Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Game Reports => Topic started by: Dingan on July 20, 2016, 03:19:28 pm

Title: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: Dingan on July 20, 2016, 03:19:28 pm

(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/c/c8/Horse_Traders.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Horse Traders) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/7/70/Rats.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Rats) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/c/cb/Spy.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Spy) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/9/96/Haggler.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Haggler) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/9/9d/Harem.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Harem)
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/d/d6/Poor_House.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Poor House) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/6/69/Apothecary.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Apothecary) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/a/a7/Trade_Route.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Trade Route) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/7/7d/Cutpurse.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Cutpurse) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/5/50/Death_Cart.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Death Cart)

Code: [Select]

Poor House, Apothecary, Trade Route, Cutpurse, Death Cart, Horse Traders, Rats, Spy, Haggler, Harem
http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160720/log.0.1468983337513.txt

Colony/Platinum, Estates

Relatively weak Kingdom here.  No villages, weak trashing, no draw other than Apothecary, Haggler and Apothecary don't gel.  Basically no real synergy of any kind (that I see).  And with Colony/Platinum, I figured the game would go long (it sort of did -- 23 turns).

My plan was basically to get somewhat thin with Trade Route, then transition to having nothing but Colonies, expensive Treasures, 1 Haggler, and lots of Spies to sift the green and find the Haggler.  Ideally, my turns would be buying Gold + Haggling Spy; Platinum + Spy or Gold; or Colony + Platinum.  But it just took me for freaking ever to get to $6, and then forever to get to $9, and so on.

My opponent grabbed all 10 Apothecaries.  But they weren't incredibly fast in doing so.  Their Apothecaries were basically cantrips by the mid-game.  I'm not sure if I agree that Trade Routing Coppers in their case was good.  Regardless, they managed to get to Platinum way earlier than I did, and used +buy from Trade Route or Horse Trader to nab Platinum + Apothecary on a good turn.

So what is best here??  Both our strategies were pretty slow/weak.  Would strict big money (or whatever it's called -- where you just go Silvers, Golds, Platinum, green, and basically nothing else) be best?  Maybe add in 1 or 2 Hagglers?  Was Cutpurse bad?  I realize it wasn't great, but hey, it's better than Silver in the early game, right?  Or some sort of Rats / Death Cart thing?  My gut still tells me that my strategy was best, I just got too many $5s instead of $6s early and my 2 terminals collided more than I would have liked.  Or am I just wrong?

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: gkrieg13 on July 20, 2016, 03:36:08 pm

To me it seems like a mix of spy and apothecary would be best.  I don't htink you want to trash your coppers with trade route as the apothecary player.  But playing apothecary and then using spy to sift seems much better than only choosing one.

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: Seprix on July 20, 2016, 03:39:00 pm

Who needs Spy? Spy sucks. Maybe get Spy if you have $4 with Haggler. Complete waste of time. Open Potion/Silver, get a Horse Traders and a Haggler at some point. Apothecary is the game plan here.

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: gkrieg13 on July 20, 2016, 03:45:35 pm

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160720/log.0.1469043794328.txt

Just played the board.  Had a couple of misplays, but it ended with me getting 6 colonies in 18 turns.  It was Lord Bottington, so...

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: shark_bait on July 20, 2016, 04:01:29 pm

Quote from: Seprix on July 20, 2016, 03:39:00 pm

Who needs Spy? Spy sucks. Maybe get Spy if you have $4 with Haggler. Complete waste of time. Open Potion/Silver, get a Horse Traders and a Haggler at some point. Apothecary is the game plan here.

Apothecary chokes hard on green.  With Spy, you should be able to reliably discard a VP card.  Obviously you won't need the entire pile, but given an Apothecary mirror, the player with Spy will win more often than that without.

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: Seprix on July 20, 2016, 04:05:04 pm

Quote from: shark_bait on July 20, 2016, 04:01:29 pm

Quote from: Seprix on July 20, 2016, 03:39:00 pm

Who needs Spy? Spy sucks. Maybe get Spy if you have $4 with Haggler. Complete waste of time. Open Potion/Silver, get a Horse Traders and a Haggler at some point. Apothecary is the game plan here.

Apothecary chokes hard on green.  With Spy, you should be able to reliably discard a VP card.  Obviously you won't need the entire pile, but given an Apothecary mirror, the player with Spy will win more often than that without.

Apothecary also chokes on Spy. It's not as clear cut as you make it. Sure, you probably would pick one up on the way on a bad turn, but it's not like anybody should go out of their way to get one. There are more important things to get, like Platinum and Gold.

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: DG on July 20, 2016, 04:32:40 pm

There seem to be two main choices in this kingdom - main terminal and whether to use apothecaries. Either way the goal should be a deck with platinum to buy colonies. Once a deck has gold/platinum it will be better to improve the quality of the deck with spies than add more bulk to the deck with silver, especially if they are hagglers gains.

Cutpurse/trade route is not going to work since together they provides less opportunities (than silver) to step forward to gold then platinum. If you want to use a trade route you have to pair it with potion and the deck follows the same general direction as your opponent's deck here. You don't need to keep the copper so you can use apothecaries+spies for drawing rather than apothecaries+copper.

