Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Game Reports => Help! => Topic started by: Tombolo on July 04, 2012, 12:55:44 am
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I want to get better at this game. I'm currently hovering around the upper teens, but I seem to have plateaued. Therefore, when I am able, I will try to pick one interesting game a day (or maybe more) to post here, give my thoughts, and see what you guys have to say about it. Even if I don't get tons of feedback, organizing my thoughts and formally presenting them should be helpful for me!
In which I fail to respect Mountebank: This post
In which Minions don't work well if you lose at Amb Tennis: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg60066#msg60066 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg60066#msg60066)
In which OMAGAW CITIES: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg60664#msg60664 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg60664#msg60664)
In which I manage to wind up with a bloated deck in a chapel game: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg61208#msg61208 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg61208#msg61208)
In which I fail to rush Silk Road: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg61586#msg61586 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg61586#msg61586)
In which I don't even know with the Jesters: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg62433#msg62433 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg62433#msg62433)
In which (spoilers) Governor and Chapel make games go quickly: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg62713#msg62713 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg62713#msg62713)
In which we are introduced to my tunnel obsession: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg63324#msg63324 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg63324#msg63324)
In which the megaturn never happen: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg63886#msg63886 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg63886#msg63886)
In which the third pile does not in fact magically drain itself: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg64532#msg64532 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg64532#msg64532)
In which a desperation Duke rush actually works: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg64906#msg64906 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg64906#msg64906)
In which we are introduced to my Hoard obsession: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg65181#msg65181 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg65181#msg65181)
In which Forge bogs down the Minion fight: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg65489#msg65489 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg65489#msg65489)
In which $4 cards vie for supremacy on an IGG-decimated battlefield: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg66718#msg66718 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg66718#msg66718)
In which I hand out all 10 Curses and still barely Goons my way to victory: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg66858#msg66858 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg66858#msg66858)
In which I win commandingly and have no idea how: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg67650#msg67650 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg67650#msg67650)
In which Goons fail me: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg68618#msg68618 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg68618#msg68618)
In which "rush" is a relative term: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg69023#msg69023 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg69023#msg69023)
In which Trader saves the world: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?action=post;quote=69636;topic=3269.50 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?action=post;quote=69636;topic=3269.50)
In which you can't have Fool's Gold without Fools: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg70564#msg70564 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg70564#msg70564)
In which Possession makes for weird games: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg72232#msg72232 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg72232#msg72232)
In which we go from almost dead to piledriving Provinces: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg73506#msg73506 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg73506#msg73506)
In which I am already dead: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg74469#msg74469 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg74469#msg74469)
In which we come back from a lull with awkward Vineyards: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg77285#msg77285 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg77285#msg77285)
In which you can also play with THREE players: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg80020#msg80020 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg80020#msg80020)
In which we SUCCEED at rushing Peddlers and FAIL at doing anything with them: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg80317#msg80317 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg80317#msg80317)
In which Possession outrushes Masquerade: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg82427#msg82427 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg82427#msg82427)
In which Gardens awkwardly slogs to victory: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg83922#msg83922 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg83922#msg83922)
In which Grand Market fanboyism barely avoids a loss: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg84630#msg84630 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg84630#msg84630)
In which there are too many alt VP cards: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg91175#msg91175 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg91175#msg91175)
In which even hated cards can win games: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg92765#msg92765 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg92765#msg92765)
In which, no, Scout and Thief are still kinda weak: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg94140#msg94140 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg94140#msg94140)
In which we return from hiatus with a random Highway game!: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg119056#msg119056 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg119056#msg119056)
In which there are too many of my favorite cards: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg119233#msg119233 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg119233#msg119233)
In which I still don't know how to run Vineyards: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg121796#msg121796 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg121796#msg121796)
In which Minions don't actually automatically win: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg122609#msg122609 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg122609#msg122609)
In which flailing vaguely at a botched plan sometimes works out: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.new#new (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.new#new)
In which terminal draw does not mean you should load up on more terminals you can draw: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg125525#msg125525 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg125525#msg125525)
In which "Amb" looks really weird if you type it enough: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg126580#msg126580 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg126580#msg126580)
In which Governor fails to impress: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg127180#msg127180 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg127180#msg127180)
In which what do you MEAN I don't automatically win with a sweet 5/2?: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg128667#msg128667 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg128667#msg128667)
In which I try my hand at Double Tac: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg130931#msg130931 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg130931#msg130931)
In which they all laughed at IW/Gardens but I SHOWED THEM who is laughable!: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg132095#msg132095 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg132095#msg132095)
In which I somehow beat my friend at his own game: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg134244#msg134244 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg134244#msg134244)
In which, not gonna lie, I partially just wanna show off IW/VY: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg135721#msg135721 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg135721#msg135721)
In which Upgrade Complete!: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg136384#msg136384 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg136384#msg136384)
In which a pseudo-mirror match ends in a 59-3 loss: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg138462#msg138462 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg138462#msg138462)
In which YW is the star of a Golem/Tunnel deck: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg139702#msg139702 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg139702#msg139702)
In which hey look more IW rushing: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg140604#msg140604 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg140604#msg140604)
In which GOKO?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! also new expansions: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg257090#msg257090 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg257090#msg257090)
In which babby's first feodum rush: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg259295#msg259295 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg259295#msg259295)
[and then a very long break happened]
In which we build a weird discard engine: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg752008#msg752008 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg752008#msg752008)
In which our strategy is "all of these cards look nice": http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg752034#msg752034 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3269.msg752034#msg752034)
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/03/game-20120703-214811-04b2ed34.html
What I went for: Golem/Oasis/Scheme to power Peddlers, and Mountebank as a kicker.
What he went for: Mountebank/Scheme
What I wound up with: Unfocused Fairgrounds deck with HoP
Sadly, his internet cut out in endgame, so I'm not actually sure who would've taken it. I didn't expect to get that many Fairgrounds, so I had no exit strategy for ending the game, but it looks like his engine was petering out pretty badly.
I think my entire premise was flawed here. Golem, Oasis, and Scheme are a decent enough Peddler engine...except for the complete lack of +Buy. I try to remedy this later on with HoP, but have issues actually hitting it right. I realized I stumbled into a decent Fairgrounds setup and switched gears to that, but then I couldn't trash my HoP, and the money never worked out right. I don't think Bureaucrat was worth it at all, and I would've been better served trying harder to get an early Mountebank. Similarly, Scheme was a better idea than Oasis, but at least they both fueled Fairgrounds. By the time my deck got off the ground, though, it was pretty much too late to catch up. I would've liked more Golems.
On turn X, should I have Schemed the Mountebank instead of the Golem? Golem's pretty nice, and I figured it had a decent chance of hitting Mountebank anyway, but Mountebank...is Mountebank.
I don't understand why he kept buying Estates. I feel like he had me beat all game and I lucked into a comeback.
If I had it to do again: I'd open with some combination of Silver and Scheme, skip Peddler unless I luck into it at $4, and just go for Scheme/Mountebank, with maybe some Farmlands to defend against Mount. Maybe go for 4 VP Fairgrounds as well, maybe not. Golem....maybe later than I went for it, but probably not.
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So let's take this at a somewhat high level first. You recognize the power of mountebank and the scheme/golem combo. Golem engines can be a bit slow to set up, but with mountebank for attack and Fairgrounds for alt VP you have plenty of time. So I think you were right to go for them. So the question to ask yourself before you even start the game, is how do I get to where I want to be. Now, Golem by itself is useless. You need other actions first. And as is the case with most strong attacks, you want to get them ASAP. So your first priority should be Mountebank. And the best way to do that on this board, is opening silver/silver. I know it's boring but it's close to a gaurantee of getting mountebank on turn 3 or 4.
Once you have your mountebank, you want to focus on grabbing schemes and a potion. Cause now that you have that action you want to spam as much as possible, you can set up the golem engine. You're still going to want some silvers, so don't go too crazy on the schemes. But use them initially to put back Mountebank to play it early and often, drowning the other player. Once you get a Golem, start replacing that every turn. With a handful of schemes and Golems you can basically fire reliably every single turn.
There are some other cards to consider like peddler and oasis. But really, Golem often works best when you only have a few actions you want to spam repeatedly. And you want either shceme or silver over oasis. And with no +buy, peddler becomes very weak.
So now you have your Golem/Scheme/Mountebank engine working, how do you score points? Well you have two main options: Provinces and Fairgrounds. First ask yourself how well 15 unique cards will work in your deck. In this game you already have a lot of unique cards from your engine so it's probably easy to get Fairgrounds up to 15. And with all the mountebank attacking it's much easier to buy Fairgrounds at $6 than Provinces at $8.
Ulitmately, if you can mountebank the other guy harder and buy your 6vp victory card for cheaper? You'll be doing just fine.
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Yeah, peddler is not really worth it without +buy. As you say, you can pick it up at $4 if you're lucky. But really it's not worth buying a card you normally wouldn't bother with (oasis) to get it.
I really like golem here:
-Mountebank => long game, good for golem
-Scheme is really nice with golem.
I also like fairgrounds here:
-Once again mountebank => long game so you can pick up stuff
-If you're getting golem that means you have potion, and you're definitely getting cures. That means you only need 7 of the kingdom cards to get 6 point fairgrounds. I'd skip Bureaucrat and thief. Maybe farmland or HoP.
I'm not sure about the bureaucrat. Maybe having the extra silvers would be nice but it's usually not that useful. I think you should usally scheme golem over mountebank, with the hope that losing the curse/copper war won't be a big deal if you have lots of nice golems schemed.
So I'd open silver/silver or silver/oasis and hopefuly get mountebank turn 3 or 4. Then get a potion and schemes and golems. I think with second $5 grab a HoP to try to get more schemes.
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Jonts, you advised to get a couple of Schemes.
Would it also be good to just stick with 1 of each: 1 Golem, 1 Scheme, 1 Mountebank.
Then, barring that you start with all 3 in hand, you can play the Golem into Scheme and Mountebank and put Golem back every hand.
This lets you spend some extra $3's on Silvers.
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Hm, yeah, I always forget to trim my actions with Golem. I'm smart enough to shy away from stuff like Lookout that has a decent chance of hurting me, but not smart enough to avoid cute little cantrips when I'm really trying to run golem/power.
In this game, I get mauled by double amb:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/04/game-20120704-082412-33d9d780.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/04/game-20120704-082412-33d9d780.html)
What I went for: Minion/Festival/BV/Amb
What he went for: Double Amb
What I wound up with: Watered down Minion/Black Market and a bunch of junk.
I opened Amb/BM and am not convinced that was wrong. The idea was that Amb would keep my deck moderately trim, while BM would help me get to 5 almost as well as Silver, and combo nicely with my +action/minion plans. (Play treasure, discard and draw) I thought I had hit the jackpot when I got a turn 3 Mountbank in a game with no cursers, but as you can see, that wound up backfiring horribly against Double Amb. My deck got far too junked for minion to work right, and I rarely managed to hit a village, terminal, and minion together. I tried to cobble together something with the remaining Black Market cards towards the end (Was hoping for Chapel and Lighthouse, but Steward worked) but by then I had obviously already lost.
My questions:
-Should I have opened something else to rush Minion faster?
-At what point should I have given up on the Minion idea?
-Should I have gone double Amb earlier than I did?
-Was BM a bad buy?
-Was Mountebank?
-Do people frequently shift strategies mid-game? I frequently find myself doing so when something doesn't work out, or my deck slingshots faster than expected, or somesuch. I feel like I should be able to predict such things better, but maybe flexibility is an asset.
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-Should I have opened something else to rush Minion faster?
-At what point should I have given up on the Minion idea?
-Should I have gone double Amb earlier than I did?
-Was BM a bad buy?
-Was Mountebank?
-Do people frequently shift strategies mid-game? I frequently find myself doing so when something doesn't work out, or my deck slingshots faster than expected, or somesuch. I feel like I should be able to predict such things better, but maybe flexibility is an asset.
So my thoughts: You can't play a simple Minion chain against an Ambassador, you have to win the tennis first, otherwise the chain will not work with 5 Estates and 11 Coppers or so. So Ambassador is right, BM is not necessarily wrong, there seem to be nice things in it. Even the Minion is not necessarily wrong, but you should use it for cycling in the beginning. You WANT to win the tennis. You might want Minions later, and if you get $5, take them, they also help you in the beginning if you play them right. Take the $2 when it's with Ambassador in the hand and play Ambassador, use for cycling when not to find the Ambassador. Mountebank also might help you to win the tennis, after all these are 2 more cards your opponent has to get rid of.
You want as less money as possible in this scenario, the Minions give some money, the BM gives some, you want to play your terminals, so you want Villages. As many as possible. You have Ambassador, BM, MB until here. Maybe a second Ambassador at some time to keep pace. Silver clogs your deck, your target is $5 or $6 (for free Villages) for a long time, so take Villages for $3 to play these terminals. They are all powerfull.
Conspirator at $4 later is also a cheap target, with many Villages they should almost always work. So you really don't need to care for Silver. Care for a slim deck to play Ambassador/MB as often as possible, and for the Minions to collide as much as possible. Festivals I would only take for the buy, you have better sources for both actions and the money, so 1-2 Festivals are good to get all these cheap components later, but not more.
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Jonts, you advised to get a couple of Schemes.
Would it also be good to just stick with 1 of each: 1 Golem, 1 Scheme, 1 Mountebank.
Then, barring that you start with all 3 in hand, you can play the Golem into Scheme and Mountebank and put Golem back every hand.
This lets you spend some extra $3's on Silvers.
Yeah, that works pretty well. You can also do the variation with 2 golems, 3 schemes, 2 Mounebanks. Use the schemes to topdeck both Golems and a MB. Your two Golems either hit Scheme/Scheme or Scheme/MB, then play the MB from hand.
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For the second game you don't have to look too far from how your opponent played. Minions and conspirators are only strong when you can guarantee the drawing to make use of them. As soon as your deck expanded beyond control it could never be recovered and your good cards were going to be lost amongst the bad ones.
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Hm, yeah, I always forget to trim my actions with Golem. I'm smart enough to shy away from stuff like Lookout that has a decent chance of hurting me, but not smart enough to avoid cute little cantrips when I'm really trying to run golem/power.
In this game, I get mauled by double amb:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/04/game-20120704-082412-33d9d780.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/04/game-20120704-082412-33d9d780.html)
What I went for: Minion/Festival/BV/Amb
What he went for: Double Amb
What I wound up with: Watered down Minion/Black Market and a bunch of junk.
I opened Amb/BM and am not convinced that was wrong. The idea was that Amb would keep my deck moderately trim, while BM would help me get to 5 almost as well as Silver, and combo nicely with my +action/minion plans. (Play treasure, discard and draw) I thought I had hit the jackpot when I got a turn 3 Mountbank in a game with no cursers, but as you can see, that wound up backfiring horribly against Double Amb. My deck got far too junked for minion to work right, and I rarely managed to hit a village, terminal, and minion together. I tried to cobble together something with the remaining Black Market cards towards the end (Was hoping for Chapel and Lighthouse, but Steward worked) but by then I had obviously already lost.
When playing ambs, the number isn't the important bit; what's important is what you're doing with them. Single amb plays very differently depending on whether your opponent went no-amb, 1-amb, or 2-amb!
Single amb against double amb means you are NOT trimming your deck down very much at all; and for a Minion/Conspirator/Festival engine, you need a trim deck. If you want a trim deck, you have to win or tie the amb tennis, so you have to get a second amb. The question is whether to get it immediately (amb/amb) or on the first shuffle (open amb/silver/amb). If there was a race to some key card, then maybe it's worth putting aside the ambs to get more of them, but here, the minion race isn't game-breaking - the board supports a conspirator deck just as well as a minion deck, I'd much rather lose the minion race but win the amb war, which is what your opponent did.
I think the Black Market isn't necessary here. What are you going to pull out of the black market that'll make a difference? The board already has super-powerful trashing (amb), pulling discard attacks isn't that big of a deal (minion) though it still could be annoying, pulling cursers out of the black market isn't a big deal (amb, again). It'll basically be a terminal silver that occasionally clashes with your ambs, and sometimes tempts you to buy things you don't actually need. You could aim for a Village/BM/Minion combo - but this board doesn't have the card draw necessary to make that happen. You have to draw all three of those in a single 4-card hand to make use of the combo. And you probably want to amb away all of your treasures anyway, so the BM playing treasures won't even come in that handy a lot of the time. An activated conspirator is probably better than a black market.
My questions:
-Should I have opened something else to rush Minion faster?
Amb/silver instead of Amb/black market, IMO, but it didn't matter, you didn't get collisions, so that was okay.
-At what point should I have given up on the Minion idea?
Didn't matter. Any engine here was going to beat any available BM+X here, and an engine here had to win the amb war to get going since the card-draw was minion and conspirator and villages, neither of which work so well in junked decks. The details of whether you went for Minions or Conspirators mattered far less than the fact that at the end of the game, your opponent's only non-engine cards were his 8 provinces and 2 coppers, whereas you had 9 curses and 24 treasures in addition to 3estates.
-Should I have gone double Amb earlier than I did?
Yes. Your turn 4 buy should have been an Amb.
-Was BM a bad buy?
I would think so, thought others might disagree. You needed 2 ambs early, and if you had actually gotten two ambs, the black market would have been one too many terminals. You don't really want silver either, but I think it's better at getting your early economy started than BM, because you can have turns where you amb away two coppers, and still have a silver and copper in hand to buy a village or another silver or something.
-Was Mountebank?
If it was just a question of whether a mountebank is good to have, that's hard to answer. It clogs your opponents deck up even better than ambing, but it doesnt' clear up your own. Good to have...
But what I AM pretty sure of is that you wanted a second amb pretty early, and that opening amb/bm/mountebank/amb would have been too many terminals to open with in a row, so at least one of those middle two had to go. So once you got the black market, I think turn 3 had to be a Minion, so turn 4 could be another amb, leaving you with 3 terminals.
-Do people frequently shift strategies mid-game? I frequently find myself doing so when something doesn't work out, or my deck slingshots faster than expected, or somesuch. I feel like I should be able to predict such things better, but maybe flexibility is an asset.
Not here. Whatever the end target was, it had to be a trim deck instead of a bloated one.
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As I suspected. Ah well.
Here's one I actually won!
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/05/game-20120705-093507-ab2f66ef.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/05/game-20120705-093507-ab2f66ef.html)
What I went for: Familiar/Golem/Tunnel, with some Rabbles thrown in
What he went for: Warehouse/Tunnel and Uni/Rabble
What I wound up with: Familiar/City/Rabble
I was trying to go for a Potion deck, as I am very fond of all three of those cards. I lacked the +Buy, but crossed my fingers that it wouldn't be an issue. I completely spaced out on the potential of Tunnel/Warehouse, intending to pick up Tunnels later and hit them with Golem, but I'm not sure it was a bad thing, as I was able to hit Familiar on Turn 4. I had my heart set on a good Golem deck, which is why I passed up Pearl Diver once or twice, but I never actually hit the 4P.
I think one of my biggest weaknesses is my lack of board awareness, and it comes up twice here, although it worked out. (Thrice if you count failing to connect the dots on Warehouse/Tunnel...I've even played that combo a few times >_>) I didn't realize "hey curse game" until midgame, else more of those Rabbles would've been Cities. I also didn't realize until near the end how close we already were to three-piling. I picked up a Province for safety, and it won me the game, but I felt like I was cutting it close.
My questions here:
-Should I have gone harder on Cities? I mixed some Rabbles in just to have terminals and draw, but those Cities activated pretty quickly. Then again, I split them 7-3 anyway, so....
-Should I have greened sooner?....later?
-Should I have gotten more Tunnels?
-Did I need that many Rabbles?
-Would Pearl Diver have been worth it if I'd eventually gotten a Golem?
I also updated the first post with links to the actual game posts!
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You got the start right but yes you could have skipped silver and used more warehouses and tunnels. Cities did become more important than rabbles.
The pearl divers are probably worse if you have a golem. You want your golem to play good actions and plough through your deck turning over tunnels. On balance you were probably right not to buy them. A counting house with extra copper is an alternative but perhaps someone else could say whether that might be better or worse than tunnels. The warehouse supports both.
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One thing I've only started to pick up on with cities is that there good in games with cursers (duh) but not just because a pile runs out quickly and the game goes longer. Because theoretically you have the ability to curse your opponent, one of the biggest draw backs of cities is that the person who empties a pile turns up the power on their opponents cities on the next turn. but suppose you have a hand of
City,City,City,Witch, Estate. (and the curses are at 1 as are the cities)
Play the city, play the witch, now your other cities are level 2. Your opponent in that case still gets better power on average (if even split they have 5 lvl 2s to your 4 lvl2s and a lvl1) but with a familiar its even more true as you can play it and trigger all your cities.
This is also something to be aware of in that it might be worth not putting the curse pile to 1 if your opponent can give you that curse and has cities
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Never really thought of that with Cities and Curses! I'll have to pay more attention to that.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/06/game-20120706-114139-cea36bf9.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/06/game-20120706-114139-cea36bf9.html)
What I went for: Cursing/Chapel
What he went for: Cursing/Chapel
What I wound up with: ...Markets?
This was one of those weird games where there were a lot of options and I couldn't really focus or pick out a cohesive strategy. I suffered a lot from terminal clash, even with all my WV, and I had a hard time prioritizing. I decided to come down a bit heavier on the attack side and lighter on the trimming, and wound up with a deck more bloated than I would've liked.
-Should I have chapelled harder? A couple of times I had the opportunity to chapel something like 3 coppers and an estate, but on most of those turns I decided to leave myself enough coin for a silver. I've had one too many games where I got a bit too happy with Chapel and wound up having to buy coppers, and Sea Hag wasn't gonna help.
-Was Sea Hag the proper open? I figured I wanted to get cursing early....but did that matter much with Chapel out and Feast available? Would it have been better to hold out for Mountebank?
-Was it just me or was my shuffle luck kinda weak?
-Chapel clashed a lot with my attacks. Did I make the right call to attack first and chapel later?
-Was Jester a good buy? I feel like it didn't do tons for me, but I thought it'd go nicely against a trimmed deck, and I didn't think I needed another Mountebank with curses draining. My other option was Market, I guess, but I didn't want those until late game when the attacks were all weak.
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-Should I have chapelled harder? A couple of times I had the opportunity to chapel something like 3 coppers and an estate, but on most of those turns I decided to leave myself enough coin for a silver. I've had one too many games where I got a bit too happy with Chapel and wound up having to buy coppers, and Sea Hag wasn't gonna help.
-Was Sea Hag the proper open? I figured I wanted to get cursing early....but did that matter much with Chapel out and Feast available? Would it have been better to hold out for Mountebank?
-Was it just me or was my shuffle luck kinda weak?
-Chapel clashed a lot with my attacks. Did I make the right call to attack first and chapel later?
-Was Jester a good buy? I feel like it didn't do tons for me, but I thought it'd go nicely against a trimmed deck, and I didn't think I needed another Mountebank with curses draining. My other option was Market, I guess, but I didn't want those until late game when the attacks were all weak.
In the first few turns, it's best to chapel as hard as you can. However, with a pile of cursing and a chapeled deck, you need to get silver quickly. I would prioritize that over early Terminals and even over an early village. But, I would prioritize trashing over buying silver so that your chapel can find curses later on.
Early cursing is awesome. Get on it right away. Even if curses will be Chapeled, that could mean another terminal isn't being played (maybe even a curser!), or that some of his coppers and estates aren't being trashed. I'd say that Sea Hag's presence makes Mountebank weaker as you're more likely to draw a curse to discard. Then, once the curses are gone, coppers will hurt a bit, but the game will be close to done. And remember, you can always trash your Sea Hag (or both if you buy a second) if it's becoming a dead weight. And buying Sea Hag is faster than putting the cursing off by buying a Feast.
I didn't read the log thoroughly enough for shuffle luck, but that could have been a factor.
I generally go with Attack first, chapel later because that gives the other guy more of the curses.
Jester probably could have been purchased before the Mountebank IMO. The Jester would possible give some curses but could also skip the other player's attacks and give you more attacks.
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Hm, okay.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/07/game-20120707-123406-9c9014ca.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/07/game-20120707-123406-9c9014ca.html)
What I went for: City/Baron -> Great Hall/Silk Road/Duke
What he went for: Peddler/City
What I wound up with: ...Actually what I wanted, for once.
I got out-rushed here. Was considering trying to work in Duke, but by the time I started really greening, he was already on Provinces, and I figured Silk Roads were the higher priority. I figured Great Halls were good in the opening...I wouldn't normally go for them, but with a Silk Road deck (and Peddler!) I figured why not. I grabbed a few Peddlers when the money and buys worked out right.
I think my big mistake was not taking that last City. I wanted to avoid giving him an extra turn with Lv. 3, but looking at the logs I had more than I thought, so maybe that wasn't so important. I really needed more +Buy sooner, too, as I wasn't cycling and hitting Baron as often as I'd hoped. A Market or two somehwere in there would've helped as well.
My questions:
-I grabbed a Province Turn 9 as insurance against piles sneaking up on me. That's probably too early, right?
-Should I have taken the last City sooner?
-Was continuing Silk Roads a bad idea when the game was close to three-piling and I was still down?
-Should I have gone City or Market instead of Gold on turn 12?
-....This WAS a good silk road board, right? I feel like I shouldn't have lost to Provinces, so I probably boogered up something.
