Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Game Reports => Topic started by: Davio on February 28, 2012, 03:34:12 am

Title: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: Davio on February 28, 2012, 03:34:12 am
A_S00 and I played this board today, cards in supply: Border Village, Colony, Duke, Forge, Herbalist, Island, Oasis, Pirate Ship, Platinum, Secret Chamber, Silk Road, and Warehouse

So, a lot of VP cards in the regular kingdom which makes this a very interesting board with one (okay, two) big question(s): What should you get and when? You basically want all of the Duchies, Dukes, Islands and Silk Roads, but you have to make some choices as to the order.
I started of with Silver/Island, A_S00 went Oasis/Island. I'm not great with Oasis so I just kept it simple with Silver. I followed up with another Island (could've been Silver) and some more Silvers. He bought another Oasis and some Silvers as well.

Now we're at an interesting point in the game. We've both got some coins, so we want to dip into the VP cards. But what? A_S00 dips first into Duchies after I bought my 3rd Island. Of course I have to follow him because of Duke and we split the Duchies 4/4. Now what? Dukes are 4 VP, Silk Roads are capable of getting to 5 if the game lasts long enough. So Duke is the safe choice while Silk Roads is the gamble. I go for Silk Roads and end up with 20 VP cards, making Silk Roads worth as much as Duke anyway.

My opponent only gets to 18 VP cards, so his Silk Roads are only 3 VP.

Still I wonder what swung this game in my direction. Was it the Silvers vs the Oases? I always think Oases are closer to Copper than Silver in terms of what they give you. Markets and such are closer to Silver in $ worth for me. If you for instance start with 4 Coppers and an Oasis and draw a Copper, you still get $5 (same as 5 Coppers), but $6 with Market.

Again, interesting little board (as WanderingWinder would say) so please give us your thoughts.

Full game: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/28/game-20120228-000515-7ba5b663.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/28/game-20120228-000515-7ba5b663.html)
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: dondon151 on February 28, 2012, 03:56:09 am
Oases are generally more helpful when your deck is more green. IIRC getting Oasis with your $3s is better than getting Silvers with a pure Duchy/Duke rush, for example.

That said, I think you are right in that Oasis vs. Silver was the key difference that turned the VP split in your favor. When you have Oasis and Island in your hand, if you play Oasis with the intent of also playing Island to set aside an Estate (or really anything else), you max out at $3 on your buy phase (unless you also have a Silver in your hand). If that Oasis were a Silver instead, you can Island something away (like an Estate) and spend your $4 on another Island. The difference in VP in this game was almost entirely from your 2 extra Islands - they were +4 VP in addition to increasing the value of your 5 Silk Roads.
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: ftl on February 28, 2012, 04:23:19 am
I also recently had a Duke game with Oasis against someone good. I went for more silvers and won the Duchy split.

What do the simulators say? I just tried and it seems Silver dominates oasis, but apparently some better-than-I people go for Oasis, so if someone has an oasis bot that proves me wrong I'd like to know.
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: Geronimoo on February 28, 2012, 04:36:37 am
"Ooh, an Oasis.... crap it's a Mirage"

It's a bit of a trap that card: in a deck full of greens it looks good, but while you're getting a free +$1 you're probably drawing... a green card, so Silver gives you more $ on average.

It is pretty good in engines but I'd stay away from it in most other decks.
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: O on February 28, 2012, 01:16:21 pm
"Ooh, an Oasis.... crap it's a Mirage"

It's a bit of a trap that card: in a deck full of greens it looks good, but while you're getting a free +$1 you're probably drawing... a green card, so Silver gives you more $ on average.

It is pretty good in engines but I'd stay away from it in most other decks.

I disagree. Like Crossroads, if you green earlier due to Oasis it's a trap. But if you are already greening early, as is this case, it shines because you never have to discard a good card and it helps to consistently hit 5$ (like horse traders, but slightly less so). Island may somewhat counteract the greening help, but it also increases money density, and oasis beats silver usually when density is higher.
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: Jorbles on February 28, 2012, 02:56:36 pm
I tend to agree with others on the superiority of Silver to Oasis in a game like this. I recently played an IGG game (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120227-184444-9b5966f6.html) where I opened Cutpurse/Silver and my opponent opened Oasis/Cutpurse. My opponent went heavily into Oases and I mostly stuck with Silvers on my $3s and $4s and I had an easy time getting to $5 for IGGs and Duchies, but my opponent struggled.

It was more complicated than that as there were also terminal collisions to manage. We both picked up multiple Terminals, (me: Goons/Cutpurse x 2 and him: Cutpurse x 2), but I think the lack of $2 added to his struggle. Oasis is also weaker than Silver in situations with multiple terminals as you are more likely to have terminal collisions. When you play an Oasis it forces you to look at more cards each hand and therefore increases the likelihood of collision.
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: Epoch on February 28, 2012, 03:38:03 pm
Oasis is good if you can use its draw or its discard.  It'll struggle to have a higher buying power than Silver in most decks.  Its point is more like "I have a payload card I want to get to," or "I'm going to end with Watchtower or Library or Jack of All Trades to make its discard irrelevant," or "I have Tunnels."
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: WanderingWinder on February 28, 2012, 03:39:30 pm
It also must reduce variance, no?
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: O on February 28, 2012, 05:45:45 pm
It also must reduce variance, no?