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: Dingan on July 20, 2016, 05:16:27 pm

Quote from: gkrieg13 on July 20, 2016, 03:45:35 pm

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160720/log.0.1469043794328.txt

Just played the board.  Had a couple of misplays, but it ended with me getting 6 colonies in 18 turns.  It was Lord Bottington, so...

Just played the Kingdom 3 times with a bot, where we both opened 4/3 each game, and I went Rats / Death Cart.  I won 1, lost 2.  It doesn't say much, but I would conclude that Rats / Death Cart can get lucky but definitely isn't clearly best.

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: dedicateddan on July 20, 2016, 05:31:59 pm

Quote from: gkrieg13 on July 20, 2016, 03:45:35 pm

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160720/log.0.1469043794328.txt

Just played the board.  Had a couple of misplays, but it ended with me getting 6 colonies in 18 turns.  It was Lord Bottington, so...

I like the look of this strategy with less copper to start with more Platinum/Apothecaries in hand

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: Chris is me on July 20, 2016, 06:03:16 pm

Legit I would open Trade Route / Potion. The slight trashing of Trade Route is much better than not trashing. You can skip Silver on this board pretty easily with Apothecary draws, getting a single Gold and then Platinum. Haggler is probably a thing you should get at some point. I don't even know if you need additional +Buy here. One colony at a time. A Spy or two on Haggler turns will help with the green.

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: traces Around on July 20, 2016, 06:12:38 pm

Played it against a bot a bunch of times.

The Apothecary/Spy engine is definitely the way to go here - with Copper economy being the fastest.

- Open Trade Route/Potion.
- Trade Route only to trash estates, buy Apothecary whenever possible and Spy or nothing otherwise.
- Get a Haggler. Haggle (or buy) 2 Coppers at some point.
- Buy Colony, haggling a Spy with each until the third or fourth, then Platinum. Off turns should be Spy, Apothecary if the Potion and any Apothecarys are still around.
- Once the deck falls apart, anything goes to get to Colony.

Gold is way worse than Spy. Platinum is about equal with Spy until the deck starts to fall apart, after which it is better. Deck falls apart sooner in a mirror since one has less Apothecarys, so Platinum comes earlier. With 6 or 7 Apothecarys and Spys, drawing 9 Copper + Haggler is fairly easy.

The bot which plays this board the best is Warlord Bot.

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: Seprix on July 20, 2016, 06:17:41 pm

I don't think you'd want to buy extra Coppers though. That is generally an awful idea.

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: traces Around on July 20, 2016, 06:50:55 pm

Quote from: Seprix on July 20, 2016, 06:17:41 pm

I don't think you'd want to buy extra Coppers though. That is generally an awful idea.

Usually those two Coppers are haggled off of Apothecary or in an unfortunate case Spy. If Apothecary is out and you have the money in play, by all means spike Platinum, but if the necessary little bit of economy can come while building something a little bit more robust, it is just a little bit better.

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: faust on July 20, 2016, 07:13:24 pm

Quote from: Seprix on July 20, 2016, 06:17:41 pm

I don't think you'd want to buy extra Coppers though. That is generally an awful idea.

Extra Coppers are perfectly fine in an Apothecary deck.

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: Titandrake on July 20, 2016, 11:10:15 pm

Apothecary + Spy beats just Apothecary in my experience. Sure, your Apothecaries pull in less Copper, but if you reveal a few Spies, you can usually draw them with the Spies you have in hand. Spy discard + Apothecary topdecking more than makes up for it - getting to dig 2 cards per Spy is really, really good.

There's no way your Apothecary deck is going to stay together while greening without Spy, might as well pick it up along the way.

Edit: gkrieg's log is pretty much exactly what I would do.

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: ehunt on July 21, 2016, 04:27:36 am

i like apothecary/TR for an opening. apothecary hates silver. it is oil and water. this is one of the few facts of life that will never change.

Next expansion: 5P Action-Enchantment: Silverlace. All cards referencing "copper" now reference "copper or silver."

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: Davio on July 21, 2016, 05:44:48 am

The thing about most Apothecary games is that you have to transition into something else about halfway through.

Apothecary is a great early game card: it cycles and increases your buying power.
But it's inevitable that your deck will get all sorts of other cards and that your Apothecaries lose drawing power.

So you can't rely on Apothecaries anymore and building up to Platinum seems pretty okay.

I would open Potion/TR (not Apothecary/TR, it's impossible!), trash Estates, buy Apothecary+whatever (maybe a Death Cart to be able to hit $9).
By the middle game you should look to have a few Apothecaries, at least one Platinum and as few Estates as possible.

TR is also good for the +Buy, enabling you to get Apothecary with something else.

Title: Re: Spy vs. Apothecary
Post by: Geronimoo on July 21, 2016, 06:39:25 am

Sim likes this bot:

Code: [Select]

<player name="Apo/Spy"
 author="Geronimoo"
 description="">
 <type name="SingleCard"/>
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="Colony"/>
 <type name="Optimized"/>
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
 <type name="BigMoney"/>
   <buy name="Colony">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Platinum"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Platinum"/>
   <buy name="Apothecary"/>
   <buy name="Potion">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Potion"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Haggler">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Haggler"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Trade_Route">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Trade_Route"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Spy"/>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
   <buy name="Copper">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Copper"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="7.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
</player>