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Baron/Silk Road/Duke seems to be the best plan here. I personally think I would have avoided cities altogether. By the time they are actually worth anything a dedicated duke/silk road strategy should have a huge point lead. If you want to be really clever about it, just get several piles, like silk road and duchy and estates very low but don't drain them. That way you avoid powering up the cities at all and force the other guy to take green cards. Then once all three piles are take just a few turns to finish them off.
Also you probably can ignore provinces too. Get duchies even with $8+ since you plan on dukes being a large part of your points.
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I really don't like early great halls. Here's my analysis:
It certainly sounds scary to not race for the great halls. If he gets 8, and you get 0 instead of 4-4, assuming all the silk roads get taken, that's about a 8+8*4 = 40 vp swing.
But you buy 4 great halls in your first 5 turns. By turn 5, here's your deck as it matters for being able to buy stuff: 7 coppers, 3 estates, a peddler, and a baron. Ok, so the great halls help you buy peddler... if you line them up with baron. You would be much better off with markets, which you could get if you had silver or on turn 3. (yeah you're giving up peddler now for peddler later... market is better than peddler and you don't need the great hall)
Plus, you actually don't have to race him for great halls. You can pick them up later with extra buy, it's ok. Or maybe he buys 8 great halls by turn 10... and then he's really stuck!
Also, I think you should've gotten a tactician maybe like turn 12 (which is late, but both your decks started late because of the great halls). When you have +2 cities and baron and peddlers sometimes you'll get a $4 or $5 turn then tactician, and the tactician turn will almost always be twice as good on this board.
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I...honestly kinda forgot Tactician was there after I skipped him the first time or two I hit $5. I'm so used to getting Tac no matter what that it threw me, I guess.
So then, IS there a time where early Great Halls are good? There are a few more things I can think of that would have upped their value (Scrying Pool, KC/all terminals, Conspirator, lol Scout) but if Silk Road/Peddler (and City, I guess?) isn't enough to make them viable to rush early, what if anything does?
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I really don't like the GH opening. It just doesn't help you get where you want to go quick enough. Especially because on this board (low cost VP plus peddlers) you want +Buy and lots of them.
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Hm, okay.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/07/game-20120707-123406-9c9014ca.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/07/game-20120707-123406-9c9014ca.html)
What I went for: City/Baron -> Great Hall/Silk Road/Duke
What he went for: Peddler/City
What I wound up with: ...Actually what I wanted, for once.
I got out-rushed here. Was considering trying to work in Duke, but by the time I started really greening, he was already on Provinces, and I figured Silk Roads were the higher priority. I figured Great Halls were good in the opening...I wouldn't normally go for them, but with a Silk Road deck (and Peddler!) I figured why not. I grabbed a few Peddlers when the money and buys worked out right.
I think my big mistake was not taking that last City. I wanted to avoid giving him an extra turn with Lv. 3, but looking at the logs I had more than I thought, so maybe that wasn't so important. I really needed more +Buy sooner, too, as I wasn't cycling and hitting Baron as often as I'd hoped. A Market or two somehwere in there would've helped as well.
My questions:
-I grabbed a Province Turn 9 as insurance against piles sneaking up on me. That's probably too early, right?
-Should I have taken the last City sooner?
-Was continuing Silk Roads a bad idea when the game was close to three-piling and I was still down?
-Should I have gone City or Market instead of Gold on turn 12?
-....This WAS a good silk road board, right? I feel like I shouldn't have lost to Provinces, so I probably boogered up something.
this is a really, really difficult board with a lot of options. it's a fantastic silk road board. it's also a fantastic duke board. it's also got a lot of engine components and several piles that are likely to empty fast, which boosts city. you have a little bit of a rock paper scissors situation. my temptation would be: open baron/silver, go for the duchies after the second shuffle. if uncontested, shift to great halls and silk roads after i get 5. if contested, and lose split, lose game, probably, but have silk roads and great halls to compensate a little. it took me like 5 minutes to decide that, though. if i had actually played, i would have gone for the peddlers/markets/cities and tried to beat the cheap green cards.
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There are plenty of ways to go about that one. Nomad camp looks a decent starter with the chance of a turn 2 tactician and the extra buy will be useful later. Tactician looks good for harnessing actions cards and buys together all in one hand, as well as pairing estates with barons.
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to reemphasize, this is one of the most difficult dominion boards i've ever seen on the forum and i would like an expert opinion on it; i don't feel good enough at dominion to handle it. oh, and add me to the pile of folks who are kicking you while you're down for opening great hall :-).
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I'm up for some practice games with that Kingdom if anyone wants to give it a go. Feel free to challenge me if I'm in the lobby (either Great Hall or Secret Chamber).
Edit: after solo games my initial thoughts are Provinces > Silk Road > Duke in isolation. I'm sure all kinds of extra considerations come into play in a two player game.
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(I promise I am reading your posts and taking them into account, I just rarely have anything to say as a followup and feel like saying "okay" a bunch would just be awkward.)
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/09/game-20120709-211605-b5606044.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/09/game-20120709-211605-b5606044.html)
What I went for: Masq/Tourney
What he went for: Villages/Masq/Jester
What I wound up with: Masq/Jester
I realized quickly that Tournament wasn't super likely to hit with all the Masq and Jester flying around and no great cycling. Gave up on that and tried to run Jester, but Jester kept getting me more Jesters and it was kinda weird. I'm not really sure quite how I lost this.
-Should I have greened a bit sooner? My deck held up okay but I kept overshooting 8 with no +buy, and wound up a turn behind playing catchup.
-I thought about getting a second Masq at some point. Good idea? Bad idea?
-Should I have gotten more Tournaments? I feel like it wasn't likely to hit but he also wasn't likely to block the +card/+$ very often either.
-Island wouldn't have been a good card to buy when I was planning on Masq-ing all my Estates, right?
-Anybody have a day where your brain just doesn't parse Dominion for whatever reason? This was one of those days.
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Your opponent has virtually perfect draws here. Opening farming village/masquerade he gets 5/6/6/8/8 to spend on the following turns. Not only that but he gives you two curses and a copper with jesters as well. I think you sort of did the right things but the jesters took control away from your deck. With the number of terminals accumulating in your deck you almost needed fishing villages as damage limitation, even though bazaars and farming villages should be better here.
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your opponent has obscene luck with a farming village open on turn 3.
i don't like tournament/masquerade opening. masquerade/silver is safer. I would pick up a second masquerade (because of jester and followers) and only buy money afterwards.
edit: testing the edit feature.
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Fishing over the "better" villages? That makes sense, actually, just not something I would usually think to do. Double Masq/BM could've been fun, too.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/10/game-20120710-131027-5beb7fa1.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/10/game-20120710-131027-5beb7fa1.html)
What I went for: Young Witch/Tunnel/Governor/Chapel
What he went for: Amb/Chapel
What I wound up with: Governors!
This is another "lots of options" board, I feel like. I didn't actually see the Chapel until turn 2...but I don't think I would've played it much differently if I had. I was trying to gain gold by discarding Tunnels, but only hit it twice. The game ended more quickly than I was really expecting, and I wound up with more Governors than expected because I kept hitting $5. I thought about getting Amb at some point, but figured it wouldn't be that useful with Chapel, and I didn't really want another terminal. Same thing with JoaT. I got a Harem somewhere in there mainly in case I ran HoP, but didn't get a chance to do so.
-Should I have picked up JoaT or Amb at some point?
-Should I have greened sooner? Maybe with Governor remodel?
-Did I use my Governors effectively? There were a couple of times I wasn't sure what to pick.
-Was YW/Tunnel a mistake here? It went quickly enough that I feel the curses and Tunnel discards didn't help me a ton.
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Weird board, not totally sure what I'd do, especially considering the opponent got the 5-2 split which seems insane there.
-I'm pretty sure YW is wrong because of Amb and Chapel. I also didnt like using the Governor to remodel on t5 given the Chapel and general speed of the game. I might have tried to leverage your opponents 5-2 by going Amb/Amb or Amb/Silver and then transition to Governors.
-In terms of greening, I think on turn 10 you want to remodel gold into prov instead of buying harem (and buy caravan I guess) and I think given tunnel and gov that you want to buy harem pretty much always instead of gold: you had a good shot to win if you split the provinces but you have to go for them pretty early since Gov rarely slows down.
-Also, I don't think Jack is quick enough vs Gov and Chapel.
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I think given tunnel and gov that you want to buy harem pretty much always instead of gold
I don't think I understand the reasoning here.
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I think given tunnel and gov that you want to buy harem pretty much always instead of gold
I don't think I understand the reasoning here.
I'll take a stab at it.
You can get free Gold from Tunnel and Governor, so you don't need to buy it. Harem is a good buy because it is also at $6, which means you can remodel it into a Province like Gold, but it is also a VP so it is really helpful endgame if you don't get around to remodelling it.
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I think given tunnel and gov that you want to buy harem pretty much always instead of gold
I don't think I understand the reasoning here.
I'll take a stab at it.
You can get free Gold from Tunnel and Governor, so you don't need to buy it. Harem is a good buy because it is also at $6, which means you can remodel it into a Province like Gold, but it is also a VP so it is really helpful endgame if you don't get around to remodelling it.
That was what I was thinking. Given the remodel endgame you need to keep buying 6s, when you hit (especially given how many govs you have), Harems help you win if you split the provinces, and you should have enough Gold that the 1 money difference isn't worth the VP.
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I won something!
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/11/game-20120711-091844-5fe0d6a0.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/11/game-20120711-091844-5fe0d6a0.html)
What I went for: Embassy/Tunnel w/Caravans and Lookout
What he went for: Lookout/Vault/Tunnel
What I wound up with: More Caravans than I really wanted
I played right after I woke up and I know I made a couple of silly mistakes, like buying Caravan over Peddler or playing Caravan before Lookout, but my deck generally went just as planned. I wasn't expecting to hit $5 on turn 3, so I opened Lookout instead of Tunnel thinking it might help me get to Embassy a bit.
-...What should I have opened? I don't think Lookout/Remodel was it. Maybe Tunnel/Silver? I don't think Remodel did much for me at all, and Lookout doesn't help set up Embassy that much.
-I only got one Embassy and didn't get many Tunnels before late. Should I have pushed that combo a bit more?
-....Heck, I didn't even notice Vault until I was looking over the report. Embassy is better for Tunnel though, right?
-Was Caravan a good buy? I was trying to cycle to my Embassies faster and give them more options.
-Lookout hurt more than it helped in late-game. Should I have stopped playing it, or was I just unlucky?
-....did they change the wording on Remodel or have I just not had my coffee? I could have sworn it was always "exactly $2 more" but it's entirely possible I'm just slowly going insane.
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I think that Caravan over Peddler is fine because it gets you more cards. Peddler is best in a dense deck when you can get a pile of them with +Buys. Not in an Embassy deck where you'll probably end up discarding them quite often.
I also don't think Lookout/Remodel is a good opening. But Tunnel/Silver gives you Tunnel as just dead weight, with no value until next time through. Tunnel is not a good opening unless you also open with something like Young Witch or Warehouse to discard it quickly. Your only opening possibility which could have activated Tunnels quickly would be Tunnel/Lookout, and I think that's pretty solid. I probably would have opened with Caravan/Lookout or Caravan/Silver to pursue your strategy. The Caravans help you get a bigger hand size to get more Tunnels for Embassy to discard. The Lookout would provide a bit of discarding as well as increasing your Tunnel concentration. However, the Silver would help you get to your critical $5 sooner.
Seeing as you ended with 11 Gold, I'd say that you pushed your combo enough. However, a second Embassy would get you through your deck more quickly.
Vault is only better than Embassy for Tunnel if you're discarding 4 or more Tunnels.
I think that Caravan was a good buy.
You should generally stop playing Lookout eventually because it can indeed hurt.
Remodel has always been "up to $2 more"
Overall, I think you played a pretty decent game. Good job!
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And, with no +Buys, I'm not sure how useful the Banks were.
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Open remodel/silver, remodel estates to caravans and buy caravans plus a vault/embassy, use banks/platinum to buy provinces. The lookout isn't needed as you can use the copper and remodel out the estates. The tunnel is a red herring.
Strangely enough it is quite like this game, with a whole article on it. Who'd have thought that one of my dominion articles would be sponsored by a ladies perfume (through the web advert)!
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man I don't know what you're talking about Tunnel is gr-
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/11/game-20120711-115929-b8c37d50.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/11/game-20120711-115929-b8c37d50.html)
oh
(no real need for a full writeup- I went for the same thing as he did except for some reason I tried to dink around with Tunnel/Emb again to set it up and then yeah you can see how that worked out for speed)
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Open remodel/silver, remodel estates to caravans and buy caravans plus a vault/embassy, use banks/platinum to buy provinces. The lookout isn't needed as you can use the copper and remodel out the estates. The tunnel is a red herring.
Strangely enough it is quite like this game, with a whole article on it. Who'd have thought that one of my dominion articles would be sponsored by a ladies perfume (through the web advert)!
But it's a Colony game, so buy Colonies, not Provinces?
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/12/game-20120712-075348-7ed09697.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/12/game-20120712-075348-7ed09697.html)
I have no idea what happened here
What I went for: KC/GM with Mountebank
What he went for: Same
What I wound up with: ...Pretty much what I wanted, with a couple extra cards
I considered running YW/Tunnel in addition, but then decided that I didn't need to try to force a mediocre Tunnel combo into a good deck AGAIN. I do pick up a YW somewhere in there just in case, though, which I am pretty sure was silly with Mount on the board, but I had visions of picking up a few Tunnels somewhere down the line on a megaturn. In the middle of what vaguely approached a comeback, I wind up three-piling accidentally when I give him the last curse, but I'm not too broken up about that since he could have easily gotten it on the previous turn. Other than that....I'm not sure what happened here. KC didn't hit ANYTHING until my last turn, and he wound up with a much better deck even though I was pretty much trying to do the same thing.
-Quarry didn't slingshot as well as I'd hoped, and KC/GM never hit until after game should have ended. Was KC/GM actually a good idea here, or should I have done something like two Mountebanks/BM?
-I am pretty sure that YW was a mistake, but...should I have gotten more actions for my KC to hit? Like Monument or uh......more Mountebanks? I was afraid of terminal clash but those dead KC's, man.
-What....happened? Usually with these I have at least a vague idea of what I did wrong, but here...I dumped lots of curses on him, I stayed (mostly) focused on my goal, and I just got roflstomped on speed anyway.
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So, my thoughts with that board are that you only want to pick up GMs once you have KC/Mountebank going, and then use them, and therefore I like Quarry and I really like Courtyard. Courtyard does a better job of ramping you to the early Mount/KC buys then silver, helps you slog through Mountebanked decks, and doesnt slow you down when you hit your stride like Silver does. Most importantly it allows you to connect KC and Mount. Once thats set up, you can buy a GM for the extra buys, but focus on getting tons of KCs, 2 Mounts, a few GMs, and a few Courtyards. And once you get going you can guarantee you have either a KC or a KC target on top for next turn.
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Courtyard over Silver? It makes sense, I guess. I think I underrate Courtyard.
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I pulled this one out but I am pretty sure I could've done better.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/13/game-20120713-142317-5f0a865c.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/13/game-20120713-142317-5f0a865c.html)
What I went for: Silk Road/Nobles rush
What he went for: Fishing Village/Torturer/Trade Route
What I wound up with: Silk Road/Nobles....junk deck. That drew itself.
I am pretty sure opening Masq didn't do much for me, although I guess it was nice early on. It became more of a liability than anything quickly though, with Torturer chains going on and trying to pump Silk Road and my treasure rapidly becoming sparse. I think Torturer did me a bit better. My game plan was to three-pile Nobles and Silk Road and uhhhh didn't get that far. Probably Fishing Village or Curses, but my main focus early on was getting Tac megaturns, making sure I wound up with the lion's share of Nobles, and picking up HT for +Buy and Masq and Torturer because I don't like ignoring them when I have enough actions to play them. I think I went for Silk Road too early, as it gummed up my deck and left me with no good exit strategy to end game, but I was nervous about not getting enough of them. Turned out unfounded, and then I somehow managed to hang on to the lead even as it went to Provinces. I WANTED Golem with this deck but never really had time to get it.
-What WAS the correct open here? I think HT was good to rush to 5/6 and have buy later, but for 3...Fishing Village? Trade Route? ....Silver?
-Could I have timed the rush better? Maybe drained Fishing Villages first?
-....Was Silk Road/Nobles even a good idea here? Did I go too hard on the Nobles too fast? Gold might've been nice....
-I was thinking about a second HT as my deck got gummier. Good idea?
-...Did I want more Torturers? Could've chained them pretty nicely on the Tac turns.
-I am pretty sure I spaced out on some potential Action -> Tac combos somewhere in there, but oh well. I also know I tortured him at least once knowing I was about to Masq, derp.
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I think your opponent could have played a harder torturer/fishing village game. He shouldn't have ever bought nobles, buy torturer instead! Maybe he was trying to boost trade route. He gained too many curses against your ONE torturer (Tuns 5, 7(although in retrospect it was right since you played masq), 10, ?13?). I think silk road/nobles would've lost against a stronger torturer engine, but maybe I'm wrong because of masquerade.
Opening: I think you had the right opening for your idea. HT is good for the buy. Masquerade is really welcome if he starts torturing you. Another option for the $3 is fishing villages, so you can get big draw from nobles, and get masquerade later if he does start torturing you. The early trashing isn't so important for your deck. Trade route is something you almost1 never want to get early.
Turn 11 he thinks he has a great idea in buying duchy/estate to boost trade route. I think this is not a great idea for him. If you buy trade route instead of silver turn 11, he's done all this work and you get the benefit. I'd say at this point you buy a couple of those guys, and also always use extra buy on copper: go for trade route a copper; buy copper/silk road. (along with whatever else you do)
A second HT would have been fine, but at that point the trade route is better.
More torturers: I think if you're doing nobles/silk road, you don't have room to grab more torturers. The attack would be nice to chain, but I think there's no time when you should've preferred them.
1Sorry for the shameless semirelated showing off, but I'm very proud of this game. (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120621-164549-e59b2698.html)
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Buying coppers just to feed to Trade Route? Makes sense, I guess, but not something I've ever thought of doing.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/14/game-20120714-143219-f894685c.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/14/game-20120714-143219-f894685c.html)
What I went for: Library/Bank
What he went for: Hamlet/Vineyard
What I wound up with: ....Dukes?
This is another one I won, but I think that had more to do with my opponent than me perhaps? I was originally going for a Bank/Library semi-megaturn engine, going for Hamlet and WV to get the buy to properly run Bank, with Library to pump it. The engine took a while to get going and didn't pay off as well as I'd hoped, and the other guy was able to beat me to Provinces. That said, he stalled out somehow, and I went for Duchies out of desparation. When I drained the pile with little contest and the game was still going, I started going for Dukes, giving me enough points to grab the last Province for a comeback win.
-Should I maybe have just gone for Duke/Duchy the whole time? There was probably enough money and buy available that it might've made a nice rush if I'd skipped Bank, or a nice long deck with it.
-Loan probably didn't jive with the strategy, but was it good enough to open over Silver anyway?
-Until the Duchy rush, I wasn't really sure what to do at 5. Should I have gotten the second Library sooner? More Cartographer? A Merchant Ship?
-Hamlet/Vineyard seems like a viable plan, especially with stuff like WV. Should I have gone for it myself, and why didn't it work out better for my opponent?
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https://www.google.com/search?q=dey+gotta+surfer&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a (https://www.google.com/search?q=dey+gotta+surfer&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)
Is this the right link, or is my computer just being weird? It doesn't look to point to isotropic or councilroom.
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https://www.google.com/search?q=dey+gotta+surfer&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a (https://www.google.com/search?q=dey+gotta+surfer&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)
Is this the right link, or is my computer just being weird? It doesn't look to point to isotropic or councilroom.
I was wondering the same. It points to a Google search that has nothing to do with Dominion.
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Fixed. What do you mean you can't teach me things about my dominion play by google searches? :(
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Buying coppers just to feed to Trade Route? Makes sense, I guess, but not something I've ever thought of doing.
Well, it's not just to feed trade route, in this case. Here I'm thinking that you actually want the coppers because with all the victory cards your "average card value" is going to be low. You did have a pretty good engine going though, and it might easily end up that you're able to trash them as quickly as you can buy them. But you still get the big $.
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Fixed. What do you mean you can't teach me things about my dominion play by google searches? :(
At least it wasn't anything super embarrassing.
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Hamlet/Library/Merchant ship makes a good engine. The library works better with fewer vp cards of higher value so you don't really want to congest it with duchy/duke. You can probably collect a lot of actions here and then use two (or three) potions to add high value vinyards at the end.
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Also, if library is your draw, you might prefer hamlet over worker's village:
-If you don't have a library when you play your hamlet, you don't need the +action and you probably don't need the +buy because you won't have enough cards.
-If you do have a library when you play your hamlet, you probably have a couple of low quality cards that you can discard with the hamlet, and hope to draw better from library.
If you do get merchant ships (which you should) hamlet is strictly worse in a hand like MS/MS/hamlet/C/C. I think it's still better over all.
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Hmmmmk.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/15/game-20120715-112252-284ea5ec.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/15/game-20120715-112252-284ea5ec.html)
I won this one, but I'm curious if I can do better.
What I went for: Hoard/Salvager/Great Hall
What he went for: Almost BM/Vault
What I wound up with: PROVINCE RUSH
Hoard is one of my personal favorite cards. I almost always go for it if there's anything resembling support (sometimes even when there's not really!) but it seems to work out more often than not. (although checking council room, my win rate isn't as special as it used to be, and I do better without >_>) My game plan here was to Salvage and Vault the Estates and Duchies I accumulated, and use the Salvager +buy to pick up some Great Halls on my way to a decent big money type situation. I always commit very thoroughly to Hoard, even though I only take one or two...I will almost always buy as many victory cards as possible with Hoard hands, even if I have to take crappy ones. Luckily here, I was able to slingshot to Province fairly quickly, and didn't even have to touch Duchies or Estates. On the other hand, I only hit Salvager/Hoard once. I found myself scoring Provinces before my opponent's Colony deck could get off the ground, so I decided to keep it that way and focus on draining Provinces instead of trying to build up a lead I might not've been able to hold at the Colony level. He tried Embargoing Province but I took the Curses in the face and managed to end the game in time.
-How much do you guys even like Hoard in this game? I feel like I am more pro-Hoard than most here, and admittedly it can struggle in Colony games, but I think Salvager and Vault and GH were good enablers.
-Was it a good idea to go for Provinces and try to end game early? I feel it threw him off his tempo, but it was kinda risky, especially with his Embargo that wound up on Provinces.
-Even given my decision to rush Provinces, I am not sure how I should have prioritized them vs. Colony or Plat when I had enough money available. There were a few times I wound up with 9 or 11 (turns 11 and 18, for example) and my responses were mostly random.
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Hmmmmk.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/15/game-20120715-112252-284ea5ec.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/15/game-20120715-112252-284ea5ec.html)
I won this one, but I'm curious if I can do better.
What I went for: Hoard/Salvager/Great Hall
What he went for: Almost BM/Vault
What I wound up with: PROVINCE RUSH
Hoard is one of my personal favorite cards. I almost always go for it if there's anything resembling support (sometimes even when there's not really!) but it seems to work out more often than not. (although checking council room, my win rate isn't as special as it used to be, and I do better without >_>) My game plan here was to Salvage and Vault the Estates and Duchies I accumulated, and use the Salvager +buy to pick up some Great Halls on my way to a decent big money type situation. I always commit very thoroughly to Hoard, even though I only take one or two...I will almost always buy as many victory cards as possible with Hoard hands, even if I have to take crappy ones. Luckily here, I was able to slingshot to Province fairly quickly, and didn't even have to touch Duchies or Estates. On the other hand, I only hit Salvager/Hoard once. I found myself scoring Provinces before my opponent's Colony deck could get off the ground, so I decided to keep it that way and focus on draining Provinces instead of trying to build up a lead I might not've been able to hold at the Colony level. He tried Embargoing Province but I took the Curses in the face and managed to end the game in time.
-How much do you guys even like Hoard in this game? I feel like I am more pro-Hoard than most here, and admittedly it can struggle in Colony games, but I think Salvager and Vault and GH were good enablers.
-Was it a good idea to go for Provinces and try to end game early? I feel it threw him off his tempo, but it was kinda risky, especially with his Embargo that wound up on Provinces.
-Even given my decision to rush Provinces, I am not sure how I should have prioritized them vs. Colony or Plat when I had enough money available. There were a few times I wound up with 9 or 11 (turns 11 and 18, for example) and my responses were mostly random.
Your strategy in this game is fantastic. It's rare the province rush is right in a colony game, but in this game, we see two of hoard's best friends: salvager and great hall, and one of province-rushing's best friends: vault.
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/16/game-20120716-065305-281ed527.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/16/game-20120716-065305-281ed527.html)
What I went for: Minion/Oasis/Smuggler
What he went for: Pretty much the same
What I wound up with: ....Essentially what I wanted.
This was nuts. Tons of great 5's, and some interesting Minion interactions. I figured this was a Smuggler board if ever there was one- lots of great 5's, none of which really clashed with each other. I figured Minion was the key card here, with a cute combo with Oasis and a decent counter to Torturer, so that's what I went for, and apparently he did too. We both picked up Torturers because...Torturer. I picked up a "why the heck not" Forge with a $7 turn, but only managed to trash two coppers with it over the course of the game, which surprised me a bit. I feel like shuffle luck bit me a bit- even with all the Bazaars, my terminals kept clashing with each other or Minion discards, and that kinda sucked. For that reason, I never got around to Merchant Ship even though I wanted to.
