival/Library is interesting.
i don't believe in festival/library.
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OK, I guess part of my problem was putting the gardens rush up on a pedestal. So that game, and the advice in this thread, help me see that it's not necessarily a dominant strategy. Whew! That also means I can sometimes go for more interesting strategies, if I think they'll do better faster.
Well, it's important to recognize when a Gardens rush is good. Like, here the presence of Villages and strong draw made the engine better, but if the other cards hadn't contributed toward an engine, Gardens might not have been a bad plan.
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you could if there were any interesting strategies in the base game.
The multiplayer interactions here are quite complex even though it is only the base set. The card play may be very simple but the strategies might not be.
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OK, I guess part of my problem was putting the gardens rush up on a pedestal. So that game, and the advice in this thread, help me see that it's not necessarily a dominant strategy. Whew! That also means I can sometimes go for more interesting strategies, if I think they'll do better faster.
In 2P Base there are only a handful situations BM or an engine will beat the rush. Woodcutter/Gardens is less obvious, it's sometimes right but sometimes pretty poor. But Workshop/Gardens is "almost" always good in 2P Base.
In 3+P it's different because of player interactions. If two players go for the rush, it's better than if only one goes for the rush.
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OK, I guess part of my problem was putting the gardens rush up on a pedestal. So that game, and the advice in this thread, help me see that it's not necessarily a dominant strategy. Whew! That also means I can sometimes go for more interesting strategies, if I think they'll do better faster.
In 2P Base there are only a handful situations BM or an engine will beat the rush. Woodcutter/Gardens is less obvious, it's sometimes right but sometimes pretty poor. But Workshop/Gardens is "almost" always good in 2P Base.
In 3+P it's different because of player interactions. If two players go for the rush, it's better than if only one goes for the rush.
Actually my intuition is that for base set Gardens games, Bureaucrat/Gardens > Woodcutter/Gardens > Workshop/Gardens, with the difference between the last 2 being small. Could be wrong on this, too lazy to simulate, but I think Woodcutter gives you more economy after Gardens run out, so in particular you can buy Duchies more often. This is also why Bureaucrat/Gardens is surprisingly solid.
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OK, I guess part of my problem was putting the gardens rush up on a pedestal. So that game, and the advice in this thread, help me see that it's not necessarily a dominant strategy. Whew! That also means I can sometimes go for more interesting strategies, if I think they'll do better faster.
In 2P Base there are only a handful situations BM or an engine will beat the rush. Woodcutter/Gardens is less obvious, it's sometimes right but sometimes pretty poor. But Workshop/Gardens is "almost" always good in 2P Base.
In 3+P it's different because of player interactions. If two players go for the rush, it's better than if only one goes for the rush.
Actually my intuition is that for base set Gardens games, Bureaucrat/Gardens > Woodcutter/Gardens > Workshop/Gardens, with the difference between the last 2 being small. Could be wrong on this, too lazy to simulate, but I think Woodcutter gives you more economy after Gardens run out, so in particular you can buy Duchies more often. This is also why Bureaucrat/Gardens is surprisingly solid.
Woodcutter is probably somewhat better mirroring a Workshop player as it provides more economy after the gardens run out, but makes the Gardener somewhat more sloggy, as you're slower to pick up 2's and 3's. Rushing is easier against Province-players to score, especially if they manage to snipe some Gardens, as getting to 8 is still pretty far away. I never tried Bureaucrat/Gardens actually, but I think it should be solid as well, especially for the economy. But in mirroring, I think it gains less Gardens than Woodcutter or Workshop, although the silvers can maybe offset this. Bureaucrat also should need support in the form of Cellar or Village.
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you could if there were any interesting strategies in the base game.
Festival/Library is interesting.
i don't believe in festival/library.
Festival/Library/Cellar is pretty sweet.
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OK, I guess part of my problem was putting the gardens rush up on a pedestal. So that game, and the advice in this thread, help me see that it's not necessarily a dominant strategy. Whew! That also means I can sometimes go for more interesting strategies, if I think they'll do better faster.
The problem is that no one else went for gardens, and buying them all yourself usually takes too long, i.e., the provinces are bought out by other players.
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That also means I can sometimes go for more interesting strategies, if I think they'll do better faster.
There's only one card that forces you to play an uninteresting strategy, and it's not Gardens.
Edit: It's Rebuild, by the way.
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That also means I can sometimes go for more interesting strategies, if I think they'll do better faster.
There's only one card that forces you to play an uninteresting strategy, and it's not Gardens.
Huh? There's no card that forces you to play an uninteresting strategy, much less so in the base game.
EDIT: Rebuild games are interesting and the card doesn't force you to go for it.
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There's no such thing as an uninteresting card in Dominion as a whole.
Some cards can be uninteresting in certain kingdoms, and some of them have more chance of being uninteresting. But I actually like a good Gardens slog. (Much more than a Gardens rush, actually) Especially in Gardens vs Province
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That also means I can sometimes go for more interesting strategies, if I think they'll do better faster.
There's only one card that forces you to play an uninteresting strategy, and it's not Gardens.
Huh? There's no card that forces you to play an uninteresting strategy, much less so in the base game.
EDIT: Rebuild games are interesting and the card doesn't force you to go for it.
I agree that there is no such card in the base game, but i tend to disagree on Rebuild. Of course Rebuild doesn't physically force my hand to take it, put it in my discard pile and put it in play whenever i have it in hand. Still, the sheer power level of Rebuild makes it unreasonable to not go for it on 90% of the boards it appears on, at least if you want to win. Assuming that i don't want to lose whenever Rebuild is on the board, it does very well force me to go for it.
I see how Rebuild games may have a certain appeal where the challenge is how to support Rebuild best, but that feels like a variant with a reduced kingdom. So i guess Rebuild games are not boring by themselves, they just offer much fewer options than any normal game of Dominion. It's like playing a 5-card kingdom (which i might try out rather than Rebuild. At least you can chose your central tactic yourself, there).
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That also means I can sometimes go for more interesting strategies, if I think they'll do better faster.
There's only one card that forces you to play an uninteresting strategy, and it's not Gardens.
Huh? There's no card that forces you to play an uninteresting strategy, much less so in the base game.
EDIT: Rebuild games are interesting and the card doesn't force you to go for it.
I agree that there is no such card in the base game, but i tend to disagree on Rebuild. Of course Rebuild doesn't physically force my hand to take it, put it in my discard pile and put it in play whenever i have it in hand. Still, the sheer power level of Rebuild makes it unreasonable to not go for it on 90% of the boards it appears on, at least if you want to win. Assuming that i don't want to lose whenever Rebuild is on the board, it does very well force me to go for it.
I see how Rebuild games may have a certain appeal where the challenge is how to support Rebuild best, but that feels like a variant with a reduced kingdom. So i guess Rebuild games are not boring by themselves, they just offer much fewer options than any normal game of Dominion. It's like playing a 5-card kingdom (which i might try out rather than Rebuild. At least you can chose your central tactic yourself, there).
It's not that powerful, you should ignore it more often.
Also, I think that Rebuild makes kingdoms where it's difficult to choose your strategy more common. Oftentimes there's an obvious engine and literally nothing else you can do. So sometimes you get kingdoms where Rebuild is obviously the correct play, but in my experience, the games where there's a super good strategy but OTOH there's also Rebuild are more common than the games where you can't decide if going for the engine or the big money strategy is better.