That's what I meant by "helps consistently to hit 5"
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: Jorbles on February 28, 2012, 05:55:25 pm
It also must reduce variance, no?

That's what I meant by "helps consistently to hit 5"

But if the average value of your cards isn't high enough it helps you consistently hit $4 not $5.
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: WanderingWinder on February 28, 2012, 05:57:03 pm
It also must reduce variance, no?

That's what I meant by "helps consistently to hit 5"

But if the average value of your cards isn't high enough it helps you consistently hit $4 not $5.
Which is why I suggested saying in the Duke article (I think it was there) a mixture of silver and oasis rather than straight up favoring one over the other.
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: Jorbles on February 28, 2012, 06:03:45 pm
It also must reduce variance, no?

That's what I meant by "helps consistently to hit 5"

But if the average value of your cards isn't high enough it helps you consistently hit $4 not $5.
Which is why I suggested saying in the Duke article (I think it was there) a mixture of silver and oasis rather than straight up favoring one over the other.
Ahhhh, yeah that makes sense. I'd agree with that.
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: A_S00 on February 28, 2012, 06:53:14 pm
My thoughts on Oasis vs. Silver:  As long as the money density of your deck is $1 or higher, and you always have a useless card to discard, the expected value of playing an Oasis is at least as high as that of playing a Silver.  In this game, my money density actually dropped below $1 toward the end; I'm not sure how exactly that changes things.  Even when Oasis misses, though (when you draw a green card), it's not just a Copper.  It's also cycling trash; any green card you draw with it is one you don't draw on the next turn.  So, I think it's probably superior to Silver under the conditions that:

-You're greening heavily enough that you're always going to have trash to discard to it.
-You can keep your money density above $1.

I failed at condition 2 here, which might be part of why I lost the game (and probably made Silver a better choice here).  But I think if, for instance, there's a Woodcutter on the table (which encourages Copper buys), the situation is likely to favor Oasis more heavily.
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: Epoch on February 29, 2012, 10:56:11 am
My thoughts on Oasis vs. Silver:  As long as the money density of your deck is $1 or higher, and you always have a useless card to discard,

The thing is, those two things oppose each other.  The higher the money density of your deck is, the less likely you will have a useless card to discard.  If your only useless cards are your three initial Estates, by the time you add three Silvers (or a Silver-equivalent action) and thus raise the money density to $1, and then add the Oracle, you're saying, "I want one of five cards to be an Estate, when there are 3 Estates out of 15 cards."  As soon as your Estates are less than evenly spaced through the deck, that stops being true.  Add a few more Silvers or whatever, and that becomes even less true.  Add a few Oracles, so that you need more than one Estate at a time, and you see the problems with going Oracle.

A deck that's likely to have chaff cards to discard but also have a money density of $1 or higher is one which has lots of chaff, but lots of high-value money, too.  But this is a case where averages sort of fail us.  Yes, the arithmetic mean of such a deck may have an Oracle being worth $2, but what actually happens is that lots of times the Oracle is worth $1, and less often it's worth $3 or $4.  Which is sort of good, but leads to a number of dead turns.
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: WanderingWinder on February 29, 2012, 11:05:11 am
My thoughts on Oasis vs. Silver:  As long as the money density of your deck is $1 or higher, and you always have a useless card to discard,

The thing is, those two things oppose each other.  The higher the money density of your deck is, the less likely you will have a useless card to discard.  If your only useless cards are your three initial Estates, by the time you add three Silvers (or a Silver-equivalent action) and thus raise the money density to $1, and then add the Oracle, you're saying, "I want one of five cards to be an Estate, when there are 3 Estates out of 15 cards."  As soon as your Estates are less than evenly spaced through the deck, that stops being true.  Add a few more Silvers or whatever, and that becomes even less true.  Add a few Oracles, so that you need more than one Estate at a time, and you see the problems with going Oracle.

A deck that's likely to have chaff cards to discard but also have a money density of $1 or higher is one which has lots of chaff, but lots of high-value money, too.  But this is a case where averages sort of fail us.  Yes, the arithmetic mean of such a deck may have an Oracle being worth $2, but what actually happens is that lots of times the Oracle is worth $1, and less often it's worth $3 or $4.  Which is sort of good, but leads to a number of dead turns.
Not necessarily. Hoard will give you really high variance, for example, which is what oasis is looking for.
Title: Re: Alternative VP Battle
Post by: AJD on February 29, 2012, 11:14:28 am
I tend to think of Oasis in the following terms: it's a cantrip that turns any other card into copper. So it benefits your deck to the extent that you're likely to draw it with cards that are worse than Copper. Whether or not doing so is better than Silver in that case depends on how much you're willing to slow down your cycling.