-I broke PPR here, because I felt my deck was holding up better than his and there was no +buy to outpace him on Duchies. Good idea or bad idea? I break PPR somewhat often when I feel it's my best shot, but I could probably use a better handle of when that's advisable.
-Can I blame Forge's uselessness on shuffle luck, or was it a bad buy? Or...should I have prioritized it more often? (I discarded it to Minion a lot)
-Smugglers IS pretty rockin' on this board, right? It's one of those cards I seem to like more than most, but I am fairly convinced this was a good place for it.
-Should I have gone Torturer earlier? (or ditched Minion altogether for Torturer/Bazaar chaining?) Worked in Merchant Ship at some point?
-I love Philosopher's Stone, but it wasn't worth it here, right?
-Maybe less Treasure? ....Or more?
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-I'm not the best at endgame, but I think you did the right thing breaking ppr. In his last 8 turns he hit $8 once.
-Forge is a bad buy. You're playing with oasis and minion. You're probably going to have 3 or 4 cards in your hand when you're ready to play forge. That's rarely going to be enough for a nice trashing. If you had gotten more torturers, then you would be much happier with your forge.
-Yeah smugglers is fine
-I don't think you have enough +action for merchant ships. Fitting torturer chains into your deck is going to be a little bit awkward:
--If it weren't for minions, you would buy your first torturer before bazaar. But if you want your minions first, you need to get enough bazaars into your deck so that you don't play your torturer and draw minions dead. So you have these options: run out minions, buy like 3 bazaars, alternate torturer/bazaar OR torturer, bazaars (about 3) & smuggling minions maybe, then more minions, bazaars, torturers in some magical ratio. It's really too many $5s when you have no awesome way to get them.
--With your 4 card hands from opponent's and your minions, it's harder to get bazaar/torturer together. You can also get bazaar, minion discard, torturer; but that's also not that easy.
-No philosophers stone; too expensive and you don't need more treasure and if you play 5 minions that's 5 less cards for phil stone.
-You want less treasure. Prefer oasis to silver after you get about 2 silvers (so you can hit $5 for your first minions) and minions/bazaars/torturers to gold.
I think I would play to win the minion split at first. If I get 6+ minions, I get oasis/bazaar or duchy/province. Otherwise, I try to set up a torturer chain.
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Had a lot of trouble today finding a game worthy of submission- most of them were either games where my friend and I derped around with kc/golem/tac boards or games where I made some obvious and dumb mistake. Nevertheless!
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/17/game-20120717-211717-6e0a745c.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/17/game-20120717-211717-6e0a745c.html)
What I went for: Island/Smugglers/IGG
What he went for: IGG RUSH/Tournament/Lighthouse
What I wound up with: IGG/ISLAND RUSH
I'm pretty into Island, and didn't initially see Remodel on the board in the mass of 4's, so the plan was to Smuggle whatever he got, Island away curses and estates, grab an IGG or two, and see what happened. I quickly got sucked into the IGG fight, and grabbed Remodel when I noticed it was available. I split IGG 6-4, and then by then most of the Islands were gone. I thought about trying to 3-pile quickly, but he picked up a Province to take the lead. I tripped over a Province myself shortly thereafter, though, and he had a string of bad hands, allowing me to drain the Islands without any issues.
-It worked out well, but I don't think I needed both Remodel AND Islands. And Tournament is as tempting as always, too. And Horse Traders....what should I prefer at $4 here?
-I suppose it was a good idea on Turn 16, but should I have Remodeled the Curse into an Estate on 11?
-....Smugglers seems to work nicely for an IGG rush, or maybe that's just me.
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/18/game-20120718-095737-96f19b2d.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/18/game-20120718-095737-96f19b2d.html)
What I went for: Goons/Familiar/Salvager
What he went for: Lab/Salvager/Goons
What I wound up with: What I wanted plus OMG SILVER
I went for Familiar off the bat, and was surprised when I wasn't fought at all for it. I think he planned on Salvaging the Curses, and it went pretty well for him, I suppose. I picked up a Salvager myself, and focused on hitting $6 for Goons while he built a Lab engine. I picked up a Lab myself- would've liked more, but only hit 5 once before late game. I kept rolling with Goons and Familiar, going very light on actions. He was naturally able to Province better than I was, but I actually managed to surge from behind on VP and +Buy, and sneak away with the win at the last second.
-I had no idea what to do with all the $4 turns I kept getting. I was wary of terminal clash, so I stayed at one Salvager, I don't think I needed multiple Potions, Spy and Oracle didn't impress me, and I didn't want Swindler when I was poised to drain curses on my opponent. I wound up with a buncha Silver, but is that a bad call?
-Goons. I know the adage of Dominion is "one good thing beats two decent things," but that applies less with Goons buys, right? I feel that Silver/Silver was the right choice for my $6 Goons turns, at least this game, but I'd like to hear arguments for Gold/Copper or Gold/nothing if I'm wrong.
-I thought three Familiars was probably too much, but I managed to give him the 9th and 10th Curses on the last turn. Should I have gotten more? Fewer?
-Should I have picked up Expand earlier? It could've helped in endgame, but I don't think I ever hit $7 exactly and my Provinces seem kinda crucial. Or...would Forge have been good since Goons decks tend to be junky?
-I was worried about terminal clash, but I don't think it was ever an issue. Could I maybe have picked up an extra one or two?
-How viable is it to just eat Curses like that? I've had a few games like this where I am the only one picking up a good Curser, and laugh maniacally as I dump all 10 on the other guy, but then as often as not they still give me a good run or even pick up the win.
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Terminals- In a 40 card deck, 4 terminals, none of them being terminal draw cards, Is not too much. I think You could have picked up 1 or 2 more. Also, salvager collision is not so bad because you could just trash 1 with the other.
Ignoring cursers - I only do it with masq or amb on the board or a really good bane on a young witch board, Or workshop-gardens (+ its variants - ironworks gardens, ironworks silk roads etc). That being said, familiar is probably the worse curser, so I could see ignoring it every now and then especially on a 5 -2 split. But I think you were correct to not ignore it here.
Goons- I think gold nothing is usually better than silver, silver but I could be wrong.
Expand/Forge- Outside of engines I don't really like expand and forge (Well forge is useful if you are getting cursed but you were not over here)
3 Familiars- Is usually the correct number to buy
Other comments- I would have opened swindler, potion since, in case he goes for familiar, swindler might prevent him from buying one till after the second reshuffle but I guess he didn't go for it anyway.
Goons/familiar - this is anti synergy because the attack of goons is not as potent if he could just discard the curses. I guess familiar makes the game longer which is good for goons, so maybe it was OK.
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Your opponent would have won if he'd salvaged his salvager on turn 9 and picked up a forge. I think lab/forge may be enough to make familiar ignore-able, although it's a gamble. I lost a tournament game (I think to shark_bait) doing this. Certainly tactician forge is enough to make it ignoreable. On the flip side lab forge definitely loses to mountebank.
Basically: your opponent has a roughly 30% chance of not being able to get a familiar after the first shuffle. If this happens, lab/forge should crush familiar.
Otherwise, he gets a familiar, and then I think it's roughly 60-40 that he'll be able to do significant damage before you get a forge and enough labs to take advantage of the forge.
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Labs are a very strong support card here. They would have helped you cycle the familiars quickly and could have helped the trashing cards to function despite goons inflicting 3 card hands. If you have labs you don't need more than 2 familiars and can look to forge the deck into value. The drawing and cycling in the early game is more important than extra goons points (buying 2 silvers).
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Your opponent would have won if he'd salvaged his salvager on turn 9 and picked up a forge. I think lab/forge may be enough to make familiar ignore-able, although it's a gamble. I lost a tournament game (I think to shark_bait) doing this. Certainly tactician forge is enough to make it ignoreable. On the flip side lab forge definitely loses to mountebank.
Basically: your opponent has a roughly 30% chance of not being able to get a familiar after the first shuffle. If this happens, lab/forge should crush familiar.
Otherwise, he gets a familiar, and then I think it's roughly 60-40 that he'll be able to do significant damage before you get a forge and enough labs to take advantage of the forge.
You did. But it wasn't the presence of Familiar that was key. It was scheme. Without Scheme I would not have filled you with curses before you got your Lab/Forge up and running. So in a general sense, I would say that Lab/Forge > Familiar
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I don't like the silver/silver. I think gold/nothing or lab/nothing or goons/nothing will do you better. You get to play your goons more in the end, and you are better set up to buy provinces. Of course buy the copper if you are close to the end.
I don't think you want the expand. You would always prefer to play a goons instead of an expand. The only thing good to expand is estate->lab. You trash your estates with salvager.
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What about if I have 2-4 Goons in play? Is using more buys more viable then? I almost always maximize my Goons buys even if I have to resort to Copper, so if I'm playing that wrong I should re-evaluate. Is that a good general principle, or just on that board?
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/19/game-20120719-095725-1f0d8e0b.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/19/game-20120719-095725-1f0d8e0b.html)
What I went for: Random terminals/Nobles
What he went for: Apothecary/Coppersmith/Bridge
What I wound up with: An unfocused mess that somehow got 7 Provinces
I don't even know what I was doing here, and I feel like it shows, but I somehow won. I suspect it's mostly because my opponent was trying to experiment. I am certain I bought too many terminals, which was mitigated somewhat by Nobles....but Nobles probably shouldn't be relied on heavily as a +Action, I reckon. The thing here was that I didn't see any real combos- just a jumble of mediocre stuff, most of it terminal. I think I won because I Swindled his Swindler early on and he didn't notice until towards the end. >_> Swindler did me proud here- hit several Coppers, and gave him a few Lookouts, both of which really hampered what he was trying to do.
-.....What even do I do on this board? The more I think about it, the more I think maybe I should have just gone BMX with Swindler and/or Explorer or something. Some boards I just skip the whole "strategy" idea and buy random shiny things, and once in a while it works out. This is one of them.
-What do I prefer at $5 in midgame here? With a bunch of terminals already, Explorer's a hard sell, HoP is unlikely to do much better than $4 ever, Bridge would be better if there were cheap cards I wanted, more Lookout or Swindler would be overkill, Coppersmith....is Coppersmith, and Silver just seems lame at $5.
-Apothecary/Coppersmith/Bridge seems a decentish engine. What went wrong for my opponent besides Swindlers?
-How bad of an idea is it to pick up a bunch of Nobles primarily for +Action?
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What about if I have 2-4 Goons in play? Is using more buys more viable then? I almost always maximize my Goons buys even if I have to resort to Copper, so if I'm playing that wrong I should re-evaluate. Is that a good general principle, or just on that board?
Well, there are different types of goons games:
1. It's not feasible to play multiple goons, because of no village or no draw...
1a) the board is decently fast otherwise. Most of your points will be coming from provinces. Then you should look at goons as a good attack, and worth some bonus vp. It's not worth it to buy the copper, because your main priority should be hitting $8.
1b) you think you're in for a slog. Hard attacks, no powerful ways to get to $8, no good trashing. Then I think you usually want to buy the copper. It might end on piles of things worth less than $8... duchies, curses, something else?
2. You can play more than one goons in a turn. This takes more finesse. You need to decide how many goons you can reasonably expect to be playing. If you play n goons you're guaranteed n^2 points. You want to keep your engine going until you see a 3-pile ending in sight, THEN start buying copper. Be very careful of getting excited when you hit 2 goons in play if it's feasible to get 3 or 4 or 5.
Compare my turn 11 here to my opponents turn 12:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120630-050145-838e4524.html
my opponent I think too vp tokens too early.
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What even do I do on this board? The more I think about it, the more I think maybe I should have just gone BMX with Swindler and/or Explorer or something.
That's about it. You probably don't even need the explorer since your opponent will swindle your treasures into less useful actions. The swindler pretty much messes up the apothecary.
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Your opponent would have won if he'd salvaged his salvager on turn 9 and picked up a forge. I think lab/forge may be enough to make familiar ignore-able, although it's a gamble. I lost a tournament game (I think to shark_bait) doing this. Certainly tactician forge is enough to make it ignoreable. On the flip side lab forge definitely loses to mountebank.
Basically: your opponent has a roughly 30% chance of not being able to get a familiar after the first shuffle. If this happens, lab/forge should crush familiar.
Otherwise, he gets a familiar, and then I think it's roughly 60-40 that he'll be able to do significant damage before you get a forge and enough labs to take advantage of the forge.
You did. But it wasn't the presence of Familiar that was key. It was scheme. Without Scheme I would not have filled you with curses before you got your Lab/Forge up and running. So in a general sense, I would say that Lab/Forge > Familiar
oh man, there was scheme that game? i'm a noob. (clarification: i'm not a noob for miscalculating lab/forge vs. scheme/familiar, anyone could do that. i'm a noob for remembering the basic narrative of that game without remembering scheme! that's scary. it reminds me of when people who are new to dominion will tell me yeah man i had this awesome game where i bought all the gardens and coppers with markets. and then you find out there was workshop on the board, untouched pile of ten...)
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/20/game-20120720-103443-3d426657.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/20/game-20120720-103443-3d426657.html)
What I went for: Trading Post/Goons/Warehouse
What he went for: Envoy/Trading Post
Hrm, I tried the newer, softer Goons strategy, and came up a bit short. I figured Trading Post would be helpful here, so I opened Warehouse/Feast to get it quickly and cycle it through often. Even though I intended to not let the Goons buy lure me into Copper, my brain still went "Goons game? Trashing's good," so I was focused on that even more than hitting $6 at first. He ramped up more quickly than I did, and I almost caught up at the end, but I couldn't quite seal the deal.
-Did I maybe want Envoy sooner, or to use it a bit more? I was worried about terminal clash, and only picked it up at all because I noticed how effectively he had used it. I wasn't quite as action-light as him, though, so it didn't work as well for me. I'm wondering if Envoy/BM wasn't the way to go here, though, maybe with a Goons or two or Warehouse in there somewhere.
-How was my Goonsing this time? Were they even really worth pursuing?
-Did I resort to Duchies too early? Too late? I wasn't sure what to prefer in late/endgame at 5-7.
-Broke PPR. Seem like a good idea?
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In a Goon's game with no village support, you don't want envoy at all. Goons/BM is actually fairly powerful. You attack your opponent and accrue VP tokens over time. You want enough to play them consistently so 3 is probably fine. The issue is that with 3, your Warehouse's/Envoy/TP become less effectual because you won't get the chance to play them.
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So Goons/BM beats Envoy/BM? I should really figure out how to work the simulators.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/21/game-20120721-140124-cf6ce7f5.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/21/game-20120721-140124-cf6ce7f5.html)
What I went for: Vineyard/Market/Haven
What he went for: Market/Bureaucrat?
What I wound up with: The slowest pile rush ever
I decided to try Vineyard here just for fun- I don't have much respect for Vineyard, but it seemed a decentish board to give it a shot with Market. In retrospect, I don't think it was that great an idea, but things worked out okay somehow. I am not sure how I managed to take control of this game, but my opponent was able to manage only three Provinces before I ended the game with a comfortable lead. I tried to slingshot myself fairly quickly, knowing that Market was crucial to both picking up Vineyards and pumping them. Salvager/Trading Post/Loan might have been overkill, but I dunno since I was able to Salvage them pretty quickly once they outlived their usefulness. I went for Haven as my third pile since it was a cantrip, but I'm not sure how much it helped. I figure I needed another cantrip to end the game on piles, though, and my options were fairly limited. I figured I was kinda screwed with this strategy, but my opponent's deck never really seemed to kick in. He got more Markets than I realized, which hurt my Vineyards a bit, but....by the time he started catching up in points, it was just a matter of a few more +Buy to shut the game down.
-...Was Vineyard actually that advisable here? I was able to get Vineyard/Action or 2 actions almost every turn, but...they weren't particularly GREAT actions beyond the +Buy and chainability.
-Salvaging silver and gold- good idea or bad idea here? It helped me out but I also found myself wishing I had a bit more buying power....but did I actually need that buying power when I was just going for 5P at most?
-On a related note, would it have been advisable to pick up more treasure at some point?
-I didn't really know what to Haven on most turns, since I rarely wanted Salvager and usually needed all the coin I could get. I eventually just started using them on Vineyards. Was that a good idea?
-Should I have mixed in more actions instead of going straight for 3-piling once my deck was sufficiently trimmed? I don't think Forge was a good buy for this deck but maybe some Native Villages and a Bureaucrat or two might've pumped Vineyard more....but would it have been worth taking the time? I was going for a rush but it was a pretty slow rush.
-Should I have waited longer to green? My deck might've worked a bit more efficiently if I'd picked up more Markets and Havens before rushing green, but I figured since I needed to hit Potion 8 times it behooved me to start early. Then again, it might've worked better to load up actions and then buy two Potions...but then he might've been able to pick up a Province or two and three-pile before I could really get rolling.
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I would have rushed Fools Gold on this board.
Opening Salvager / FG.
On any board without curses and with + buy, FG rush is an option.
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If you wanted to go Vineyards, you should probably have picked up at least a second Potion. In that case, you can spend more time pumping up your deck, then grab two Potions and drive through your deck with cantrips to grab multiple Vineyards each turn. More Markets would definitely have helped because there are TWO cheap action card options in Haven and NV.
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Vineyards and Fool's Gold have a very interesting interaction. Fool's Gold alone is not enough to get 8 Provinces, so Vineyards often have all the time they need. The extra factor here is Salvager, which can be used by the Province player to accelerate the game end. I can't get on Isotropic to test how quick it is though.
An extra Potion is always useful when buying Vineyards.
EDIT: It seems Salvager fixes the FG stalling problem nicely. (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/22/game-20120722-024929-c9ea9d57.html)
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I would, like you, have gone for vineyards instead of salvager + fool's gold on this board. I tend to underestimate fool's gold badly. Still, on this board, there's +buy, 2cost actions, light trashing, and cycling; vineyards are going to be really good. Certainly without fool's gold they would be dominant.
That being said, I think you make a mistake getting a trading post. You already have a loan, and a salvager. You don't want the silver that much, so trading post is basically trashing one card at a time. Vineyard, like scrying pool, is happy with pretty slow trashing; it doesn't need you to be aggressive. It also doesn't care much about money - yeah, money's ok in a vineyard deck, but +buy and finding your potion are both more important. You want as many markets as you can get. Really all you want to do is cycle your deck to find your potion over and over again. A turn where you buy a haven and a vineyard is a great turn for you. Also, two potions, definitely.
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Vineyards and Fool's Gold have a very interesting interaction. Fool's Gold alone is not enough to get 8 Provinces, so Vineyards often have all the time they need. The extra factor here is Salvager, which can be used by the Province player to accelerate the game end. I can't get on Isotropic to test how quick it is though.
An extra Potion is always useful when buying Vineyards.
EDIT: It seems Salvager fixes the FG stalling problem nicely. (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/22/game-20120722-024929-c9ea9d57.html)
I'm not allowed to play on isotropic on pain of losing five hundred dollars, but do you think you can beat that score in 20 turns with vineyards? If you have enough +buy to buy an average of an action every turn and empty the vineyard pile, yes, else probably no. hmm... I think it's close.
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I don't have much respect for Vineyard, but it seemed a decentish board to give it a shot with Market.
You should give them some more tries. In the beginning, I also really don't like them, but the more I play them the better they get. The point is (I think) that VY play (or can play) very very different from "normal" games. First, already mentioned, you usually want more than one Potion. Probably even 3. For the Potion, you spend $4, which gives you a benefit of about $2+bonus. And for this $2+bonus, you buy VPs almost worth a Province in the end. In this game. Often more. You have the buys, you even have ways of getting rid of the Potions once you don't need them anymore, so just buy them.
Then, this board here was far from optimal for Vineyards. Market is quite good, and some trashing, but the rest is really not so strong. No real cehap Cantrip, a bad Village, nothing that enlarges your handsize, so you are stuck with fairly small hands. Haven is OK, but there are tons of cards which would fit in here.
In extreme VY games, you wouldn't even want "real" money. Some money comes from actions, the VPs comes from Potions, all you want is massive cheap Cantrips and +buys.
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I played SO MANY GAMES yesterday but none of them seemed worth posting. Here's an interesting one from just now though:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/23/game-20120723-094300-c0fbe803.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/23/game-20120723-094300-c0fbe803.html)
What I went for: Trader/Familiar
What he went for: Familiar/Lab/Trader
I won commandingly here, I think because Trader shut down Familiar so badly. I am not sure I played optimally though. I got Familiar on pace with my opponent, and went double Trader as soon after as possible. He went very heavy Familiar, and pumped my deck with Silver as a result. He still split curses 5-5 with me and managed to trash most of his, but I think it wound up helping more than hurting. I thought briefly about Minion, but decided to see what happened if I ignored it- with Familiar and Trader, I figured the deck would be too full of Curse and Silver to really optimize Minion, and I figured those two were more important here. It also didn't jive well with Caravan or Lab. I picked up Caravan at 4, City at 5, and Gold at 6. I would've preferred Lab, but I didn't hit 5 exactly until after Curses had drained. Cities didn't fully activate though, and I had really low terminal density, so I guess that was a wash either way.
-How was my early prioritizing? I thought briefly about opening Trader over Potion just to get my defenses up quickly. I was also unsure if double Trader was a good call that early, but if anything I might've wanted even more Trader-y goodness.
-Was ignoring Minion the right call here? I think it was due to synergy but...it's freakin' Minion, so I don't know.
-Did I want more Cities or Labs? Maybe some terminals? I almost bought Lab at 6 a couple of times, and a City stack might've been nice even if they never fully activated....which would've given me enough +action for stuff like Adventurer, which might've been nice with a mostly silver deck. It was resilient and quick enough, though, that more actions might've been a waste of time.
-Two Familiars. Too many? Not enough? For a moment I even thought about ignoring them and seeing if I could just slingshot with Trader. Might've gone triple Trader in that scenario.
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Two Familiars is enough. I would probably have gone with some hand-size increasers to get all those silvers together and buy Provinces.
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This kingdom could be tricky. For the game as played I suspect that you could have skipped familiars altogether and used traders to collect silver. That would normally create enough early treasure to win before a familiar deck gears up. However there is a complication here with fairgrounds since the game might extend, bringing the familiars and cities into play with some interest in all the other kingdom cards too.
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With the deck full of Silver (and Curses), the Minion is more or less a Silver (+1action+2$), with the option of attacking and getting a new 4-card hand if it the Minion hand is real crap. But most of the time you will want to take the $2. Activated Cities is probably the better call, you deny them to your opponent, and +2action+2cards is probably worth more than $2. Adventurer can really be nice here, as it's almost guaranteed $4.
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/24/game-20120724-082004-9667375b.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/24/game-20120724-082004-9667375b.html)
What I went for: Hamlet/FG with other stuff
What he went for: Ghost Ship/Hamlet
Bleh, this is one of those that I won but I am pretty sure I got lucky. The idea here was to rush with FG, using Hamlet and Oasis to cycle the deck and get them together, picking up buy and stuff as necessary. My opponent ran Ghost Ship, which I figured wouldn't hurt FG too bad since I could almost Haven them together, but he ran more of them than I expected, so I wound up with a whoooole lotta three-card hands. Three-card hands don't work great with discard-for-benefit, for the record. I was able to pick up FG pretty quickly thanks to Hamlet, but his double Smugglers let him split with me, leaving me with a decidedly mediocre deck with even more problems due to Ghost Ship. I was somehow able to eke out a win, but not before he came dangerously close.
-Hamlet, Spice Merchant, Herbalist, and to a lesser extent Oasis all seem like decent enablers for FG. If we throw out Ghost Ship, was I wrong about that?
-His Smugglers let him keep up with my FG spam and it kinda ruined my day to only take 5. Was it worth it for him, though?
-This...was not a good Ghost Ship counter deck, was it? Would Hamlet/Vineyard have been better?
-Were Herbalist and Spice Merchant even that helpful for what I was trying to do here? They didn't seem to be but on paper they looked like good additions.
-Did I want more Ghost Ships maybe?
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You should almost always open Smugglers in FG. Even 1st player.
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Not so sure about that, Mogrim... Isn't Spice Merchant is a better enabler?
But if you were going to go FG, winning the split is really nice, so you should have tried to rush them. The Oasis does not help you get more FG, so save it until the FG are gone. Same with the Herbalist. Open spice merchant/FG, rush FG until they're gone.
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Seems like a great vineyards board, by the way. Hamlet, Ghost Ship, Pawn, Herbalist... lots of cheap actions.
Letting your opponent get all 10 FG would probably let them rush provinces too fast, especially with the copper trashing of spice merchant, but after you split the FG maybe it's worth it to get a potion and stock up on boatloads of hamlets and pawns for superpowering vineyards?
I'm no good at judging whether vineyards are worth it, but I'd guess they'd do well here. FG would have a hard time getting to 8 provinces because the FGs get split up, and if you don't get any provinces, they can't be trashed for gold.
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Where by "get 1 potion" I think I mean "get 2". Or more - they're trashable with spice merchants? 2 is probably enough?
Your opponent got his one vineyard to be a 5-point vineyard - if he had skipped provinces entirely and gotten more potions, he could have gotten his multiple vineyards to be worth more than provinces easily.
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Not so sure about that, Mogrim... Isn't Spice Merchant is a better enabler?
But if you were going to go FG, winning the split is really nice, so you should have tried to rush them. The Oasis does not help you get more FG, so save it until the FG are gone. Same with the Herbalist. Open spice merchant/FG, rush FG until they're gone.
Both work,and arguably Spice Merchan is better, but it requires more luck. In order to pull off a 2 FG hand, yur hand must have three copper and a Spice Merchant. Exactly like Familiar. With Smugglers, you do not get rid of a copper, but you can pull off the 2 FG hand with alot less luck required.
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I'd stick to roughly the way you played it but without the herbalist and with a second ghost ship before buying gold.
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/27/game-20120727-012817-3fcb4004.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/27/game-20120727-012817-3fcb4004.html)
What I went for: POTION CARDS
What he went for: Possession/Double Tac
What I wound up with: I don't even know.
This was an incredibly weird game because Possession. Familiar and Golem (and in some cases Tac) made for a nice Possession counterdeck, but...that didn't seem to stop either of us from fighting for Possessions. A whole bunch of weirdness ensues, and despite my propensity to play his Golems and hit Familiar/Tac and his propensity to possess me 2-3 times a turn, I won by a pair of curses.
-Really just one big question here....what do I do? I feel like Golem/Familiar/Tac/Possession is enough of a liability for Possession that I might've been smarter to just ignore Possession, pick up more Golems and Familiars, and maybe try to run double tac or BM/Golem/Double Familiar or something. Or maybe could I have just skipped Potions and tried to rush with BM/Tac/Labs before he could do much damage?
-Twice, I hit Tac/Familiar with a Possessed Golem. I probably shouldn't have played his Golems, huh?
-How does one approach durations with Possession out? On one hand, a Tactician turn is begging to be Possessed, but on the other hand, it's a dead card for your opponent. Or Caravan has its own issues. Does Possession make them less desirable? ....More?
-Turn 5 I bought Gold over Tac, knowing I had a Feast coming. Good idea? Bad idea? Unimportant?
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Golem is pretty dangerous in Tac.
I would have gone for Golems, Possessions, Tacticians, and Faimiliar at the beginning. Nix the other cards. Play as many Poss as possible.
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I'd think Embargo would be key.
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-How does one approach durations with Possession out? On one hand, a Tactician turn is begging to be Possessed, but on the other hand, it's a dead card for your opponent. Or Caravan has its own issues. Does Possession make them less desirable? ....More?
Durations become less desirable. For the example of Tactician, while possessed it's a dead card, but if the Tactician turn is possessed it was more than a dead card on your last turn: you played it for something close to "discard your hand, your opponents get +5 cards, +1 Action, +1 Buy", which is terrible. Caravan isn't as bad, but is still less useful in the presence of Possession than it usually is.
This is less pronounced for cards like Fishing Village which have enough immediate utility that your opponent will sometimes play them for you.
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I'd think Embargo would be key.
Uhh, no it wouldn't. Familiar is on the board.
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Yes, you shouldn't have played a golem on a possession turn. This kingdom has massive drawing power and you can pretty much expect the endgame to have possessions drawn and played regularly. Golem is the best possession defense here so you pretty much want golems, possessions, and drawing power. If the opponent follows suit then the game will grind out on curses, duchies, and estates.
Caravans are pretty even when it comes to possession : card for me, card for you. Tacticians are not even since only a possessor knows whether they are taking the next turn. Maybe you needed one tactician to get the best start before it became a handicap, perhaps not, hard to say. I don't think you needed quite so much gold since your opponent was spending it as often as you were. Labs were a good alternative.
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/27/game-20120727-091659-9c61dacd.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/27/game-20120727-091659-9c61dacd.html)
What I went for: Witch/Scheme/Governor
What he went for: Looks like a bit of everything, but mostly Governor/Ghost Ship
What I got: Horribly, horribly destroyed
I tried to slingshot to Witch quickly via.....Spice Merchant and Scheme, which admittedly probably isn't the fastest route, but I wanted to be able to spit out Curses quickly once I picked up Witch, and that seemed a good way to get there. He got Witch on Turn 3, and I had to wait until 7, and it only went downhill from there. He was able to assemble a killer Governor/Ghost Ship combo and hit it rather frequently, while I was still trying to hit Witch/Scheme.
-The opening obviously didn't work out. I didn't want Swindler with Witch out, but...what do? Spice Merchant/Silver? Silver/Silver? Swindler anyway?
-Ghost Ship really picked me apart here. Did I want one earlier over Witch or Governor or Gold or something? I tried to put together my own Gov/GS combo, but I got it far too late to make a difference.
-I didn't actually want those Hamlets against Ghost Ship, did I?
-Might Venture have helped at some point?
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Governor/Ghost Ship/Hamlets is really really really (insert more "really"s) strong here. Hamlets give you the +action in case you need to Ghost Ship a Governor, and the +buy to take advantage of 9001 coin in hand.
I guess you almost have to take one witch (though maybe Swindler would do the cursing job early and provide coin?) just on principle, but it's not the cornerpiece of anything. Draw 92 cards, Ghost Ship opponent to 3 (though with enough of their own Governors, maybe that's not as much of an issue), Hamlet away the chaff, buy everything. With sufficient Governors you can even power through the Curses (Hamlet fodder), though I wouldn't want to try to get sufficient Governors.
I definitely like Swindler over Scheme in the opening, and it's not even close. I really even like Silver over Scheme early -- it's not as though you have anything awesome to Scheme yet, and getting to $5 has to be a super priority.
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Opening with Scheme is just slightly better than opening with Throne Room. Both require other actions to be worth getting, but Scheme isn't just a dead weight when it doesn't collide.
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Possibly controversial opinion: when you get to $5, buy a Governor first, then a Witch next time?
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Your opponent played a reasonable game here so you can use that as a baseline.
Putting scheme and spice merchant together at the start just ran you into trouble. The spice merchant destroys your initial treasures, the scheme makes it destroy them a little faster, you can expect curses to come into your deck, and there's no sign of 5 coins to buy a witch.
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/27/game-20120727-091659-9c61dacd.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/27/game-20120727-091659-9c61dacd.html)
What I went for: Witch/Scheme/Governor
What he went for: Looks like a bit of everything, but mostly Governor/Ghost Ship
What I got: Horribly, horribly destroyed
I tried to slingshot to Witch quickly via.....Spice Merchant and Scheme, which admittedly probably isn't the fastest route, but I wanted to be able to spit out Curses quickly once I picked up Witch, and that seemed a good way to get there. He got Witch on Turn 3, and I had to wait until 7, and it only went downhill from there. He was able to assemble a killer Governor/Ghost Ship combo and hit it rather frequently, while I was still trying to hit Witch/Scheme.
-The opening obviously didn't work out. I didn't want Swindler with Witch out, but...what do? Spice Merchant/Silver? Silver/Silver? Swindler anyway?
-Ghost Ship really picked me apart here. Did I want one earlier over Witch or Governor or Gold or something? I tried to put together my own Gov/GS combo, but I got it far too late to make a difference.
-I didn't actually want those Hamlets against Ghost Ship, did I?
-Might Venture have helped at some point?
Spice Merchant is overrated. The problem is that while it's much better than Moneylender later in the game, Spice Merchant is terrible at getting you to five money (it's like the anti-horse-traders). In this game, it's absolutely essential to get five money quickly and often.
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Spice Merchant is overrated. The problem is that while it's much better than Moneylender later in the game, Spice Merchant is terrible at getting you to five money (it's like the anti-horse-traders). In this game, it's absolutely essential to get five money quickly and often.
I would still gladly open Spice Merchant with a power $5 in the kingdom if there is engine potential; it just means that my other opening buy has to be some sort of Silver equivalent.
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That game looked frustratuing. I think it was mostly due to bad luck, i.e. him getting two Witches before you got any. Other than that, I would have opened Swindler instead of Sillver…
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I have been playing tons of interesting games offline or on the other site with variant cards! I hit 20 briefly, which I think might be a first, so thanks for the continued help, and if I actually manage to get an interesting isotropic log I will still be posting it.
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/29/game-20120729-214027-df4b1262.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/29/game-20120729-214027-df4b1262.html)
What I went for: Familiar/Tac/stuff
What he went for: Vineyards
I thought I had this game lost- he was picking up vineyards and running out piles quite quickly. I was able to grab green fairly quickly, however, and caught up before he could end the game. My deck also seemed to stall out a lot less than his, and I was able to piledrive the provinces for the win!
-Is Tac/Nothing actually a good open? Early turns seem like a waste of Tactician...but it's freakin' Tac. That said, I maybe could've gotten Familiar sooner with Potion/nothing.
-I...had no real idea what to buy at 5 after I got that Tactician, and kinda just went with gut. Upgrades for curses, Vaults for green. Any issue with that? I didn't feel Market would've been that great for my deck, but an early Treasury might've been nice.
-Two Familiars good?
-Was it that good a board for VY? Market is nice and I guess Great Hall is at least spammable but it didn't really occur to me as a viable option until he almost beat me with it. Would any of you go Vineyard here, and would you do it any differently than my opponent?
-Should I have tried to grab a few Vineyards? I don't think it ever really worked out well with my Buys, and it might've just helped end game, but every Vineyard I get is 5 points he doesn't.
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I don't think I would have gone for Vineyards. I think I would have opened Upgrade, and then after that played Vault-BM.
Although there double-tac (with Vault) on the board...
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Man, I frequently miss all the coolest Tac stuff. I know about Tac/Black Market, and Golem/Tac, but any other nifty tricks I tend to not notice.
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Man, I frequently miss all the coolest Tac stuff. I know about Tac/Black Market, and Golem/Tac, but any other nifty tricks I tend to not notice.
What "Golem/Tac" strategy are you talking about? You can use Golem to potentially activate two Tacs in one turn, drawing an extra 10 cards on the next turn.... but that's extremely impractical and not a viable strategy.
The double-tac I am talking about here is playing Tactician every round and still having the coin to buy a Province. Specifically, you want to set this up:
On a Tactician turn, one of your 10 cards is Vault. You play it, discarding at least 8 cards for $8, enough for a Province. You should also have a second Tactician in hand, which you then play to discard whatever is left of your hand. Buy your Province, repeat next turn with another 10 cards in hand.
I am not so good at evaluating the effectiveness of double-tac engines, so I don't know if that strategy would work here. Familiar might get in the way by bloating your deck enough that you can't find Tac and Vault on each Tac turn, thus breaking the chain.
I would open Upgrade because it is a fantastic opener, and will help deal with incoming Curses as well as give you some "free" Silver from Estates. Then Vault-BM would be nice as it can handle the Curses and let you green pretty aggressively.
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Upgrade is most likely the better opening. Upgrade/nothing is actually a pretty decent opening. It basically does what Jack of all Trades does, and then stays useful for removing Curses and Coppers. You probably want to skip Familiar, and maybe get a second Upgrade. But even with the Upgrade's trashing, the Familiar attack might make it too hard to reliably pull off a perpetual Tactician play for Tac/Vault.
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If you play DoubleTac, you will want the Upgrade to even out your deck as you buy Provinces so it doesn't overflow.
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...Skip Familiar altogether? Familiar is one of the few cards I am aware you don't need EVERY game, but I will pretty much never ignore. (Well, unless there's Witch or Sea Hag or Mountebank, but if there's strong cursing of some sort I am pretty much guaranteed to go for it.) That's an interesting question itself, I suppose. When's it okay to skip good cursers? Or Chapel? Or Tac?
That is indeed what I meant with Golem/Tac. I haven't actually tried it in a serious game, nor am I particularly likely to, but my friend and I played like three games the other day specifically to play with that combo and KC.
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Familiar is a card you can skip at least a third of the time. The thing with Familiar is that it's really slow to actually get started, so the curses come really late, often giving you enough time to get into a position where they don't hurt that much. Here, once you have Upgrade and Vault, you can just trash Curses or discard them for coins, so all the effort in buying cards to give you curses won't really pay off.
More generally, you rarely want to skip Witch or Mountebank, but you can skip Sea Hag or Young Witch or IGG if there's good trashing and an engine, because you put yourself in a good shape by opening trashing, and if you draw enough cards per turn, the Curses aren't a big deal and you can probably trash them (since you get up to large enough hands to reasonably reliably match the trasher with the Curse). Young Witch you can also of course skip when the bane is really strong.
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DoubleTac with Vault gives you 9 cards to discard per turn, so you can still Upgrade, Vault, Tactician and buy a Province.
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HiveMindEmulator, I don't understand your analysis. Familiar is usually in your opponents deck for the third shuffle, which is the same as witch and mountebank. If you're going to use slowness as a case to skip familiar, then you should also be able to use it for witch.
Although perhaps if you compare silver/potion->familiar to silver/x->witch the familiar is less likely to be bought turns 3/4.
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HiveMindEmulator, I don't understand your analysis. Familiar is usually in your opponents deck for the third shuffle, which is the same as witch and mountebank. If you're going to use slowness as a case to skip familiar, then you should also be able to use it for witch.
Although perhaps if you compare silver/potion->familiar to silver/x->witch the familiar is less likely to be bought turns 3/4.
Sorry I was unclear. There are several kinds of "slow" that I kind of jumbled up. There is the time it takes to get the first Curse into your deck, the time it takes to give you say 3-5 Curses (some amount that is overwhelming), and the time it takes to build up a deck with the curser.
Sea Hag and Young Witch are fast at getting that first Curse into your deck, but suffer in terms of building up their own deck. So if you build faster and just trash the Curses, you can avoid them.
Witch and Mountebank are a little slower at getting the first Curse out, but they add more value to the deck than the other Cursers, giving you less time to recover.
Familiar gets the first Curse out at the same time as Witch or Mountebank (in the best case -- in the $2P case which happens like 25% of the time, it's like an auto-loss, because it's then really slow). But then since you can only buy at most once per shuffle with a reasonable chance of missing each time, it's a while before it gets out an overwhelming number of Curses, and even longer before the Familiar player can do anything with their deck. The Potion is harmful, and the Familiars just cantrips, which don't really do anything for their deck.
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Hmm, this might be something I haven't thought about enough. Let's stick to comparing witch to familiar, mountebank is more complicated. Assume no other potion cards. Disclaimer: I haven't looked at the game which started this discussion, and iso is down right now. I might actually agree with you on it.
Comparing witch to familiar for the cursing player, the difference is +1 card, -1 action. If I'm trying to build an engine and I'm starved for +action, I'd often rather be buying familiars over witches. So I think it's not always true about witch adding more value than familiar; I think about half the time playing witch hurts the cursing player because he wants to play a different terminal. A big example is tactician; I'm ok with drawing familiar and tactician together, i'm sad if I draw witch and tactician together. Notice that if we're just looking at curse dealing capability, tactician gives the curser an extra turn. To be fair, it also gives the receiver greater possibility of connecting, say, remake + 2 curses.
The thing that's really scary about ignoring familiar is that it's reasonable to get 4 curses in your deck during one of your opponents shuffles. This happens late, but maybe not as late as you think if the familiar player has strong support.
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The problem is also the Potion. You spent $4 which could be a $4-attack, or some other valuable card, or at least a Silver, to go for the Familiar. So you basically have a Curse in deck yourself.
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Well, this was brutal.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/31/game-20120731-081028-14b61ee3.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/31/game-20120731-081028-14b61ee3.html)
What I went for: BM/IGG/Hoard
What he went for: IGG RUSH
What I wound up with: A positive score!
My opponent opened IGG/Herbalist against my double Silver, and things just went downhill from there. IGG was almost the only Kingdom card worth buying here, I think, and he got five before I was able to hit $5 with big money. I tried to give him at least a couple of curses back, but there was no way for me to catch up with his Duchy rush. I grabbed a few green cards to make it seem like a fight, but...yeah.
I'm aware that I pretty much got killed by my opponents 5/2, but is there something different I could've done? I was obviously going to get destroyed on IGG, but I decided to grab a couple myself- maybe I should've gone Hoard or Gold early and tried to get ahead on infrastructure? I didn't see a use for Library or KC, and thusly not really for Quarry, but should I have perhaps gone for Herbalist sooner than I did? Also, should I have gone harder for Duchies? I went Gold on 16 and paid $5 for an Estate on 18, primarily because I didn't want to help end the game faster....but is it worth it to give up those points?
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Almost totally unplayable draws from your perspective. Buy copper with nothing to spend. You have to follow the duchy rush with an unrepairable deck. Hoards do come into play and I suspect you should bought one with your first 6 coin hand, even from the perspective of doing something different compared to an opponent who is miles ahead in a mirror match.
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I suppose buying copper would've helped, but it just feels so...dirty. Are there any good guidelines for when you should buy copper? Gardens? Counting House? Coppersmith? Any time you struggle to hit 3?
And at what point is it worth it to switch to a probably inferior strategy because the other guy is pulling off your strategy better than you are? Again, it makes sense, but I don't really know when else I can apply the idea.
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I buy copper in heavy cursing games, heavy VP, and in games where Copper is beneficial i.e. Apoth/NV, Counting House, ect.
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When your goal is $5 or below, Copper is usually a good card (when you can expect to have 5card hands).
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When your goal is $5 or below, Copper is usually a good card (when you can expect to have 5card hands).
There are many exceptions to this. One being NV/Bridge. Or heavy Scrying Pool with cheap cantrips.
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And at what point is it worth it to switch to a probably inferior strategy because the other guy is pulling off your strategy better than you are? Again, it makes sense, but I don't really know when else I can apply the idea.
In this case hoards are not a strictly inferior strategy but to my mind it is not easy to see when they should be bought or how effective they will be. This is the sort of situation when you can try it out since the game is probably lost by following a mirror match.
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It's been far too long since I've played an interesting (for the purposes of this thread) game, but that changes here!
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/04/game-20120804-174741-268dc7de.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/04/game-20120804-174741-268dc7de.html)
What I went for: Scrying Pool/Vineyards
What he went for: Scrying/Stables
I was originally going for Vineyards here, but wound up with 3 Provinces anyway. I took the game, but I feel like I could have done it more elegantly. I went for Vineyards and Scrying Pool pretty early, figuring that with only Trade Route for +Buy, I needed to pick up Potion cards most of the opportunities I had. I feel like Farming Village, Crossroads, Secret Chamber, and YW all worked really well with all the green I picked up, but it also gummed up my Scrying Pools. I was worried I'd trash too much Copper for Stables to be useful, especially in the quantities I got it, but that never wound up being a problem. Despite a general lack of buying power, my deck somehow managed to ramp up to Vineyard/5-8 before too long, and the other fella couldn't quite catch up.
-I had no idea how to open here, nor what to do with 5-8. Did I want more Gold? More Stables? ...I think I bought Province every opportunity, but was that wise?
-Was VY actually advisable? There were spammable cards, but nothing that was really GREAT for spamming, and Trade Route being the only +Buy is kinda lame for Vineyard.
-Did I want to bother with Provinces at all, or just pumping VY and rushing piles? I wasn't even really trying to go for Provinces, I just found myself with a buy and $8 sitting around a few times <_<
-Second Potion. Good idea or no?
-Secret Chamber was decent here, right? And YW?
-Was Scrying Pool worth the effort? It rarely turned into the beast I intended it to be.
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I'm not sure if it's viable with trade route as only trasher and only +buy, but a neat strategy could be trying to slim down to almost only action cards (including multiple scrying pools, secret chambers, Farming villages, and trade routes) and going for a megaturn where you play scrying pool, draw your whole deck, play farming village, play secret chamber discarding all of your action cards except for a single scrying pool, playing that scrying pool and repeating, then trashing cards you don't really need with trade route to get enough extra buys to buy 2-4 provinces[might be too tough to gather enough villages to play both the secret chambers to get 40$ with enough actions left over to play 4 trade routes] one crossroads would help this strategy by providing actions and a quarry might(along with trade route's +buy) make it easier to reach enough action cards to really make secret chamber/scrying pool strong
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Vineyard is strong whenever your opponent will stall if left to pick up 8 Provinces, which is probably the case here. Scrying Pool with lots of lovely non-terminals will just get stronger as the games goes on.
Another source of Buy would be nice, but Trade Route is much better than nothing. The weak trashing is a huge help to Scrying Pool.
I'm surprised that no Lighthouses got bought given the presence of Young Witch. I suppose you weren't often stuck at two, and Curses aren't so bad when they're providing fodder for your Trade Routes. The opening Secret Chamber is an even better deterrent against Young Witch, and it does provide you with a lot of economy, so that was fine.
Two Potions is certainly correct here.
You didn't want Gold. You don't need much money as Vineyards/$2 Action counts as an excellent turn. You also picked up too many Stables. The first Stables is good as it cycles you quickly, but they become less useful later on as you trash your Treasure. In particular, Scrying Pool will be much better for you than Stables, so Secret Chamber'ing your Potion to pick up a Stables on turns 9 and 19 was a mistake.
You might not want to pick up Provinces at all. With a majority of the Vineyards you can gain points faster than your opponent in the long run. If your 3 Provinces and a Gold had been 4 Action cards then you'd only have been down 6 points from where you ended up, but the game would have several more turns left to run. (If you have a lead and it turns out that you can consistently hit $8 with the help of your Secret Chamber then by all means grab Provinces if it means a quick end to the game whilst you're ahead.)
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I'd open potion/lighthouse here. The lighthouse seems like a better partner to the trade route and the secret chamber only comes later when you want to discard for coins.
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A 3 player game! Scandal!
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/07/game-20120807-184621-211724ce.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/07/game-20120807-184621-211724ce.html)
What I went for: Remodel/GM
What my buddies went for: GM/Wharf
The idea here was to remodel into GM, ideally picking up some Havens, WV, and Remodels along the way, and maybe a couple of Wharves. I never got around to the Wharves, and Remodel -> GM didn't work nearly as quickly as I'd hoped. I only managed a 4-3-3 split, and by then the game had almost ended on piles. I was hoping to sneak some quick green and end the game before my opponents could respond, but they actually both had me beat on the ability to do that, and my lone Province landed me in last.
-Was Remodel->GM that good a strategy here? It didn't seem to get me any more GM's than my opponents, and I didn't have the benefit of Wharves later on. Heck, I didn't even have time to really use GM. Maybe I should've just skipped both and focused on something like WV/Wharf?
-Should I have greened earlier? Endgame kinda sneaked up on me a bit, but if I'd pulled the trigger much earlier, they might've been able to build to Colonies before I could pull ahead and end game.
-How bad did skipping Wharf hurt me? I could've bought it over Gold a couple of times, or done different things with my +buy turns.
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This was one of the worst beatings I've taken in a long time:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/07/game-20120807-232825-25a4b583.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/07/game-20120807-232825-25a4b583.html)
No real questions here. Apparently I went wrong when I didn't run Scrying/BM >_>
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Ugh, I hate those games.
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/08/game-20120808-075119-0e68f0a5.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/08/game-20120808-075119-0e68f0a5.html)
What I went for: Forge/Peddler
What he went for: Tournament/Hamlet
I don't understand what I did wrong here- I expected to get Peddlers quickly thanks to support from Hamlet, Tournament, and Festival, and I suppose I did get 8 of them in relatively short order. My plan was then to Forge them all into Provinces, but I only managed that once. (I could've done more later, but by then we were too close to end and I was too far behind) I had Trading Post to help me thin my deck quickly, I had decent cycling, I had all the components to get Peddlers...but I got outspeeded badly somewhere along the line.
-Was Trading Post the right open? I didn't need Festival's +Action and I figured early trashing would work well, but then again, it was a terminal in a Peddler rush, and Festival's +Buy couldn't have hurt.
-Was there some issue with Peddler->Forge? That's usually a good strat, right? And there was good support, right? Is Tournament just that good here?
-What do I buy at 3 here? I went Scheme every time to try to re-use my power cards, but Warehouse might've been a bigger help given how little Scheme wound up doing for me.
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-Trading post opening definitely seems right, since trading post openings are awesome, however, with that opening, I think I use the trashing and bonus silvers to rush a province and win a tournament, since it makes it easy to connect and gives you money. Unfortunately, you got unlucky with TP missing the shuffle and he got 5 coppers to hit one on t3. I do think if I see a 5-2 opening with trading post, mirroring seems great because you're just gonna be faster and more consistent. Festival seems alright, but TP seems better since after 1 play you have the same number of dead draws (terminal/treasure/vp) for peddler as if you buy something else.
-I think issue with peddler forge is that its kind of slow, especially to get forge, and focuses a lot on dicking around, which is usually a losing strategy with Tournament out. By the time you got your first forge, he has 2 provinces, and the requirements to double province with forge + money are pretty steep. Mostly tournament just is that good.
-Getting 1-2 schemes seems fine. If you're peddler rushing, I might keep buying hamlets at 3 though since each one gets another peddler once you're hitting 4 actions.
Seems like a combination of bad luck (with your opener) and your opponents strategy just being strong.
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I won this game fairly handily, but I feel it could've been done a lot prettier.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/09/game-20120809-230725-c78279d4.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/09/game-20120809-230725-c78279d4.html)
What I went for: Sea Hag/Possession/Peddler
What he went for: Pearl Divers/Sea Hag/Presumably Duke
Normally I open Masq/Sea Hag without a second thought, but Masq in a Possession game scares the willies outta me. I wasn't sure whether to go for Possession or not, as it's a pretty weak Possession board otherwise, so I kinda messed around without committing to anything until he bought Masq. I tried to rush Possession immediately after that, which...isn't really possible in this board, but I tried. I picked up Woodcutter for +Buy for both Possession (force of habit with Potion cards, even when I don't expect to have tons of money left over after I get them) and Peddler, and decided Smugglers weren't really worth it. After all that hemming and hawwing, I only managed to buy one Possession and use it one. It was a pretty uninspiring possession turn, too. (No, I don't know why I gained Silver over Peddler with Ironworks.) I went for Provinces just in time to keep him from ending game in the lead, and then he had to play with Duchies while I buffed out my lead and ended things. It probably would've been a formidable Duke rush, but luckily I was a bit faster. I'm not sure how, but I was.
-Was Possession worth it here? I did not in fact pull off a Possession Masquerade, and the rest of the board sucks for Possession.
-How about Masquerade? He got some nice trashing in and dodged the Possession, but somehow I still beat him on speed.
-Would Duke/Duchy have been a better target than Province? Woodcutter, Possession, Sea Hag, Scout, and Smugglers all seem to nudge things in that direction.
-How much did I really need that Woodcutter? Peddler was nice but non-essential, I didn't have the economy to double up on a Possession buying turn, and there wasn't much else that wanted the +Buy.
-I don't understand his Pearl Divers. Am I missing something?
-Would Scout have been worth it here if I went Duke/Duchy and he went Possession? Duke gives you a lot of crap to filter, and Scout is pretty much a dead card if you get Possessed...but is that enough to justify a buy with no hybrid victory cards? It gets almost as much hate as Chancellor :(
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Possession was definitely not worth it. Didn't you only get to play it once? It was an ugly game, possession wasn't going to give you anything good. It got you a peddler and a silver, whereas you could have had a province.
you can't gain peddler with ironworks, btw, it doesn't cost less until the buy phase
I would guess the right thing to do here is like duke-duchy with masq. If he goes duke/duchy, then he'll never put together the coin for a 6P possession and you'll be safe from masq. If he builds up to 6+ hands, then, well, whats' he going to do with your $3-$5 hands, buy himself more duchies? I guess he could steal one or two if he got lucky, but by that time your deck would be fat. Or thats' the hope. A lucky possession can of course mess you up, if he draws it with your duchies for a steal-duchy buy-duchy turn. But I bet it would only happen like once, Peddlers/Curses would run out and you could run out duchies or dukes.
I'd probably open Masq-Ironworks, Ironworks to get silvers and masq to get rid of SH's curses, then get duchies, silvers. If you had too many curses, get a second masq. Sure, why not Ironworks a scout at some point - but only if you had $5 in hand with the IW already!
He probably got Pearl Divers to get Peddlers, but it didn't work so well.
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Opening with masquerade would have changed the deck composition for both players so you need to consider possession in terms of different decks to the ones you played. Even so possession seems like as marginal card so masquerade would have been useful. Duchies are generally the best target in curse ridden games anyway and dukes just improve that. That would suit smugglers and silver and leave no time for woodcutters, pearl divers, and peddlers.
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I'm having more and more trouble finding games where I see major learning opportunities, but I have been coming up with some more generalized questions to ask.
-How many Ambassadors is too many? I will almost always buy at least one (usually as an opening) and will frequently go to two if my opponent does or I feel it's necessary. I've bought 3 or even 4 before when my opponent stepped up the Amb war, but is that getting too silly?
-When (if ever) is it a good idea to open with two terminals?
-Is Village (or equivalent) ever a good open? I'll buy it once in a while in situations where I anticipate slingshotting quickly past $3 and then loading up on terminals with no +Buy.
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I don't remember any games where I bought more than two Ambassadors and went on to win. I sometimes do it in despair, but it's probably better to see if you can change direction (Duchy rush perhaps). Two is fine: I like Amb/Silver/Amb generally, but there are also fans of Amb/Amb openings.
The other common double terminal opening is Swindler/Swindler, which is a strong attack early on. I like this one, whereas I don't like double Ambassador. Chapel/anything is reasonable, as if they collide you expect to Chapel 3 cards anyway; this changes slightly if there are good 2's available, which might tip you towards Silver instead. I can't think of any other common examples.
Fishing Village is usually fine to open with. Worker's Village is great with Peddler, and you might want normal Villages with Peddler if there's also a source of Buy. Shanty Town is a special case, as you sometimes want that for the Lab effect (in that sense it's unusual because you're more likely to want it if your other buy is not a terminal).
Scout is pretty much a dead card if you get Possessed...but is that enough to justify a buy with no hybrid victory cards? It gets almost as much hate as Chancellor :(
Chancellor is better than Scout! Very occasionally you want to open Chancellor, but Scout is rarely more than a consolation buy.
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Is Village (or equivalent) ever a good open? I'll buy it once in a while in situations where I anticipate slingshotting quickly past $3 and then loading up on terminals with no +Buy.
There are some decks where silver isn't great and deck development is better than accumulating 5 cost cards . This deck development might involve a card like remake, remodel, or steward that is often happy to have something cycling through the deck until it is needed rather than a silver taking up space in hand.
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I don't remember any games where I bought more than two Ambassadors and went on to win. I sometimes do it in despair, but it's probably better to see if you can change direction (Duchy rush perhaps). Two is fine: I like Amb/Silver/Amb generally, but there are also fans of Amb/Amb openings.
The other common double terminal opening is Swindler/Swindler, which is a strong attack early on. I like this one, whereas I don't like double Ambassador. Chapel/anything is reasonable, as if they collide you expect to Chapel 3 cards anyway; this changes slightly if there are good 2's available, which might tip you towards Silver instead. I can't think of any other common examples.
Fishing Village is usually fine to open with. Worker's Village is great with Peddler, and you might want normal Villages with Peddler if there's also a source of Buy. Shanty Town is a special case, as you sometimes want that for the Lab effect (in that sense it's unusual because you're more likely to want it if your other buy is not a terminal).
Scout is pretty much a dead card if you get Possessed...but is that enough to justify a buy with no hybrid victory cards? It gets almost as much hate as Chancellor :(
Chancellor is better than Scout! Very occasionally you want to open Chancellor, but Scout is rarely more than a consolation buy.
I've picked up a third Amb and won, but yeah it's rare and usually a desperation play.
I'll generalize your statement about double terminals to say that, while Swindler, Chapel, and Ambassador are certainly the cards most likely to lead to a double terminal opening (I do like Amb/Amb most of the time FWIW), it's something worth considering whenever there is good attack or trashing. Witch/Moat is a fine opening, for instance.
The $5 Villages (well, not City) are also sometimes a good buy if you are lucky enough to open 5/2, since like Fishing they provide +Coin. Hamlet is also good with Peddler, discard synergy, and 5/2 openings. Native Village can be a good open with certain combos, Bridge the most famous. Some people like opening Mining Village to trash it as a slingshot to $6, but I don't. In general, most every Village save the original one and Walled can be worth opening at times (and I've heard people have success with Walled Village/Ambassador).
Chancellor deserves (and gets) much much less hate than Scout around here. It's a decent opener every once in awhile, especially with Familiar, Stash, and really any board where you don't mind spending a terminal slot on Silver with an uncertain cycling benefit- generally if everything else is really weak, or you expect to be drowning in +Action. I think Chancellor is pretty underrated, actually, though I wouldn't call it good of course. The only good thing I can say about Scout is that it hurts you less than Thief, and it's nice to have with Scrying Pools sometimes.
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/11/game-20120811-073740-5e101dec.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/11/game-20120811-073740-5e101dec.html)
What I went for: Mount/Gardens
What he went for: Mount/Tournament
I thought I was in for a rough time when he opened 5/2, but thanks to some quick Baron action, I was able to get two Mountebanks in by turn 4, and only took 6 curses. I was clearly gunning for Gardens, and he clearly for Provinces. I tried to use Talisman, Baron, and Outpost to up my card count quickly, but was only moderately successful. I was more successful in rushing Tournaments- I only got 5 since I had to fight over them, but all of them missed his lone Province. Once Tournaments and Curses drained on the same turn, I rushed Gardens, and my opponent wasn't QUITE ready to deal with the green rush. He tried to fight me, but I was able to take 6 Gardens and end game before he managed another Province.
-What should I prefer at 5+ here? I feel like 2 Mountebanks and an Outpost was about optimal, but after that...Gold? Province? Garden?
-Would Island have helped here? I kinda wanted them but didn't know how the point counter would handle Island/Gardens, and I didn't wanna lose the game by experimenting to find out.
-Was Gardens even a good idea? I figured that Baron and Talisman (and Mount and Outpost, to lesser extents) were all decent reasons to go for it, but Tournament was an awkward third pile to push- if it had gone on longer, he would've been able to block with Provinces and I would've been in deep doo-doo.
-How badly do I wanna use my +Buy on Copper or Baron's Estate gain?
-Should I have greened earlier?
-Was Talisman a bad buy, or did I play it poorly? Or did I just get unlucky?
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I think Gardens was a good idea, though I'm not entirely sure. Tournament is strong, but Followers isn't as relevant on a board with Mountebank.
If Gardens was your goal from the start, you actually don't mind Mountebank so much since the cards you gain from it actually help you! Maybe you want to avoid the Curse anyway -- I'm not sure what is optimal. But turns 16 and 19, why did you discard a Curse? For sure you want that Copper. Copper is not bad at all when your goal is Gardens. You definitely want to use your Baron +Buy and Estate gain. Talisman is cool too. Some pawns for +Buy would also be nice.
I don't think you needed to rush Tournament at all. Grab the Gardens, pile out Estates (with Baron, maybe) and Pawns using Talisman. Probably don't even need to dip into Mountebank.
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I don't think you needed to rush Tournament at all. Grab the Gardens, pile out Estates (with Baron, maybe) and Pawns using Talisman. Probably don't even need to dip into Mountebank.
I would definitely get Moutebank as the Gardens player here, because an opponent with a healthy deck and a Tournament stack is going to absolutely destroy the Gardens player (especially with Island as a source of alt VP). Remember that most Gardens rushes aren't all that fast without really good support...
Conversely, the Province player probably doesn't want Mountebank, because it doesn't hurt the Gardens player all that much.
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/13/game-20120813-085105-2e59356f.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/13/game-20120813-085105-2e59356f.html)
What I went for: GM/Develop/City
What he went for: Develop/Monument/City
Another one of those "I won but I feel it was suboptimal" games. Part of my issue here is that I took too long to actually settle on a strategy. Venture/FG seemed like a winner, but so did GM/Develop. I WAS initially planning on running both until I realized that Venture and GM don't get along so well without a better trasher than Develop. I also picked up a turn 2 WV for almost no reason at all, although I intended to push Monument harder than I did. I had visions of Developing into GM, which is the main reason I got it over Silver, but never actually pulled it off. I also wasn't sure what to do with FG- whether to try to hit it with Venture, Develop into Silver, hope to turn into Gold, use as a copper substitute for GM, or ignore it. I wound up being all wishy-washy and only buying a couple, which didn't do me much good. I was hoping Develop or FG would run out and activate my Cities, but eventually GM drained instead. I was barely able to hold onto my lead, but it worked out somehow.
-Was GM a trap here? I am pretty sure I over-value it, and this wasn't a GREAT board for it.
-Should I have gone Venture with this strategy? Venture/FG is probably strong with good +Buy to be had, but it didn't seem worth it if I was going for GM....and Cities were bound to activate at least partially at some point.
-How do you like Develop here? I usually ignore it, but with no other 3's and GM on the board, it seemed decent. My opponent really liked them.
-What should have been my approach to FG? Develop fodder? GM fodder? Venture combo? Use the reaction? Push harder? Ignore even with $2?
-What's the best open for this strategy? Pretty dang sure WV wasn't it.
-Would FG/WV have worked as an open if I had intended to rush FG?
-What should've been my Develop priority? Kill the Copper? Estate/FG -> Silver? Silver -> Monument/FG? 4's -> Silver/City? City -> GM?
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I don't think you needed to rush Tournament at all. Grab the Gardens, pile out Estates (with Baron, maybe) and Pawns using Talisman. Probably don't even need to dip into Mountebank.
I would definitely get Moutebank as the Gardens player here, because an opponent with a healthy deck and a Tournament stack is going to absolutely destroy the Gardens player (especially with Island as a source of alt VP). Remember that most Gardens rushes aren't all that fast without really good support...
Conversely, the Province player probably doesn't want Mountebank, because it doesn't hurt the Gardens player all that much.
Sure, but isn't the support pretty good in this case? Baron and Pawn for +Buy (where Baron can gain Estate ALONG with the +Buy), Talisman for gaining. I imagine it could go pretty quick. I suppose I'm just underestimating the unblocked Tournament stack here.
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This kingdom can be played out a various levels. Firstly there's some basic big money strategies that will beat messing about with develop. Secondly there's some fool's gold strategies that will probably beat the basic treasure strategies, especially with worker's village, noble brigand, venture, grand markets, or even navigator as support. Thirdly there's both players taking fool's gold and that might bring cities into play and then all sorts of strategies become possible, although I'd guess the game will move on too quickly for anything fancy to be done.
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Sure, but isn't the support pretty good in this case? Baron and Pawn for +Buy (where Baron can gain Estate ALONG with the +Buy), Talisman for gaining. I imagine it could go pretty quick. I suppose I'm just underestimating the unblocked Tournament stack here.
Fair point. Baron, Pawn, and Talisman are great for getting more cards, but they're not quite so good at emptying out the piles that you need - still pretty strong, though (I got 54 points solitaire in 19 turns). In retrospect the kingdom that Tombolo posted didn't have much engine potential, so I'd actually expect that if the opponent goes Mountebank, a Gardens strategy that invests more heavily in Barons and Estates will win. Opponent Mountebanks will also make Curses a more attractive target for the third pile.
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More general questions:
-How does one go about setting up a Golden Deck, and how exactly is it supposed to work? I made a half-hearted attempt the other day, but couldn't resist the urge to keep buying cards. Better cards, admittedly, but I was trashing no more than two a turn.
-Is Lighthouse/Lighthouse a good opening against good attacks? Somebody opened that on a board with...Witch, I think it was?...and continued to buy them throughout the game. It threw me off so badly that I bought Witch anyway and generally flailed uselessly all game. At what amount of Lighthouse/Moat/other defense do you give up on attacks?
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I would probably only open lighthouse/lighthouse in 3 or 4 player. But, Lighthouse can stop attacks like Sea Hag dead. Witch on the other hand benefits you when you play it, so it's worth buying on the off-chance that a curse sneaks through.
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Half-hearted golden decks tend to be a bad idea, since they usually just end up choking on green. And you really need some pretty fast trashing to make it work. Chapel is really the only card that I will really think golden deck on. Although sometimes I just stumble into one with other cards.
Anyway with chapel, priority 1 is to trash everything. Open Bishop/Chapel. You'll need to get probably 2 silver. And then 2 gold. And it's totally ok to just take 1 turn to trash a card and then buy nothing in order to get down to 5 cards.
As for lighthouse/lighthouse open, it isn't a bad open. Depends on the kingdom. If it's a really strong attack, you might want to open attack/lighthouse. But like if you get a 4/3 split against a 5/2 mountebank open, lighthouse/lighthouse sounds great.
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More general questions:
-How does one go about setting up a Golden Deck, and how exactly is it supposed to work? I made a half-hearted attempt the other day, but couldn't resist the urge to keep buying cards. Better cards, admittedly, but I was trashing no more than two a turn.
-Is Lighthouse/Lighthouse a good opening against good attacks? Somebody opened that on a board with...Witch, I think it was?...and continued to buy them throughout the game. It threw me off so badly that I bought Witch anyway and generally flailed uselessly all game. At what amount of Lighthouse/Moat/other defense do you give up on attacks?
Golden Deck:
1) Open Bishop/Chapel.
2) Hope your chapel doesn't miss your first shuffle, because if it does, you're pretty screwed.
3) Chapel everything. Everything.
Golden Deck doesn't work if you have Bishop as your only trasher, and it's pretty tough even with something like Steward.
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Golden Deck doesn't work if you have Bishop as your only trasher, and it's pretty tough even with something like Steward.
Sometimes you can get away with Steward if you have good shuffle luck, or if your opponent is helping you with his own Bishop.
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Golden Deck:
1) Open Bishop/Chapel.
2) Hope your chapel doesn't miss your first shuffle, because if it does, you're pretty screwed.
3) Chapel everything. Everything.
You kinda do need to remember to buy Silver while you still have at least 3 Copper, and keep at least 1 to buy your second (unless you also have FG available, I guess). But yeah, you want really aggressive Chapelling for this.
I've played some other games where I started out racking up points randomly with Bishop and then found an opportunity to get into Golden Deck configuration. You really need to think it through, though.
(P.S. I guess it doesn't really need to be said, but as long as we're talking about cards that get a huge boost from Chapel - Governor/Chapel makes something golden-ish even if you're keeping your Provinces and not reducing to 5 cards. And with Governor, you don't actually need to worry about over-trashing the Copper as long as you get at least 1 Governor somewhere. You can gain Gold and use 2 of them to buy the next Governor.)
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Half-hearted golden decks tend to be a bad idea, since they usually just end up choking on green. And you really need some pretty fast trashing to make it work. Chapel is really the only card that I will really think golden deck on. Although sometimes I just stumble into one with other cards.
Anyway with chapel, priority 1 is to trash everything. Open Bishop/Chapel. You'll need to get probably 2 silver. And then 2 gold. And it's totally ok to just take 1 turn to trash a card and then buy nothing in order to get down to 5 cards.
As for lighthouse/lighthouse open, it isn't a bad open. Depends on the kingdom. If it's a really strong attack, you might want to open attack/lighthouse. But like if you get a 4/3 split against a 5/2 mountebank open, lighthouse/lighthouse sounds great.
Depending on the draws you can stay on Bishop / silver / silver / gold / prov.
You don't really need to get a 2nd gold.
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/18/game-20120818-072815-cd0471fe.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/18/game-20120818-072815-cd0471fe.html)
What I went for: ALL THE VP CARDS
What he went for: ALL THE VP CARDS except Fairgrounds
My initial plan was to build up for a while and then devour Duke/Duchy/Silk Road in a flurry of +Buy and end the game before my opponent could react and get Provinces. ...Somehow, though, I wound up with a Province deck instead, and beat him mostly that way. It was a weird game. I never actually managed to get any Dukes, but I did take 5 Silk Roads...and 5 Provinces. I wasn't planning to push Fairgrounds hard, but late in the game I realized I'd gotten it to 4 VP without trying, and it became the best consolation prize for missing Province. I am certain there was a better way to rush this, but I guess it worked out.
-I am pretty sure at least a couple of my actions were traps. Workshop->Silk Road didn't really work out as well as I'd hoped, Haven was kinda pointless even as a "why not" buy, and KC....didn't have as much to work with as it usually does. What could I have skipped, and what did I want more?
-Was my rushing idea plausible? It wound up...not being a rush.
-Should I have even gone for those Provinces, or stuck to my guns and tried to drain piles? I was specifically shooting for double SR/Duke/Duchy turns instead of Province turns, but when I got Province turns instead, I figured why not.
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With only oracle for + draw and no trashing it is going to be hard to build an engine on this board.
So I would go for Workshop / Workshop, then rush Silkroad / estate / workshop for the quick 3 pile ending.
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When I see:
2 Fairgrounds [14 different cards]
It always makes me sad.
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Yeah. :\ I miscounted and thought I had, like, 12 max, else I would've pushed them a bit harder.
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General question: Against Torturer with Curses left, when should I discard and when should I take the curse?
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General question: Against Torturer with Curses left, when should I discard and when should I take the curse?
Here's a thread on that; with lots of good advice:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1791.0 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1791.0)
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Is this how you're supposed to IW/Gardens, then?
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/20/game-20120820-202929-d5137cee.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/20/game-20120820-202929-d5137cee.html)
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Yep!
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I hate Pirate Ship with a burning passion, and will veto it every time I get a chance. Most importantly, I feel it really slows the game down and saps the fun, especially on boards where there's not much +$, but I also dislike it because I am neither good at using it nor beating it. That said, it served me well here.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/20/game-20120820-205622-13d8c3f7.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/20/game-20120820-205622-13d8c3f7.html)
What I went for: Pirate Ship/Oasis
What he went for: Philosopher's Stone/Pirate Ship
I figured Pirate Ship would be a good idea here, although I don't think I initially saw Minion and might've reconsidered if I had. He went straight for Phil Stone, which I think was a mistake once I went Pirates. I wasn't really sure on how to OPTIMIZE the deck, but I figured Oasis would help me cycle, (and make some money if he also went Pirate) Pirates could ramp up pretty quickly, and IW and Talisman would help me pick up the components quickly. I pulled the trigger once I hit $6 on the Pirate mat, after which I only missed Pirate -> Province once. His economy was hurt pretty badly, and he never built his Pirates past $3, so the outcome wasn't really in doubt at that point.
-What could've optimized my engine? Did I want the IW and Talisman? Did I want that many Pirates and Oases?
-Was Pirate Ship actually that great an idea here? I think it would've worked much better with some +Action, and might've been vulnerable against a good Minion deck.
-Did I pick a good time to start going for Provinces?
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Pirate ship wasn't a good idea. Oasis/Minion is much better. (Oasis gives you coins, cycles your deck to find Minions, at the cost of decreasing your handsize, which you don't care about because minions. If the opponent goes Pirate Ship, that just clears out your coppers.)
I'd be tempted to open, like, Oasis/Oasis or something. I don't remember exactly how good Oasis openings are at getting to $5, maybe Oasis/Silver is better, not sure. But yeah, a Minion deck is basically immune to Pirate Shipping.
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You had a much easier time than you should have by the fact that your opponent was opening Potion and missed the PStone/Herbalist combo. Pick up Herbalists on $2, Talismans on $4, and PStones on $3P and PStones will be worth a truckload in no time, allowing you to green like mad.
Minion/Oasis is probably better here because it screws up Herbalist topdecking, but I'm pretty sure that a good PStone strat will still crush Pirate Ships.
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You had a much easier time than you should have by the fact that your opponent was opening Potion and missed the PStone/Herbalist combo. Pick up Herbalists on $2, Talismans on $4, and PStones on $3P and PStones will be worth a truckload in no time, allowing you to green like mad.
Minion/Oasis is probably better here because it screws up Herbalist topdecking, but I'm pretty sure that a good PStone strat will still crush Pirate Ships.
... wait... the idea is to use Herbalist to topdeck and re-play PStones... against somebody playing an attack that trashes topdecked treasure? o_O
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Herbalist top decks, then you draw it end of turn, before the next pirate ship attack.
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I always get confused by that kinda thing too.
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Minion should set off red flags every time you see it saying "buy me". Maybe not quite as much as cursers or wharf, but its really good if you get lots of them. It doesn't really need it, but it gets even better with other support like trashers/pawn/FV/villages-in-general.
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They usually do! I think I just plain didn't see them until I'd already set up my deck around Pirates.
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I thought so hard that I could make two oft-maligned cards work at once :(
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/22/game-20120822-135617-22f98583.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/22/game-20120822-135617-22f98583.html)
What I went for: Pretty much everything
What he went for: Tunnel/Embassy
I saw lots of Tunnel synergy on this board, so Oasis/Tunnel seemed the obvious open, shooting for Embassy later on. I actually got excited, because both Thief and Scout seemed viable on this board! Scout the Tunnels into my hand for one of my discarders while improving my Embassies, and Thief to wreck all the extra coinage floating around. (and HoP if he went that route) In retrospect, Thief was actually a bit dangerous against Tunnel, and Scout wasn't THAT great a combo, but dangit, I was excited! The game ramped up more quickly than I expected, and I didn't have as much time as expected to build my engine. I was hoping for at least another Embassy, and maybe another Thief and an Expand. I went blow for blow with him for a while, but he was able to break PPR and win.
-Scout and Thief....still weren't worth it, right?
-Did I actually want Secret Chamber? It's one more way to activate Tunnel, and could've protected me from the MIGHTY MIGHTY THIEF, but was it good enough to justify another terminal?
-Would Expand have been a good idea at some point?
-How many Tunnels did I want, and how soon? I wasn't really sure what to do at $3, which would've been a bigger deal if I'd passed on the 4's.
-It never drew, but would it have been a better idea to pass on the Duchess?
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I don't know much about tunnels but the simulator says start tunnel/oasis, it's worth the gamble. I know something about scout and thief though and you don't need them. Keep it simple and spend treasures with embassies to buy provinces.
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When there's a fast strategy on the board like Embassy/Tunnel, you really have to streamline your deck towards the fast strategy and any extra buy like a scout or thief or secret chamber (well not the secret chamber this game, except for your opponent) is going to be a waste that you could have spent on another tunnel or oasis or silver to help you get up to 5 to get another embassy.
To answer your questions, scout and thief weren't worth it, may as well get a secret chamber because you only had 2 that turn and you can always discard it with embassy, I wouldn't have gone with Expand because again it wasn't part of the main strategy. Before getting an Embassy, especially with Oases, I usually get 1/2 tunnels, and afterwards just as many Tunnels as you can get, while getting another Embassy somewhere in there. They're worth 2 VP, after all.
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It's been quite a while, hasn't it? My Dominion interest has waned a bit, but I'm still playing some, and I am curious how I could have improved this win.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/14/game-20121014-143119-8f5a103c.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/14/game-20121014-143119-8f5a103c.html)
What I went for: IW/Highway/Market/Expand
What he went for: Market/Trade Route
I got the win here, but it didn't play out quite as planned. I didn't think to get Quarry off the bat, but otherwise my opening went roughly according to plan! I obviously was trying to build my deck around Highway, and I got 7 of them. The idea was to abuse IW and Expand in tandem with Highway, and to use Market for +buy and Trade Route for buys and some trashing. It never really worked quite how I had envisioned, and my opponent threw me by going for provinces early, but he was unable to rush them quite in time, and I was able to overtake him in the end somehow.
-Did I time going for everything correctly? I was able to get Highways quickly, but not as many Markets as I wanted, and the IW and Expand didn't do as much for me in mid/lategame as I'd hoped.
-Did I even want treasure really at all? How about Quarry?
-Why wasn't I able to hit ridiculous Highway combos as well as I'd imagined?
-Should I have just gone Provinces instead?
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Why would you open with Ironworks? The only other targets at $4 or less that you want are Quarry and Trade Route. Ironworks only does cute things if you manage to match it with a Highway, but you can do about the same thing with Quarry + Market, plus Trade Route also gives a +buy, and Highway adds to that combo.
There is no card draw or sifting in this kingdom, so you want a trim deck if you want to hit a big Highway + Market turn. You will stall as soon as you draw enough "dead" cards into your hand.
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When you are trying to draw through the deck with only 5 card hands you can't do it by throwing more and more cards into the deck. You need to trim out all the treasures and estates that eventually fill those 5 hand slots as you play out your +1 card actions. This suggests opening trade route/quarry.
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Maybe I didn't want to open IW, but it's still a good thing to have in a Highway deck, right? Quarry can't help you with treasure (although maybe I didn't want much of that) or green (although probably trying to get Colonies this way was dumb) or picking up multiple engine pieces in a turn. (unless paired with +Buy, but IW/+Buy still outpaces +Buy if you're going for actions)
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I think the point is the order of the purchases, which is very important. In your end deck, you have trade routes, a quarry, ironworks, and silvers in your deck. We probably all agree these are important to the deck you want to build (well not the silvers, that sounds bad, but semi-necessary?).
So what is important is when we purchase it. The reason ironworks doesn't work so well at the start is, at best, it will be a gainer for quarry and provide you with another dollar, even possibly getting you to highway purchase. While this case sounds good, the likelihood isn't all that great. Quarry opening ensures early highway purchase on T3/T4. You were very fortunate to hit highway still, while also having the 1 highway, and 1 ironworks line up afterwards.
While the silver is necessary with the ironworks, as getting to $5 is pretty important, with quarry, it is not as essential for the counter reason. Thus, the extra trashing from trade route is very much wanted at the start.
Moreless, this deck does not want treasures, so much so that your first gold is surely a mistake. With that in mind, quarry is infinitely better than silver in this case, which makes the quarry/trade route opening a lot better.
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Understood. A couple of quick questions from games today that didn't merit full writeups:
-I opened Steward/Silver on a Witch board. On the first use, is it better to use the trashing, or the +$2 to get Witch? Does that change if your opponent opens Witch?
-If Amb and IGG are out, which would you prefer? I tried to run both, and I feel it was self-defeating.
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Understood. A couple of quick questions from games today that didn't merit full writeups:
-I opened Steward/Silver on a Witch board. On the first use, is it better to use the trashing, or the +$2 to get Witch? Does that change if your opponent opens Witch?
-If Amb and IGG are out, which would you prefer? I tried to run both, and I feel it was self-defeating.
1. I'm gonna have to assume steward should be used for trashing. I only say this because if you are opening steward/silver, on a board with witch, you are suggesting there is a reason to trash. If the decision for you was to gain $2 with steward to get your witch, you should have gone silver/silver. Thus this decision should have been made prior to opening steward/silver.
2. The crux of this decision is in the engine possibilities. IGGs lend to a very BM-esque game, in that other then a couple terminals you don't want much else here (That is not to say you should be aiming for provinces, yadda yadda). Ambassador is quite the opposite, and with that in mind, they do clash to some degree. Thus depending how the board feels, BM or engine, I would choose the appropriate card.
The only time I would consider both, would be when I choose ambassador to start, and possibly go IGG after, but this would require a slim deck (and by that point, the is likely have much won already). I would suspect going ambassador to BM + IGG would lose to straight up IGG, as long as there are mediocre terminal silvers in play.
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1. I'm gonna have to assume steward should be used for trashing. I only say this because if you are opening steward/silver, on a board with witch, you are suggesting there is a reason to trash. If the decision for you was to gain $2 with steward to get your witch, you should have gone silver/silver. Thus this decision should have been made prior to opening steward/silver.
I think this is faulty logic (though the conclusion may be correct; I"m not sure. Depends on the Kingdom). At the time you chose Steward, you didn't know if you would draw it in the same hand as your Silver or not. You could have easily drawn it in a hand where using +$2 wouldn't have gotten you a Witch, in which case it being a Silver instead would have been worse. It's the same question as drawing 4 Coppers and Steward on turn 3, and trying to choose between Gold and trashing 2 Coppers.
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This is one of those games where there were just so many power cards that I didn't even know what to do!
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/15/game-20121015-112045-fd60c97e.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/15/game-20121015-112045-fd60c97e.html)
What I went for: Chapel/Menagerie/Governor
What she went for: A bit of everything
I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do at the beginning, but I saw Chapel and a bunch of strong 5/6's, so I opened Chapel/Silver and decided to play it by ear. I was having issues getting my economy off the ground, so I Chapelled more conservatively than usual. (EG, leaving enough Copper in my hand to hit 3) My opponent initially got a jump on me, so I decided I didn't have enough time to build a Minion deck, and Goons didn't have the greatest support, so it was down to Governor or Wharf. I settled on Governor, thinking I would pick up a Wharf at some point, but I never did. I am not that great at Governor rushes, but I don't think my opponent was particularly experienced, so I got the win anyway. I also picked up several Menageries, as they countered YW, Minion, AND Goons...however my opponent didn't go for those options as much as expected. Still, Governor enabled me to hit Menagerie several times anyway.
-What strategy would you have gone for on this board?
-What do I prefer at $3? Scheme, Menagerie, and Silver all seemed pretty viable at various points throughout the game.
-I know that generally you're supposed to trash pretty aggressively with Chapel. Was this game an exception, since my opponent was able to ramp up more quickly than I was?
-Did I get too many Governors? Not enough?
-How was my actual Governor play? I feel I gained too many Golds, but there weren't always exciting Remodel options, and I couldn't justify taking the draw in most situations. There were also times where I just wanted to get Governors out of my hand to hit Menagerie and re-evaluate before I remodelled my Gold.
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Why didn't you get a Goons? That allows you to get away with Governor draw almost scot-free...
Given the presence of Chapel, Menagerie, and Scheme on the board, I would still trash as aggressively as possible and try to set up a small Conspirator engine, building up to Governor and Goons. Multiple plays of Goons is not possible here without +actions, but trimming down and getting one early allows you to earn lots of points from being able to consistently buy 2 cheap engine pieces and playing the Goons every turn.
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1. I'm gonna have to assume steward should be used for trashing. I only say this because if you are opening steward/silver, on a board with witch, you are suggesting there is a reason to trash. If the decision for you was to gain $2 with steward to get your witch, you should have gone silver/silver. Thus this decision should have been made prior to opening steward/silver.
I think this is faulty logic (though the conclusion may be correct; I"m not sure. Depends on the Kingdom). At the time you chose Steward, you didn't know if you would draw it in the same hand as your Silver or not. You could have easily drawn it in a hand where using +$2 wouldn't have gotten you a Witch, in which case it being a Silver instead would have been worse. It's the same question as drawing 4 Coppers and Steward on turn 3, and trying to choose between Gold and trashing 2 Coppers.
See I never really understood this conundrum all that often. Steward-BM isn't going to be the best option all that often. Definitely not at all with a witch on the board.
Lets say you conclude there's a decent engine you want to build (or some sort of decent strategy that likely includes a village), and you think steward/silver is optimal. The only reason that it could be optimal is that you would want the trashing of steward or else you would have taken something else.
You get steward + $3, and you decide to use it for a witch, that can collide and doesn't help Witch-BM whatsoever? That kind of flip-flopping decision-making sounds detrimental. Just trash and get going on whatever you decided to do earlier.
I feel like it is a similar problem with ambassador/3 coppers/estate, there aren't many $3 that would make me choose to give back an estate instead of the 2 coppers.
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...Wow, Governor -> Goons didn't even occur to me. I decided to pass on Goons because I felt like I only really needed one of them, especially if I was going to be picking up Wharf, and just one Goons didn't seem worth it.
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/15/game-20121015-124738-2795e358.html
I can't claim that this is fully optimized, but I open Chapel/Conspirator, hit an early $5 for a Governor, and grab a Scheme to more easily activate Conspirators. Throw in a Goons, and this deck chugs along smoothly, picking up multiple components each turn.
In an actual match, you will probably split the Governors and rely more on raw income from Conspirators to buy Provinces. Young Witch is annoying here, but I don't think it's worth picking up because it occupies the valuable terminal slot in your deck, and defending against YW with Menagerie seems rather pointless when your deck is mostly homogeneous and you can trash incoming curses with Chapel or just power through them with Governor draw. (And you will probably be more conservative about drawing with Governor early before you have Goons. Basically, a lot of stuff is different, but the general idea is the same...)
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Understood. A couple of quick questions from games today that didn't merit full writeups:
-I opened Steward/Silver on a Witch board. On the first use, is it better to use the trashing, or the +$2 to get Witch? Does that change if your opponent opens Witch?
-If Amb and IGG are out, which would you prefer? I tried to run both, and I feel it was self-defeating.
1. Witch unless it's turn 3 and you have >60% chance of drawing five on turn four.
2. Just ambassador, basically no exceptions.
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Understood. A couple of quick questions from games today that didn't merit full writeups:
-I opened Steward/Silver on a Witch board. On the first use, is it better to use the trashing, or the +$2 to get Witch? Does that change if your opponent opens Witch?
-If Amb and IGG are out, which would you prefer? I tried to run both, and I feel it was self-defeating.
1. Witch unless it's turn 3 and you have >60% chance of drawing five on turn four.
2. Just ambassador, basically no exceptions.
1. Don't forgot the +2 cards option, depending on the board +2 cards will get you the same buy as $2 but with improved early deck cycling.
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1. I'm gonna have to assume steward should be used for trashing. I only say this because if you are opening steward/silver, on a board with witch, you are suggesting there is a reason to trash. If the decision for you was to gain $2 with steward to get your witch, you should have gone silver/silver. Thus this decision should have been made prior to opening steward/silver.
I think this is faulty logic (though the conclusion may be correct; I"m not sure. Depends on the Kingdom). At the time you chose Steward, you didn't know if you would draw it in the same hand as your Silver or not. You could have easily drawn it in a hand where using +$2 wouldn't have gotten you a Witch, in which case it being a Silver instead would have been worse. It's the same question as drawing 4 Coppers and Steward on turn 3, and trying to choose between Gold and trashing 2 Coppers.
See I never really understood this conundrum all that often. Steward-BM isn't going to be the best option all that often. Definitely not at all with a witch on the board.
Lets say you conclude there's a decent engine you want to build (or some sort of decent strategy that likely includes a village), and you think steward/silver is optimal. The only reason that it could be optimal is that you would want the trashing of steward or else you would have taken something else.
You get steward + $3, and you decide to use it for a witch, that can collide and doesn't help Witch-BM whatsoever? That kind of flip-flopping decision-making sounds detrimental. Just trash and get going on whatever you decided to do earlier.
I feel like it is a similar problem with ambassador/3 coppers/estate, there aren't many $3 that would make me choose to give back an estate instead of the 2 coppers.
Hmm, good points. I do think you could argue that given certain turn 3 hands, your original strategy (buying Steward for early trashing) might no longer be the best; thought it would have been the best if you had drawn any other turn 3 hand. But certainly you've made me reconsider what to do with Ambassador/3 Coppers/Estate... up til now I would have given Estate every time.
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I am pretty sure I did several things wrong, but what could I have done right?
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/19/game-20121019-053409-9e7822cc.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/19/game-20121019-053409-9e7822cc.html)
What I went for: Vineyard (with Trade Route, GH, and Market)
What he went for: TR/Hoard
I apparently still can't run a proper Vineyard deck. The idea was to drain VY/GH/Market while using +Buy from Trade Route and Market to pick up Vineyards on a fairly regular basis while still building the engine. I am pretty sure Potion/Trade Route open was a mistake, but I was still luckily able to hit 5 fairly quickly. My rush kept up for a while, but was eventually overtaken, and I had no hope of catching up. I didn't even manage to get all the Vineyards!
-What's the proper open here? Going for vineyards right off the bat did nothing to get my engine going, but I STILL couldn't get 'em all before game ended.
-Did I want more treasure? My target was 5P with two buys, for the most part, and I hit that fine, but...maybe picking up something besides a consolation late-game silver (Great Halls were out!) might've helped in some regard.
-There were a few turns towards the end where I could've gone Province/VY, but instead went Market/GH/VY or some such. It kept my engine going better and slowed the end of the game, but....was it worth giving up the points?
-Was Vineyard even viable here? I feel like Market and Trade Route did well for me, but Great Hall was not the most ideal cantrip to rush.
-Tactician, yea or nay?
-Perhaps a second Potion might've helped? And then maybe I could've gone Upgrade on them?
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You started your end game in the early game. There was time to prepare your deck, yes with a tactician, and then use extra buys and two potions to empty the vineyards once you had plenty of good actions in your deck to sustain it. There's enough in this kingdom with the hoards to suggest that a province buying strategy will be strong too.
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My gut feeling is that Governor dominates that board.
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I thought I had a pretty solid deck, but I barely squeaked out a 1-point win by breaking PPR.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/22/game-20121022-052509-c6c7704d.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/22/game-20121022-052509-c6c7704d.html)
What I went for: Minion/Market/Tournament
What he went for: Tournament/Minion
I was able to grab a 7/3 split on Minion, but it didn't help as much as expected, and neither did the early Tournaments. The idea was to build a deck that could cycle quickly to hit Minions while picking up a bit of extra cash from Tournament and Market, and it worked...but only moderately well. I feel like I ran into a bit of bad luck with Tournament- I lined up a win twice, but both hands discarded to Minion, and he got everything I wanted before I could get a Prize. My deck fell behind, but I was able to put together some sorta weird comeback and squeak out a win.
-Festival or Market here? I wanted the cycling from Market for Minions, and I didn't really need +Action, but I think the extra $ on Festival might have been a big help. +Action would've been nice if I'd gotten Followers, too. Or heck, maybe I should've gotten something else entirely? I mainly wanted them for action phase money rather than the +Buy or anything.
-What should I have done at 2-4? I tried to avoid Silver somewhat because Minions don't care much about treasure, but Tournament didn't help me as much as I would've liked, Secret Chamber I don't think ever hit, and Fortune Teller and Spy are just kinda eh.
-Was Minion...not a good strat here? I would think it would be even stronger than average on a board like this, but then I got 7 and didn't crush the competition. Maybe because of the lack of trashing? Maybe this could've been a good HoP board or something?
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HoP is neither good against Minion nor does it synergize well with Minion. You have no problem playing enough cards to get your HoPs to $8, but because they're Treasures and not Actions, you'll never play more than 4 of them at once, and good luck lining up more than 2 at once in a 4-card hand.
You opponent got a little lucky with Tournaments, but I think that you greened too early. You can easily build this deck up to double-Province turns or Province-Duchy/$5 turns that can keep your engine running. Market is preferable to Festival in the absence of trashers and I'd even suggest grabbing an Inn every now and then for the +actions and for the sifting.
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This game is just a mess, but I guess it went well?
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/25/game-20121025-113544-9c6d9acc.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/25/game-20121025-113544-9c6d9acc.html)
What I went for: Scrying Tournament
What he went for: Tournament/Haggler
What I wound up with: I don't even
I had visions of picking up tons of Tournaments with Scrying Pool, even though the board isn't really optimized for it. I think I'm a poor tournament player- I overestimate how resilient the peddler effect is throughout the game, and almost don't care about the prizes. I grabbed Tactician at my earliest possible opportunity- partially because I wanted the Buy for Scrying Pool, and partially because it's freakin' Tactician. I was able to keep things trim with Steward (really enjoyed TR'ing it) but my opponent had a leg up on his economy, and was getting Provinces at the same time I was getting Tournaments. He got two wins in a single turn, but passed up Followers, and I think that was the gamebreaker. I was able to get it and cobble together a derpy engine to shut him down. I took the lead, gained Duchies to maintain it, and never looked back.
-What actually IS the dominant strategy here? I am not sure either of us had anything close.
-How good was Tactician? Did I actually get much out of it? I realized that it's one of those cards I will basically auto-buy, without really thinking of it, but when is it not necessary?
-What did I want to do with Prize wins? Trusty Steed would've been nice perhaps, and Followers won me the game....but was Bag of Gold worth clogging the Scrying Pools? Did I really want those Duchies? Would Princess have been good?
-Would Haggler or Upgrade have been worth it here? I wound up with more actions than expected a lot of times, so Haggler might have been nice, and Upgrade...would've worked well as Scrying Pool fodder, but eventually I'd run out of targets, right?
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The first thing I see is Tactician, Trashing, Village and Virtual Coin. With that said, a double Tactician style engine would run very nicely. Use Steward early to get the deck slim enough. Throne Room and Walled Village will provide ample +action. Haggler will serve to accelerate your buying power at a very fast rate. I think you can ignore potion here. Yes it would effectively draw your deck, but I think you would get a few turns behind due to purchasing the potion and purchasing the SP's. And of course Tournament is just icing on the cake once your engine is up and running.
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shark_bait is right. Ignore Potion; open Steward/Tournament and aim to get double-Tactician with at least 1 Haggler. You might also actually want to ignore Walled Village and just power through with Throne Rooms - remember that TR is not only just a virtual +1 action, but it also plays the card an extra time whereas WV does not. TR-Tournament gives you an extra action anyway and gives you some decent results provided that it doesn't get blocked (it's like playing 2x Steward for +$2 and +2 cards while also gaining actions).
If you connect Tournament with Province, Trusty Steed and Princess are good Prizes. Followers not so much, but you'd rather have it than let your opponent have it. I just kind of fooled around and got 6 Provinces, 7 Duchies in 14 turns: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/25/game-20121025-130252-100e4ce9.html
EDIT: A huge problem with going SP on this board is the lack of +buy. Normally Haggler is good at gaining engine components, but it doesn't work well with SP because if SP's "low" cost. So chances are that you're going to end up getting 2 SPs before your deck gets concentrated enough that you'll tend to hit coin values above $5P, and then that P is worthless. But having only 2 SPs in your deck is not sufficient for consistency, either.
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I don't think I deserved a win here.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/28/game-20121028-105645-72ce09ff.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/28/game-20121028-105645-72ce09ff.html)
What I went for: THROW ALL THE COOL CARDS IN A BLENDER AND MASH BUTTONS
What he went for: Caravan/Torturer
I figured that this was a great board to open 5/2, and I don't think I was wrong about that. However, I played a clumsy deck with too many terminals, and didn't really manage to pound my opponent into submission like I'd hoped. I got the win, but in a PPR-breaking 1-point nailbiter. Pretty simple questions this time.
-What do you open here? Ghost Ship and Torturer both seemed like very good options, but even Upgrade or Moneylender might have had a use I guess?
-Would it be better to get both Ghost Ship and Torturer, or stick with one or the other? ...Or just get one total?
-Along the same lines, I am certain that I had too many terminals, especially with terminal draw and no +actions. How badly did I overshoot this?
-I didn't want Caravan, did I? I figured that handsize wasn't going to be my problem here, although it might have been a nice defense to opponent attacks....but I didn't want to spam them in a deck with lots of terminal draw.
-How about Havens? I would've gotten more if I'd hit 2, but I was nervous about even opening with it, because I didn't want to draw it dead.
-Was Moneylender necessary with Upgrade out and a 5/2? ....Was Upgrade?
-Gardens would have been a poor choice.....right?
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Especially with 5/2 I would've opened the same and would've just played Ghost Ship + Big Money with a second GS. Ghost Ship is way better than Torturer because there are no villages on the board and a single Ghost Ship always hits you harder than a single Torturer. And your opponent failed in buying a Caravan instead of an Estate for the tie.
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I won this one. Could I have done better?
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/30/game-20121030-193532-0b8c8627.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/30/game-20121030-193532-0b8c8627.html)
What I went for: Ambassador/Mint
What he went for: Tournament/Lookout
I expected an Amb war, but my opponent opened Lookout, and never did get an Amb to counter. I opened Tournament to keep money from being an issue in the early game, and Ambassadored aggressively. I had the chance to trash four Copper on Turn 4 with Mint, and took it. I wasn't sure how many Copper that left me, so I picked up an extra to make sure I could still hit 3. From there, I was able to Mint Silvers and eventually Golds, and I picked up Jester for the heck of it. I won the first Tournament relatively late in the game, and picked up Trusty Steed just because I figured I had enough terminals already and Followers might not've had time to make tons of difference. He countered with Followers himself, and somewhere in there I gave him a free Silver because I spaced out and used Amb without thinking. Nevertheless, I pulled out a win after some Duchy tennis.
-Was Mint overkill with Amb? It streamlined my deck, but left my Amb pretty useless.
-Did I actually want Jester? It could've done better, but...eh.
-Skipping Sea Hag was a good idea, right? Or would've been if he had picked up an Amb?
-How about Stables? I don't think I wanted it, since I had few crappy treasures or spammable actions I wanted to cycle.
-What do you do with Tournament wins here? I go for Followers over Trusty Steed about 2/3 of the time, but I'm not sure this should've been one of the exceptions.
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I'd guess the Mint was a good buy. After all, you can always Amb away the Mint if you don't like it! ;)
At the time you bought the copper, I believe you had Ambed away 2 coppers, bought a tournament, then Minted away 4 coppers, leaving you with just a tournament and a copper for money, if I've counted right. So you needed the third copper.
Your opponent actually got pretty lucky with an early Gold (t3 he drew tournament - CCCC, plays T, draws C) and then t4 using the lookout to trash one estate and make the other two miss the reshuffle.
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Since your opponent opened with a lookout instead of an ambassador you could afford to return the estate on turn 3 and buy a silver. Getting the estates out of your deck and into your opponent's deck gives you an advantage when it comes to stables, mint, and jester.
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-Was Mint overkill with Amb? It streamlined my deck, but left my Amb pretty useless.
Yes, Mint was overkill. At that point your deck really wanted a Stables.
In general, ambassador loves cards that draw other cards and give actions (Caravan, Laboratory, Stables).
If you get to the point where you can ambassador two useless cards *and* buy something usefull, you're in business.
Plus as the (correct) copper buy suggests, you couldn't afford Mint at the time.
-Did I actually want Jester? It could've done better, but...eh.
Jester is off course a good card in a deck that still needs buying power. However, you're low on +actions/high on terminals already.
And also...
-Skipping Sea Hag was a good idea, right? Or would've been if he had picked up an Amb?
... I would have wanted a Sea Hag in stead of it. You opened with Ambassador, he didn't. You made the better decision there. You are probably going to win this game. But what you can be absolutely 100% about is that you're going to win this *if it turns into being a very long game*. Sea Hag is a serious power card for slowing down your opponent. Not only does it give a curse, it also puts it in his next hand. Lookout/Native village make it slightly weaker but still strong.
(skipping sea hag on opening is a good plan btw, exactly for the reasons you mentioned).
-How about Stables? I don't think I wanted it, since I had few crappy treasures or spammable actions I wanted to cycle.
As I said before, I think you should want it. I'd try to turn my deck into something that has 1 ambassador and 1 sea hag, and then manages to play both every single turn. (2 ambassadors is an alternative). Play them on and on and on and on, until the point your opponent just pukes some mix of coppers, estates and/or curses.
-What do you do with Tournament wins here? I go for Followers over Trusty Steed about 2/3 of the time, but I'm not sure this should've been one of the exceptions.
I go for followers more often, and I think you made the right pick here.
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I somewhat disagree with Stef about Stables here. You are bound to have low treasure density and your deck will come to a complete halt once you start greening. You may well pick up a Stables and a Mint and try to recover your treasure density with Mint, playing it more often thanks to Stables cycling.
An alternative that I can think of is Vault after trimming down your deck, but I don't know how effective that would be.
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It's weird that games I win seem to more frequently make me wonder how I could've improved.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/31/game-20121031-082148-a65ad922.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/31/game-20121031-082148-a65ad922.html)
What I went for: Gardens/Pawn/Governor
What he went for: Scrying/Governor/YW
I wasn't sure that Gardens was a good idea here, but decided to try it anyway. I picked up a Jack just because, grabbed Governors when I could, picked up a Talisman, and rushed Wishing Well and Pawn before piling out on Gardens. My opponent had a nifty little Governor/Scrying Pool deck, but couldn't get it off the ground in time to respond effectively, and I won.
-As usual, I wonder if Gardens was even that good a call here. There's some support, but not GREAT support, and Governor is frequently pretty good.
-I picked up a Province with an $8, no +buy, Talisman hand, mainly to deny it to my opponent. When is or isn't this a good idea for a Gardens deck?
-Does Jack even help enough here to be worth the buy? The Silver gain was nice.
-Talisman's a good idea, right? But did I want more?
-Should I have rushed Pawns before Wishing Wells? I usually try to get the more expensive things I want early when given the opportunity, but I really could've used the +Buy, and the handsize decrease for JoaT.
-Copper is usually good as a consolation prize for this style of Gardens deck, right?
-Was Governor worth the opportunity cost, or no? The gain was nice, but I didn't use the remodel much and I could've just been rushing piles harder instead.
-...How do you play this game from my opponent's position? His Governors helped me out a ton, but I'm really not sure what he should've done instead. (other than probably skipping YW since I piledrove the Bane) Fight me for Gardens with a suboptimal deck? Skip Governor and try for Provinces without it? Spam Governors and damn the torpedoes? Rush Duchies?
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Lots of decent Gardens enablers here. Duchess, Pawn, Jack, NB, Talisman can all be a part of gaining multiple cards. Governor is not so good for Gardens because you don't benefit nearly as much from any of Governor's options. Opponent going Governor is also dangerous for him because his Gold gains give you Silvers, you can remodel $3 -> Gardens if they trash early, and you have a lot of $4 -> $5 options for endgame Duchy gaining.
I don't think that SP/Governor is actually a good combo, even with Pawn as a remodeling target for Copper. Getting Governors conflicts with getting SPs, and Golds conflict with SPs. Honestly, I feel like that you don't even need to Gardens rush on this board if the opponent goes Governor; throw in a YW or two and you can probably slog your way to victory with Gardens and Duchies. It really, highly depends on what your opponent does, though, especially with YW and a decent bane in the equation.
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I actually had another game I was gonna post, but then I found this one really interesting!
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/03/game-20121103-181327-668b179e.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/03/game-20121103-181327-668b179e.html)
What I went for: Chapel/Mountebank/Wharf
What he went for: Gardens/Village/Wharf
I tell ya, I thought I had it made when I pulled a Mount/Chapel opening, and got downright cocky when my opponent not only ignored Chapel but got a Gardens turn 3. Needless to say, I proceeded to scratch out a win by a lucky break in endgame. I picked up a Wharf on a lucky turn 4, figuring it'd be handy to have later even if it clashed now. My opponent did what he could with Trade Route and Jack, but couldn't quite match my trashing power. I didn't think much of his engine, and he did indeed have a lot of trouble ending the game, but his Gardens racked up the points quicker than I had expected, and Chapel failed to be an instant "I win" button for my own deck. He stayed neck and neck with me for most of the game, and I actually thought he had the win, but Expand got me through a humorously long endgame with a win I may or may not have deserved.
-....What did I miss that made Gardens good here? Village/Wharf isn't that bad, I guess, and it's resilient to my Mount....but I don't see enough support that I would go for it, especially against a Chapel deck, unless I just figured I'd lose a mirror match with 4/3.
-I didn't want Wharf that early, did I? It seemed like a waste to buy Silver at 5 early on, but it probably would've worked better for that opening, huh?
-....Heck, what terminals DID I want? Wharf didn't do me that much good, and neither did Expand until my last turn, and Mountebank kinda just played into his Gardens and TR. Jack and TR would've been redundant with Chapel, so.....might I have actually wanted Sabo or something? Or even just Chapel/BM?
-Gardens for denial....good or bad idea? Heck, with as long as the endgame dragged out, they were decent to have for me anyway!
-Did my opponent want Woodcutter?
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-....What did I miss that made Gardens good here? Village/Wharf isn't that bad, I guess, and it's resilient to my Mount....but I don't see enough support that I would go for it, especially against a Chapel deck, unless I just figured I'd lose a mirror match with 4/3.
-Did my opponent want Woodcutter?
An opponent's Mountebank and a Woodcutter are both reasons to seriously consider going Gardens.
-I didn't want Wharf that early, did I? It seemed like a waste to buy Silver at 5 early on, but it probably would've worked better for that opening, huh?
-....Heck, what terminals DID I want? Wharf didn't do me that much good, and neither did Expand until my last turn, and Mountebank kinda just played into his Gardens and TR. Jack and TR would've been redundant with Chapel, so.....might I have actually wanted Sabo or something? Or even just Chapel/BM?
After the opening Mountebank, which was probably a good move since you didn't know he was going Gardens (although Wharf might have been a better opening???), I think Village/Wharf/BM is the way to go, if you're not going Gardens. IDK which strategy is better, but denying some Gardens might help you. Also, an Expand late-game will help turn those Wharves into Provinces.
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You'll probably want a Jack to rebuild your economy while building a Village-Wharf engine. Buying Village and Wharf doesn't help your buying power at all, and the Jack has the small benefit of letting you eventually trash your Chapel. You were trashing very non-aggressively because you were probably worried about overtrashing your economy: the solution to that is to just get a Jack. Village-Wharf is more than enough to draw untrimmed decks, so you can afford to have tons of Silvers.
Going into Village-Wharf and then adding a couple of Saboteurs should easily steamroll an opponent who can only gain a limited number of cards per turn costing $3 or more.
EDIT: or you can just end the game quickly. http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/04/game-20121104-014819-85ba068b.html
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I think this was my first time trying to run double Tac in a serious game!
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/08/game-20121108-131519-dec08926.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/08/game-20121108-131519-dec08926.html)
What I went for: BM/Tac
What he went for: University/Bazaar/BM
I am sure there is a lot more I could have done to streamline this deck, but I had a lot of fun with it anyway. I realized I needed +Action to run BM/Tac, so I picked up University...I didn't initially see Bazaar, but I'm not sure it would have been better. I picked up Salvager to trim, and luckily pulled Golem (and later Tunnel!) out of the black market. After a while, I realized that I could feasibly run Double Tac, and so I picked up an extra Tac and BM in an attempt to do so. My buying power was through the roof, and I picked up the win.
-Should I have gone Vault at some point? Is that better or worse for double Tac? I picked one up late but never used it.
-I didn't need Salvager, did I? What about Woodcutter?
-Any other way I could've trimmed or optimized? I didn't really know exactly what I was doing.
-....Double Tac IS a good strategy when you can run it, right?
-Was it worth it going Potion for Uni and Phil Stone?
-Anything I should've done differently with the BM pulls?
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I am sure there is a lot more I could have done to streamline this deck, but I had a lot of fun with it anyway. I realized I needed +Action to run BM/Tac, so I picked up University...I didn't initially see Bazaar, but I'm not sure it would have been better.
Bazaar is better in double Tactician decks because it gives virtual +$, draws a card, and doesn't decrease handsize. University is actually pretty useless except for picking up more Bazaars and Vaults, but in a textbook double Tactician deck, you should not pick up University.
-Should I have gone Vault at some point? Is that better or worse for double Tac? I picked one up late but never used it.
Vault is the best double Tactician enabler, even better than BM.
-I didn't need Salvager, did I? What about Woodcutter?
You don't need Salvager, but double Tactician decks fall apart after a couple of Provinces without some form of draw, sifting, or trashing to even out the increasing deck size.
-Was it worth it going Potion for Uni and Phil Stone?
No. Not PStone. University would have been decent to gain Bazaars, though.
Here's a sample solitaire game that I played using this kingdom: [lost the link]
It's not played too optimally because I didn't entirely have the best plan in mind until halfway through the game, but this is more or less a draw engine supported by double Tactician, rather than the other way around. The only way to ensure consistency on this board is to draw cards with Bazaar, Nobles, and Apothecary when the deck gets big. A cool side effect of this is that I get a lot of $14+ turns to buy Province + Nobles/Bazaar.
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dondon, looks like you linked Tombolo's game again instead of yours.
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Well, I closed my browser and lost the link. Basically I empty Provinces in 18 turns while grabbing 4 Nobles and 2 Duchies. Opened Potion/Woodcutter for Apothecary, picked up 2 Vaults, 2 Tacticians, and Bazaars and Nobles when I could at about equal ratios.
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Just a quick real-life one. 3-player game. Tunnel, Urchin, Rats, Procession, Bridge, Fortress, Cultist, Torturer, Cartographer, Goons, with Colonies because we just like Colony games. :P
We played it twice, and both times the girl won in an incredibly low-scoring game. The other guy and I had nice decks both times, but took waaayyyyyy too long setting them up, and both times I came in a reasonably close second by nature of having a buncha Tunnels and maybe a Duchy or a few VP chips.
It's one of those boards where I literally want to run every card. I was trying to base my deck around Goons both times, but never got streamlined enough to play it more than a couple times. The first time I tried to support with Bridge- I ideally wanted to stack them with Goons and get better buys and pick up more engine pieces.....never played them together. Second time I focused more on Rats/Mercenary, and was just about to reap the rewards of the trimming when game ended. Both times I got lots of Tunnels to discard, Fortress for +Action, Cartographer to discard more Tunnels and deal with all the junk, and Procession and Cultist just because they're good. (Procession ideally would have helped with Rats in the second game after the pile drained. Other guy went for Rats as well that game.) The girl went for Torturer, and I kept underestimating how strong it was when chained with Discard to X.
What the heck do you go for on this board? I feel like maybe just going for Tunnel/Goons/Carto/BM might have worked better than either of my ideas. My hands weren't big enough to work well with Rats, and conditions weren't quite good enough for good Goons, Cultist, or Torturer chains, either. How about Procession or Fortress? Or Urchin/Mercenary if I committed to it better? Do you prefer Cultist or Torturer or neither? How do I Dark Ages?
As an unrelated side note, I seem to have somehow hit level 22 on iso! I'm playing less often than ever, and not really winning more than my usual 50% either, so I'm kinda confused about that, but hey, maybe this thread is helping me! Thanks guys :D
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No love for no logs? Alrighty, how about this one?
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/12/game-20121112-082900-9bc51448.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/12/game-20121112-082900-9bc51448.html)
What I went for: IW/Gardens
What he went for: Hoard
THEY LAUGHED AT MY IW/GARDENS IDEA....and then beat it. Granted, support on the board wasn't what it could have been (my initial idea was to pile out on Cartographer...) but....what went wrong? I had too many terminals, but that's how you play IW/Gardens, right? He asked me what I was doing about halfway through, then when I told him, he picked up a couple Gardens just to mess with me I think. Worked out well for him.
-Should I have avoided IW/Gardens here, or maybe not gone IW so hard? I had no +Action to spam IW as terminals, and no cantrips to drain with IW either. I knew going in that it wasn't an optimal IW/Gardens board, but I thought I could make it work.
-Not that I really did much draining of either, but would Cartographer or Estate been the better idea to try to rush? ....Or just trying to rebuild with Silver or something and going for something better?
-I hit 6 once. Did I want Nobles or Hoard? (Or Gold or Cart) I feel either one would have been immensely helpful.
-I probably should have preferred Copper at 2, huh? I had way too many terminals once there were no more IW to gain, and somehow I don't think loading up on Herbalist and Courtyard (or HT) was the solution!
-...Did I even WANT Herbalist? +Buy looked nice on paper, and I guess it wasn't bad, but....ehhhhhh.
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The rush can work but you also played it poorly. Herbalist is a mistake here, in an optimized rush, you will not have an extra action to play it. The order of which you obtain your cards is also wrong. In a rush like this you want to stagger your gaining of IW and Gardens. When to switch from gaining IW to Gardens depends on whether your opponent is joining you in the rush. A simulation challenge was run around 8 months ago and almost all the participants put in bot for the IW/SR rush. There is a lot of discussion in that thread which is extremely relevant. To summarize briefly, you want to stagger so that hands of multiple IW, you can gain another IW and then a Garden. If you get all the IW first, you can't do that.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1896.msg30046#msg30046
All that being said, Colony is on the board with pseudo trashing in Cartographer. Going for that will beat a rush at least 90% of the time I would think.
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To summarize briefly, you want to stagger so that hands of multiple IW, you can gain another IW and then a Garden. If you get all the IW first, you can't do that.
Eh, not really. The thing is that you need maybe around 7-8 Ironworks in your deck before you can consistently get hands where you need to gain IW with extra IW. If you green too early, then the IW will spread out, you'll be gaining Gardens instead of IW, and the 3-pile will be slower.
I think the key to winning with an IW/Gardens rush is to pile out on one of the $2 actions, not Estates. Estates pile out slowly because you can't gain more than 2 per turn. Conversely, you can gain up to 5 Courtyards per turn, and your opponent grabbed a couple as well. If you get lucky, you can 3-pile in 13 turns, which should be competitive with a more general strategy: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/12/game-20121112-091308-34fb50a2.html
But in general, I think it's a good idea to ignore IW/Gardens on Colony boards. A 13-14 turn game is not very common (I got mostly 15 turns), and 15 turns is probably enough for your opponent to outscore you with Colonies and Provinces. Maybe.
EDIT: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/12/game-20121112-093247-8ec55b0d.html
Okay, so I can't say that this is optimal, but I had 29 VP after 13 turns, 39 VP after 14 turns, and 49 VP after 15 turns. So an IW/Gardens rush really needs to end the game fast. But done properly, it probably has a fair chance.
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Eh, not really. The thing is that you need maybe around 7-8 Ironworks in your deck before you can consistently get hands where you need to gain IW with extra IW. If you green too early, then the IW will spread out, you'll be gaining Gardens instead of IW, and the 3-pile will be slower.
I think the key to winning with an IW/Gardens rush is to pile out on one of the $2 actions, not Estates. Estates pile out slowly because you can't gain more than 2 per turn. Conversely, you can gain up to 5 Courtyards per turn, and your opponent grabbed a couple as well. If you get lucky, you can 3-pile in 13 turns, which should be competitive with a more general strategy: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/12/game-20121112-091308-34fb50a2.html
In a mirror match, you can't get 7-8 IW. If you do, your opponent will have almost all the Gardens.
In regard to Estates, my mind was stuck in Silk Road land where it is essential to obtain the Estates.
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Just a quick real-life one. 3-player game. Tunnel, Urchin, Rats, Procession, Bridge, Fortress, Cultist, Torturer, Cartographer, Goons, with Colonies because we just like Colony games. :P
We played it twice, and both times the girl won in an incredibly low-scoring game. The other guy and I had nice decks both times, but took waaayyyyyy too long setting them up, and both times I came in a reasonably close second by nature of having a buncha Tunnels and maybe a Duchy or a few VP chips.
It's one of those boards where I literally want to run every card. I was trying to base my deck around Goons both times, but never got streamlined enough to play it more than a couple times. The first time I tried to support with Bridge- I ideally wanted to stack them with Goons and get better buys and pick up more engine pieces.....never played them together. Second time I focused more on Rats/Mercenary, and was just about to reap the rewards of the trimming when game ended. Both times I got lots of Tunnels to discard, Fortress for +Action, Cartographer to discard more Tunnels and deal with all the junk, and Procession and Cultist just because they're good. (Procession ideally would have helped with Rats in the second game after the pile drained. Other guy went for Rats as well that game.) The girl went for Torturer, and I kept underestimating how strong it was when chained with Discard to X.
What the heck do you go for on this board? I feel like maybe just going for Tunnel/Goons/Carto/BM might have worked better than either of my ideas. My hands weren't big enough to work well with Rats, and conditions weren't quite good enough for good Goons, Cultist, or Torturer chains, either. How about Procession or Fortress? Or Urchin/Mercenary if I committed to it better? Do you prefer Cultist or Torturer or neither? How do I Dark Ages?
As an unrelated side note, I seem to have somehow hit level 22 on iso! I'm playing less often than ever, and not really winning more than my usual 50% either, so I'm kinda confused about that, but hey, maybe this thread is helping me! Thanks guys :D
It was 3 player? Not quite sure how that would work out in the end. But in 2p I would skip Tunnel and Bridge and focus on Goons and Fortress, maybe with Cultist or Torturer. I am actually thinking Cultist here, because it can chain with itself for more draw without wasting the actions you want to save for Goons. Then again, Torturer's +3 Cards is way better. But there is also Procession on the board, which can help set up for the Goons megaturn with Fortress+Cultist. Torturer is brutal in 3p though... so maybe go for that lest you be the one eating the repeated discards.
Maybe pick up an Urchin or two to get trashing with Mercenary.
Since it's a Colony game, Gold isn't THAT great. And since it's a Colony game, you should have enough time to set up the Goons megaturn. All the other attacks slow things down too (especially in 3p) so that's more time to get going.
But yeah, I wouldn't worry about Bridge because I want to play more Goons instead.
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In a mirror match, you can't get 7-8 IW. If you do, your opponent will have almost all the Gardens.
But it's not a mirror match. In the game that Tombolo linked, he was almost uncontested on the Gardens (and clearly the opponent didn't think much about getting them, either). So getting 7-8 IW would have been optimal.
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Yes, but he gained all 10 of them before hitting the Gardens. So as you said, getting 7-8 would certainly be a good way to start.
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Makes sense!
I've had two people recognize me from the thread. I'm going to start putting "Dominion celebrity" on my resume now! I feel bad, though, because it's been a few days since I've had a game I wanted to post (well, there was a Chancellor/Stash game where my opponent gave me some advice after killing me on the mirror match) so I'll post something from the backlog! ....If I can remember anything I wanted to ask.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/03/game-20121103-202913-99f6cf17.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/03/game-20121103-202913-99f6cf17.html)
What I went for: Scrying/Vineyard
What he went for: Scrying/Vineyard
As soon as I saw this board, I resigned myself to the loss. My friend here always beats me with Scrying Pool and Vineyard, so since I couldn't veto both of them I decided to fight fire with fire. I got a nice 5/2 split and opened Market over Wharf for some odd reason. I knew I needed copious +Buy to make things work, so I grabbed Wharf and Trade Route in the following turns. I grabbed a Potion and started loading up on Menageries to pump up the potion cards....and never really looked back, grabbing the win somehow.
-How....did I win? Shuffle luck?
-Wharf or Market open? KC was the only +Action and Market gave me money, but.....it's WHARF. On a board where I need buys.
-Anything else that would have beaten the Scrying/Vineyard rush?
-Did I really need that Trade Route? Would Lookout have been better? Worse?
-The only treasure I bought was that one Potion. That's okay, right?
-How much did I want KC? I kept drawing my deck, which is nice, but did I really need THAT much power?
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-How....did I win? Shuffle luck?
5/2 vs 4/3 is a thing here I would say. Your final deck looks better for me though. 3KC vs 1KC. 4 Market 1 Wharf vs 2 Market 0 Wharf. 0 Silver vs 2 Silver.
Trade Route is right here, you want to trash. Trashes better than Lookout, especially when not much trash is left. Of course, especially the Silvers are partially due to 5/2 vs. 4/3.
-Wharf or Market open? KC was the only +Action and Market gave me money, but.....it's WHARF. On a board where I need buys.
I think I would have taken the Wharf.
-Anything else that would have beaten the Scrying/Vineyard rush?
There is KC on the board and there are 3 strong Cantrips. So you can ignore Provinces entierly, that means to win on Provinces you must get all 8 of them. No chance I would say.
-Did I really need that Trade Route? Would Lookout have been better? Worse?
-The only treasure I bought was that one Potion. That's okay, right?
see above. Maybe a second Potion to win the split on VY.
-How much did I want KC? I kept drawing my deck, which is nice, but did I really need THAT much power?
What do you want to buy with your $ otherwise? If you can afford it, it's usually better than buying another Market or Wharf or Menangerie, as long as you have actions to pair with the KC.
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Makes sense!
I've had two people recognize me from the thread. I'm going to start putting "Dominion celebrity" on my resume now! I feel bad, though, because it's been a few days since I've had a game I wanted to post (well, there was a Chancellor/Stash game where my opponent gave me some advice after killing me on the mirror match) so I'll post something from the backlog! ....If I can remember anything I wanted to ask.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/03/game-20121103-202913-99f6cf17.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/03/game-20121103-202913-99f6cf17.html)
What I went for: Scrying/Vineyard
What he went for: Scrying/Vineyard
As soon as I saw this board, I resigned myself to the loss. My friend here always beats me with Scrying Pool and Vineyard, so since I couldn't veto both of them I decided to fight fire with fire. I got a nice 5/2 split and opened Market over Wharf for some odd reason. I knew I needed copious +Buy to make things work, so I grabbed Wharf and Trade Route in the following turns. I grabbed a Potion and started loading up on Menageries to pump up the potion cards....and never really looked back, grabbing the win somehow.
-How....did I win? Shuffle luck?
-Wharf or Market open? KC was the only +Action and Market gave me money, but.....it's WHARF. On a board where I need buys.
-Anything else that would have beaten the Scrying/Vineyard rush?
-Did I really need that Trade Route? Would Lookout have been better? Worse?
-The only treasure I bought was that one Potion. That's okay, right?
-How much did I want KC? I kept drawing my deck, which is nice, but did I really need THAT much power?
The ol' Chancellor-Stash, eh? Two cards who (until Dark Ages) only got played when they were with with each other (most of the time) in mid-to-high-tier play.
For your SP-Vineyard match, I understand your dilemma regarding Wharf or Market. Normally, I think SP likes cantrips over terminal drawers, especially in the absence of villages. However, on this board there is KC. Assuming you're going to get KCs, I'm thinking KC-Wharf baby. With KC-Wharf, you don't have to be afraid of buying treasures (don't spam them, though), since you're going to draw past them and have +buys to use them.
Trade route isn't bad when there is desirable alt-vp around. I like it better than Lookout, which is generally terrible. Either way, I like light trashing in conjunction with SP.
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Open Wharf, because it gets you started up quicker, and because by the time you're drawing a bunch of Wharves with SP, you'll have KCs and they won't be dead. Get 2 or 3 before switching to Markets IMHO. Markets will be better later (because you can draw your deck anyway and KC-Market is an extra 3 coins), but it's not like Wharf becomes a liability.
As for Lookout, I think it's fine in general as long as you know what you'll be doing with it later - and really think twice about getting more than one. Trade Route is terminal and won't get you coins until someone buys something, and you're pretty much passing your turn if you trash an estate then buy the first estate with $2 early to power it up... so Lookout starts out looking better, without something like GH or Island on board. Vineyard... okay, that'll be extra money for TR later, but it's not a reason to open with TR IMO.
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I was looking at Trade Route for the +Buy more than the money, although I guess Buy is less of a problem once I start firing Markets and Wharves.
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I would skip SP entirely on that board. Once you manage a KC-Wharf, you will be rolling in 11 card starting hands for the rest of the game.
If you somehow lose the Vineyards split, you can supplement the points with Provinces pretty easily.
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To add to the 5/2 - 4/3 split here: I think normally 4/3 is better because you do want to open potion/something here (probably trade route as it has MUCH better future use than lookout). However, menagerie, king's court, and even wharf to some extent (if you went mass KC) provides superior drawing already. The player with 4/3 has to either sacrifice early potion or early actions in order to reach higher dollars quickly. Opening TR (or lookout)/potion is not a success to all the power $5/7 cards as you can see in your opponent end deck.
Second potion is most definitely needed, but it needs to be delayed a little bit. Since there are so many +buys floating around in your deck, that extra potion is literally equal to an extra vineyard, as opposed to other games where you're debating between $5P vineyard or 'normal' card. Superior drawing and +buys makes this a must do.
Timing is tough, but quick look, T11 looks perfect with $4 and future turns looking like most of the deck is drawn, but that's hindsight. It is tougher to decide in game. It's similar to a duke/duchy mirror where duchy (vineyards) is more important than dukes (actions) in score. A little different since actions provide benefits to you. Once those actions don't really benefit as much (so you're already drawing out your deck), then shift gears.
I don't think KC-Wharf can compete, because there are just too many cheap ways to draw cards and gain points. I think KC-Wharf needs to pick up too many silvers along the way that it can't compete in either gaining more vineyards, or gaining more actions. Also there's no strong $4 terminal that would really help boost early economy AND KC loves to spam (smithy is only the first, i'm thinking more monument like).
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I disagree. KC-Wharf draws huge amounts of $, snowballing you into more KCs and Markets, which gives you the money to buy more actions, and so on...
I don't think it's right to view this game as purely Vineyards given the power cards in the kingdom. You need 18 Actions to make Vineyards worth the equivalent of Provinces. That's not actually a lot, but in a competitive game, you won't get Vineyards to be worth much more than 6 VP, so Provinces are still an important consideration. And when a good KC-Wharf engine can generate $16+, or even $24+ per turn, then the SP player can't just hope to win the Vineyards split 5-3 and win the game.
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This was a super fun deck to run. I won decisively, but I still want feedback.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/15/game-20121115-214840-6baf556b.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/15/game-20121115-214840-6baf556b.html)
What I went for: IW/Vineyard/Warehouse
What he went for: Tournament/Minion
A pretty straightforward engine, and my opponent and I didn't clash for any of my key cards. I rushed the IW, picking up a few Potions on the way. I then grabbed as many Warehouses and Spies as I could while waiting to pile out Vineyards. It took a while to get rolling, but was fairly unstoppable once it did!
-Since I wasn't rushing Gardens or Silk Roads or anything else IW could gain, getting 9 IW before doing much else was a good idea, right?
-How many Potions, and when? I didn't drain Vineyard as fast as I'd hoped.
-What's your choice for third pile? I figured Warehouse would help me find IW and Potion the best, but Spy might have also worked well, and doesn't reduce handsize. I figured Pearl Diver was too weak, and the benefits of Tournament didn't merit the risk of getting blocked in late game.
-Skip coins, right? I know I didn't have much use for $ with this deck but it feels weird, man.
-I know the board had a good setup for it, but IW/Vineyard did really well I feel. How much of it was due to being a strong combo, and how much was just the board/shuffle luck/my opponent?
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Based on your opponent's openings, he probably isn't pursuing the same strategy as you (and as it turns out, he did not). Also, you are mostly getting your action cards via Ironworks. Therefore I think it's a decent idea to pick up a potion early. Not sure about the second potion, but even just the one early might be good enough.
I agree that Ironworks is the first priority -- take them until the pile is gone. After that, Warehouse is a fine idea to cycle for IW and Potion more often. Definitely avoid Tournament. Since you are not going Province, you don't derive max benefit and they WILL be blocked often. You don't need the coin anyway. Spies vs. Pearl Diver depends on whether you want to pile out quickly or get more action cards to pump up Vineyards. Choose PD if you want to pile faster because you can also buy those with $2 much of the time. Spies are fine if you want to go for both and grab more actions overall. The attack from Spies isn't all that great, though possibly you can use it to clear off dead cards from your own deck before drawing with the next Spy or Pearl Diver.
If you ever hit $5, Minion would be nice to pick up as well. You could play off a bunch of IW and then use Minion to pull up four fresh cards. The attack on the opponent can sting.
Again, you aren't using coin at all to get your actions, so you can pick up that Potion early and not really be slowed down, I think. Maybe not too early though, I'm not sure.
^ all just intuition, I have nothing to back it up at all. :P
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This was a super fun deck to run. I won decisively, but I still want feedback.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/15/game-20121115-214840-6baf556b.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/15/game-20121115-214840-6baf556b.html)
What I went for: IW/Vineyard/Warehouse
What he went for: Tournament/Minion
A pretty straightforward engine, and my opponent and I didn't clash for any of my key cards. I rushed the IW, picking up a few Potions on the way. I then grabbed as many Warehouses and Spies as I could while waiting to pile out Vineyards. It took a while to get rolling, but was fairly unstoppable once it did!
-Since I wasn't rushing Gardens or Silk Roads or anything else IW could gain, getting 9 IW before doing much else was a good idea, right?
-How many Potions, and when? I didn't drain Vineyard as fast as I'd hoped.
-What's your choice for third pile? I figured Warehouse would help me find IW and Potion the best, but Spy might have also worked well, and doesn't reduce handsize. I figured Pearl Diver was too weak, and the benefits of Tournament didn't merit the risk of getting blocked in late game.
-Skip coins, right? I know I didn't have much use for $ with this deck but it feels weird, man.
-I know the board had a good setup for it, but IW/Vineyard did really well I feel. How much of it was due to being a strong combo, and how much was just the board/shuffle luck/my opponent?
You played very well in this game and did a lot of minute things very well. I think it was very correct to grab potions right away and grab potions with your last ironworks when you have $3 already (so you can still buy an ironworks after).
You avoided all silvers! Which is very good for this sort of deck, the idea would be to hit your potions as often as possible. I first thought even a masq would help, but with warehouses galore, the trashing benefit wouldn't be of much use to you.
I know you never hit $5, but minions would have been a nice addition to your deck. Not so much so you should focus on money, but if it came along ($4 + ironworks), you should aim for it.
The third pile isn't such a huge deal because if this was say a colony game, you WANT to prolong the game. You should be gaining action cards and vineyards (so more pearl divers/tournaments) faster than they would be gaining colonies. With that said, you want to have 'control' of when the game ends.
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Thanks! :D
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/19/game-20121119-091441-93ae46ec.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/19/game-20121119-091441-93ae46ec.html)
What I went for: Upgrade/Torturer/HT
What he went for: Upgrade/Torturer/Remake/Remodel
I figured Remake would be a bit redundant if I could get Upgrade quickly, and with HT I could do just that and hold up a bit better against Torturer. I was able to keep my deck fairly trim, and withstood a late-game comeback in a fairly straightforward game. I came up with some questions, though.
-For upgrade-by-exactly-1 trashers like Upgrade and Remake, is it usually better to go for Coppers first, or Estates? I have in the past gone for Estates because it's a bigger boost to turn dead cards into Silver....but getting the Coppers out of the way keeps the deck more trim and gets the trashers and stuff back quicker. I prioritized Coppers this time and think it went pretty well.
-What do I want at 5, and in what order? Upgrade, Torturer, and Vault all looked pretty tempting, but on one hand you have terminal clash, and on the other how many Upgrades do you REALLY need?
-How do you feel about the HT/Silver open? Remake was tempting, and so was Wishing Well.
-What's your rubric on when to risk playing Upgrade (or Rats, or anything similar I'm forgetting) when there's not anything in your hand you REALLY want to trash but could really use one more card?
-Could something like HT/Gardens have been viable here? You had Warehouse for filtering, Pawn for +Buy, and opponent Torturer as well, but......ehhhhhhh.
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-For upgrade-by-exactly-1 trashers like Upgrade and Remake, is it usually better to go for Coppers first, or Estates? I have in the past gone for Estates because it's a bigger boost to turn dead cards into Silver....but getting the Coppers out of the way keeps the deck more trim and gets the trashers and stuff back quicker. I prioritized Coppers this time and think it went pretty well.
Depends. Usually, if you trash Coppers but not Estates, you're economy will suffer a lot, and it will be hard to get to $5cards. So now you have HT, and it doesn't matter if you discard Estates or Coppers, so you will likely come to $5 in your HT-turns. In this case, the acceleration of Copper-trashing might help more. And of course, there might be other $3s than Silver you want, in which case it's clear I think.
But if the WW was on the board, trashing Estates->WW is also like removing them from the deck, and keeping the $1 from Copper, and the option to guess right, so I think Estates->WW > Copper->nothing here. OK, you are likely to draw dead with Torturer, so maybe that's wrong...
-How do you feel about the HT/Silver open? Remake was tempting, and so was Wishing Well.
I think I like HT here. It gives some bonus when attacked by Torturer, it helps you to get to $5 consistently, and for the trashing you have Upgrade. With Remake, you will likely spend more time with more intense trashing. But with Torturer, it's usually more important to get to $5 fast. Now here no chain is possible, nevertheless the $5s is what you want, and under the attack of Torturer it's hard to reboot the economy once you have trashed down
-Could something like HT/Gardens have been viable here? You had Warehouse for filtering, Pawn for +Buy, and opponent Torturer as well, but......ehhhhhhh.
I'm not sure how strong HT/Gardens is exactly, but I would guess it's countered by BM/Vault here.
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Would Vault/BM benefit from remake here. I know that in general you don't want to trash when going BM, but with vault you just need your Vault and a Gold to get province. Making a trimmed up deck would increase the likelyhood of having those collisions.
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I'm fairly sure that some sort of Vault-BM is the way to go on that board.
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I figured Remake would be a bit redundant if I could get Upgrade quickly, and with HT I could do just that and hold up a bit better against Torturer. I was able to keep my deck fairly trim, and withstood a late-game comeback in a fairly straightforward game. I came up with some questions, though.
The others have touched your main questions but this is definitely not the correct mind set.
Forgoing a STRONG, OPENING trasher for a T3/T4, average trasher is never a good idea. Especially when you intend to trash a significant portion of your deck. Essentially, you should be purchasing remake the same games you would purchase chapel.
That's not to say trashing in this game is going to win, Vault-BM is pretty viable here. Just more for general know-how.
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I am thankful for Bridge megaturn engines even when mine never gets around to firing!
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/22/game-20121122-090636-07ea3e29.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/22/game-20121122-090636-07ea3e29.html)
What I went for: Workshop -> GM/Bridge
What he went for: Workshop -> GM/Bridge
We had the same general idea here, but obviously his attempt at actually building the engine went much better than mine! We both went for two Workshops quickly, given the importance of Mining Village and Bridge. He threw in Envoys, I threw in a Moneylender, and it quickly became apparent that his engine was going to beat mine on both speed and power. I got the first GM, 5 bridges, and 4 MV, but I couldn't match his drawing power.
-Moneylender. Yay or nay? I feel like I should've gotten it earlier if I was going to get it.
-What's the order of priority here? I needed more +Action but tried to balance my early buys and gains to mix in some terminals as well. Mining Village isn't a great card if you're not trashing or using the +Action, which I wasn't really early on, but they were very important and I wanted more....but I needed the Bridges too...but not early....and Envoy worked out great for him....and geesh this is a complicated board.
-Buys at 5? Lab's nifty, Mint wasn't terrible, but....the 4's, man.
-Too many workshops? Not enough?
-How viable is Bridge/Workshop as the main focus here, as opposed to one part of a greater engine? He was gaining Provinces towards the end!
-It became apparent pretty early on that he had me beat. Should I have changed something or just stayed the course and hoped for a miracle?
-I waited to trash my MV's until my megaturn. That turn never came, but if I'd trashed them, my deck would've been crippled. Should I have gone ahead and done it at some point?
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I am thankful for Bridge megaturn engines even when mine never gets around to firing!
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/22/game-20121122-090636-07ea3e29.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/22/game-20121122-090636-07ea3e29.html)
What I went for: Workshop -> GM/Bridge
What he went for: Workshop -> GM/Bridge
We had the same general idea here, but obviously his attempt at actually building the engine went much better than mine! We both went for two Workshops quickly, given the importance of Mining Village and Bridge. He threw in Envoys, I threw in a Moneylender, and it quickly became apparent that his engine was going to beat mine on both speed and power. I got the first GM, 5 bridges, and 4 MV, but I couldn't match his drawing power.
-Moneylender. Yay or nay? I feel like I should've gotten it earlier if I was going to get it.
-What's the order of priority here? I needed more +Action but tried to balance my early buys and gains to mix in some terminals as well. Mining Village isn't a great card if you're not trashing or using the +Action, which I wasn't really early on, but they were very important and I wanted more....but I needed the Bridges too...but not early....and Envoy worked out great for him....and geesh this is a complicated board.
-Buys at 5? Lab's nifty, Mint wasn't terrible, but....the 4's, man.
-Too many workshops? Not enough?
-How viable is Bridge/Workshop as the main focus here, as opposed to one part of a greater engine? He was gaining Provinces towards the end!
-It became apparent pretty early on that he had me beat. Should I have changed something or just stayed the course and hoped for a miracle?
-I waited to trash my MV's until my megaturn. That turn never came, but if I'd trashed them, my deck would've been crippled. Should I have gone ahead and done it at some point?
- Moneylender, good thing is you realized you should be getting a card that trashes earlier than later. Bridge does not help you with your shenanigans with workshop, and bridge is a pretty poor opening.
- Everything else. I think everything ties in with the order you did things. So the point of your deck is to play Bridge and workshop for workshop bonuses. The initial problem is that you can't play both at the same time because...
1. it would be hard to link them.
2. You need + actions.
So workshop takes care of number 2. but more importantly number 1. how do we link them together. Like most engines, you have draws and trashing. Moneylender helps with trashing so that should be purchased asap. The other option would be to get draws and purchase Mint later on, which wouldn't be horrible either.
So you kind of do one, but not get draws. Then another problem is that you purchase too many treasures. Treasure are nice, but not when you have limited space in your hand and deck. Those silvers make it harder for you to pull any shenanigans. So try and avoid $3 cards, unfortunately your opponent does it with the same sort of deck.
In short, you jump straight to the end result without considering the bettering your whole deck first. Also, avoid treasures when you have limited space and are planning to build an engine.
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Seems like your start was a bit weaker, terminal collision on the first shuffle. You had 4 Silvers which doesn't help much in the end, he had none. I probably also would have bought a Silver on T4, but afterwards try to avoid it.
WS/Bridge is hard I would say, there is only on Village on the board, you got 5 of it, so you can play 6 terminals. You need 4 of them to get Provinces down to $4, assuming you don't need a terminal to draw you can only gain 2 Provinces. And than you have to draw your deck nevertheless, so you need Labs.
For trashing the MVs, only when you can end it on a win.
I think important here are the two splits on MVs and Bridges. MVs dictates how many Bridges you can play, and the Bridges are also needed to play them. Probably MV is the more important one, as even with 3 or 4 Bridges, the Workshops can do great things (if only Grand Markets and Labs), and you might also have actions for Envoy. Not much point in having 7 Bridges when you can only play 5 of them and no other terminal per turn. Try to avoid Treasure, probably WS are better at $3 (after first Silver maybe, but the longer I think about it the less I like it), as they guarantee MVs/Bridges/Envoy, and can grab Labs after the first Bridge.
Depending on how that went, see if you need GMs or at least want to deny them, and/or need Labs to reliable draw the deck, but MV+Bridge is more important. Beware of 3pile!
Edit: Agree with RJ on Moneylender.
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Bridge split is not important here. Make sure you win the MV split because that will cripple the opponent. Even a 6/4 split puts pressure on him to draw his deck using Envoys and then play enough Bridges and/or Workshops to gain useful cards.
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Finally saw another interesting game!
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/26/game-20121126-134247-89754271.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/26/game-20121126-134247-89754271.html)
What I went for: Golem/Tunnel
What he went for: Fishing Village/Harem/YW
This was designed from the start to be a Tunnel engine with some frills, but I am curious how I could've done it better. I opened YW/Tunnel, and was fortunate when he drew 5/2. I tried to move in pretty quickly on Golem, but had a dickens of a time drawing my Potion with money, and only hit Golems in time to play one of them once (I drew another, but I drew it with YW and two Tunnels, so I skipped it that turn.) On the other hand, his YW only got past Bane Tunnels once all game, so there's a limit to how much I can complain about shuffle luck. I picked up Monument just to have a second action for Golem, and later Swindler because I wanted to see if I could foil some Harems. (I got one!) I preferred Harem to Gold, since my Tunnels were doing a decent enough job of churning out Gold somehow. He almost caught up to me, but I hung on for the win, with a swindled Province not hurting my cause any.
-Was Tunnel actually worth it here? It's not a legendary Tunnel board, but it's not a bad one either.
-Do I want Fishing Villages? The idea was to go very light on actions so that Golem could discard more Tunnels (and terminals wouldn't clash) but that didn't work out very well in the end.
-Did I want ANY actions other than Golem and YW? I figured Golem would hit enough Tunnels even with three actions, and they made decent "kickers." Did I want different actions? More? Fewer?
-Should I have gotten more green in the endgame? I've been looking a bit at some sim bots and most of them seem to have rules like "Buy Estate if <2 Provinces" so that makes me wonder if I shouldn't be preferring Duchy and Estate in endgame more often than I do, especially when I'm ahead and trying to wrap up the last few Provinces.
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Young Witch is a killer combo with Tunnel. You should seriously not have deviated from YW at $4 for any other card, except for maybe a Monument or two in the late game. Optimized YW/Tunnel requires almost as many YW as you have Tunnel. Getting Harem over Gold at $6 was probably a good call.
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Should I have even skipped Golem then? And gone that hard for YW even if it drains the curses?
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Having a Golem in this deck is a very good thing, the issue is getting one. In general Golem/Tunnel is cute but weak. Here the cursing gives you more time to set it up and reap the benefits of lots of Gold, but it also decreases your chance at hitting $4P. I don't think I'd even try for it, and I wouldn't buy two potions.
YW will still be good for you even after the curses are gone because it activates Tunnels and sifts your deck to find Gold. I'm not sure if you want three YW, but you definitely want two.
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I would skip Golem -- too slow. I would have probably added a Loan in -- clear out some Copper to have higher Gold density. But Loan competes with Tunnel. Tunnel might be better anyway, until they run out.
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Should I have even skipped Golem then? And gone that hard for YW even if it drains the curses?
Yes; optimized Tunnel/YW in Geronimoo's simulator buys YW if #YW in deck <= #Tunnel in deck + 1. The goal of YW is that even if they collide, you should be able to scrape together enough Golds for Province or Duchy (or in your case, Harem, which helps you get to Province and gives VP).
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I'm still working on IW rushes, but I eked out a win here.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/27/game-20121127-115331-1c87a5f7.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/27/game-20121127-115331-1c87a5f7.html)
What I went for: IW > Silk Road/Gardens
What he went for: IW > Silk Road/Estate
Really, things went kinda sorta as planned. We both dogpiled on IW to start out. I was pondering whether or not to try to get the rest or switch to green when he started picking up Silk Roads and I got jumpy. I picked a few up myself, and then switched to Gardens while he tried to pile out Estates. He got the lead for a bit, but I was able to come from behind before he could 3-pile!
-How many IW do I want?
-Gardens or Silk Road first?
-I feel like Trader and Bureaucrat might've been cute....but there wasn't time for them here, right?
-I picked up Inn and Nobles when I had sudden big money turns. I figured Inn would be nice for sifting all the green and it shuffled my IW back, and Nobles is nice with Silk Road. I mainly wanted them both for the +Action, but it didn't wind up mattering that much. Were they good ideas, or should I have been solely focused on the rush?
-Develop....wasn't worth it here, right?
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-How many IW do I want?
-Gardens or Silk Road first?
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1473.0
Silk Roads > Gardens.
-Develop....wasn't worth it here, right?
Would say so.
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Silk Roads tend to accrue a little more points than Gardens. Like, in your game, you had 3-point gardens and were 6 cards away from 4-point gardens, and you had 3-point silk roads but were only one green card away from 4-point silk roads. Your opponent had 4-point silk roads (exactly) and 3-point gardens (one card more than 30).
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My love for Dominion seemed like it was gonna die with Isotropic, but last night I finally decided to take the plunge on Goko because of Guilds, and now the bug has bitten me again! We are BACK, ladies and gentlemen, and we are RUSTY and we have LITTLE OR NO IDEA how to play with the LAST TWO EXPANSIONS.
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130616/log.505caa400cf25938ea9e782a.1371389433168.txt (http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130616/log.505caa400cf25938ea9e782a.1371389433168.txt)
What I went for: Familiar/Rats/Jack
What he went for: BM/Venture
What I wound up with: RATS oh hey I can trash them faster with Mercenary cool
I've been forcing Baker a lot because the concept fascinates me. I decided to take the advice of...somebody or other here, and save my coin token to make absolutely sure I hit 3P. It wound up being unnecessary, but I think that's a good precaution to take. I expected him to go for Familiar, otherwise I don't think I would have bothered with Rats. I was able, however, to dump all the Curses on him, and JoaT kept Rats under some semblance of control. I'd like to say I had planned all along on Mercenary, but really Urchin was a "why not" buy and I completely forgot I could do that with Mercenary. That was a big help in keeping Rats in check, however! Merchant Guild obviously was a pretty weak buy here. I think I thought it was non-terminal, and also thought I would want more low-cost cards.
-Was Rats a good idea here if he had gone Familiar? How about if he didn't?
-Did I want another JoaT at some point?
-Perhaps another Urchin/Mercenary?
-Should I have just gone DoubleJack?
-How do you feel about saving the opening coin token to make sure you hit Familiar?
-What do I want at 5? Baker and Venture both seem viable if uninspired, and Merchant Guild/Contraband might have been interesting in a different deck.
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Jack of all trades is normally just too strong for a curser like familiar that brings no economy to the table. However here you can start jack/potion so you can get economy and cursing together. Let's assume you want to do that. Next we see the merchant's guild and I'd make a rule of thumb that you should only get it when you're looking to buy multiple cards so that it is at least +1 now and +2 later (tokens). Here you'd need to buy extra copper for the tokens so it's a non starter. Later on you don't need the third familiar and some treasure would be better.
When you've got a jack deck with lots of silver it's quite good to use drawing cards to collect the silver into province buying hands. Here you've got the margrave and also, indirectly, the mercenary. Either would do but here and a decision might rest on how your opponent plays. You can use a 3 coin hand to buy the urchin leaving you with 5 coin hands for ventures. Ventures will look good in a treasure deck with some drawing. Bakers can work but they're not as important as drawing up treasure to buy provinces.
Rats are generally only useful if you can make special use of them through their identification as 4 cost action cards. This would generally be through trashing them with something like an apprentice. Here you don't get much benefit from having a 4 cost action in your deck instead of a copper, say, so just ignore the rats. Jack of all trades are better at sweeping up the curses since they'll give you a simple treasure deck to play with.
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I've never played a Feodum deck, but this seemed a decent board to try it out perhaps?
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130620/log.505caa400cf25938ea9e782a.1371743851088.txt (http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130620/log.505caa400cf25938ea9e782a.1371743851088.txt)
Candlestick Maker, Pawn, Woodcutter, Feodum, Ironmonger, Nomad Camp, Contraband, Counterfeit, Horn of Plenty, Bank
What I went for: Ironmonger/Pawn/Feodum
What he went for: Alt Treasure/Silver
I feel like there were a lot of ways to play Feodum here, and in retrospect I'm not sure that many were worth it. Luckily for me, the bot is kinda dumb! My initial idea was to gobble up Ironmonger and one of the 2's, (I settled on Pawn for its flexibility) and then rush feoda, picking up Silver steadily over the course of the game. I opened Nomad Camp to quickly get some +Buy, and used that to get Pawns for some more. It was still a fairly slow strategy, but the bot spent enough time putzing around that the game stayed close. I was able to drain the Ironmongers and take a 7-1 split on Feoda, but didn't have the lead necessary to pile out on Pawns. We both rushed Silver, picking up a green here or there, and I managed to eke out a 1-point win with the last Duchy.
-Was Feodum even a good idea here?
-If so, what other piles do I want to try rushing? Ironmonger, Pawn, and Candlestick Maker all seemed like decent, spammable support, Silver actually almost ran out, Duchies DID run out, and for a brief moment I even entertained making a run on Woodcutters.
-What should I open here?
-Did I want more Silver? Less? Earlier? Later?
-Should I have waited longer to start greening? His lead made me nervous.
-Do I want some of those more expensive cards? They didn't seem worth my time (although I did buy a Bank too late in the game for it to matter) but I feel that any of those alt-treasures would have been good support, and Gold or Province probably wouldn't have hurt too bad either.
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I don't like Feodum here, because you can't trash them for the Silver flood, and because you can't gain extra Silver easily. +Buy can help get extra cards, but you need to get a lot of coin for that and with no card way to increase your handsize except Ironmonger, you're going to have trouble getting +Buy.
There are two things I would do to make Feodum easier to go for here. First, I would pick up a Contraband or 2. This helps get you good economy and +Buy. Since you're taking a non-standard route, Contraband is harder to block a card for and you should probably be able to pick up double-Silver or Silver-Feodum buys with Contraband because of the $3 it gives you. The other thing I would do is prioritize Candlestick Maker over Pawn. It gives you the Buys you want, as well as helping you store coin for a good Silver/Feodum or double Feodum turn. A lot of your Pawns were actually fairly useless as you went card/action a bunch of times. I do like the Ironmongers here as well though.
That being said, I probably wouldn't go for Feodum on this board, because of the lack of Silver gain and Feodum trashing. Instead, I would probably open Candlestick Maker/Silver and build up a bunch of coin tokens throughout the game, probably getting 3-4 CMs. I would also get a Contraband, and then otherwise get Gold and Silver, maybe a Bank on $7. Save the tokens until you want to green. Once I want to green, I would start using my Tokens to consistently hit $8, $13 or $16 depending on what you want and can get.
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Actually, there are two decent Silver gainers on that board. gman has already mentioned one, though he dismissed it somewhat -- Contraband. You probably only want one or two, but the thing to note is that there is no effective ban against you. Can't buy Silver? Get Feodum. Can't get Feodum? Silver instead!
The other nice Silver gainer is Horn of Plenty. You only need two cards other than HoP to gain a Silver with it, and HoP is a treasure so it's non-terminal. Pretty sweet.
I would say Candlestick Maker > Pawn in this case. You get more out of it than Pawn; Pawn is only better for the option to draw a card, which you probably won't use a lot anyway. But CM has decent synergy with Contraband. CM's coin tokens make Contraband even harder to counter because Contraband loves flexibility, especially with the +Buy. Not to mention that CM is a nice cheap card to buy anyway, if other cards have been banned.
I would probably pick up 1 Contraband ASAP then HoPs on $5+ after. Every $2 would be a CM. Other than that, Silvers and Feoda. If I ever hit $5+ value on HoP, I would pick up a second CB and maybe a Counterfeit if it's early enough (clear out a few Coppers to play the gainers more often; but if I'm already a bit full up on Silver then I would forget it). But other than that, I would just have HoP gain Silver like mad.
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Wow. I can't believe I missed HoP as a gainer. Wow. I guess I just thought "It's yellow, it doesn't count!"
I agree with your Feodum approach, but I'm still not sure if it beats the BM approach.
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I think it might be time to bring this guy back! What's the current best way to post a log?
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I think it might be time to bring this guy back! What's the current best way to post a log?
Posting the game number that people can then load on ShiT to see the log.
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I think it might be time to bring this guy back! What's the current best way to post a log?
Check out tailred's Woodcutter (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18336.0). It's still a bit buggy, but much better than posting game numbers.
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So like http://ceviri.me/woodcutter/12943691/display/ (http://ceviri.me/woodcutter/12943691/display/) ? I don't really understand what I'm looking at but I was there for the game so I guess that's fine.
Board: Hound, Peasant, Smason, Oasis, Shanty, Diplo, Monument, Trader, Cache, RSeal; Colony, Raid, Palace
I went for: Oasis/Diplo/Shanty/Soldier
With Palace, Trader, Raid, and Cache on the board, I thought that there was probably a good treasure-based strat to be had....but since it was a Colony board, I decided to forgo it. My initial idea was to use Oasis to fuel Shanty/Diplo, and then chain some Soldiers for payload. I didn't ever really get enough Soldiers to make that work, but the engine let me skip a bit of treasuring. I'm trying to work on skipping treasure and "stop cards" more often, and in this game I also wanted to teach myself not to mindlessly exchange Travellers every time. (until now, I'd just go for one Teacher/Champion and a bunch of Disciple/Hero) I found myself wanting +Buy, and I misplayed a couple times, paying a bunch for a Peasant because I thought I had an extra buy, and accidentally getting a second Fugitive. Worked out well though in the end- I think it would've done decently against a human.
My questions:
-What stages of Peasant do you usually push?
-How many Soldiers did I want? Did I want Fugitive instead?
-Should I have gone for the Palace strat? Would it have been better in a Province game?
-What do you do with Teacher tokens here?
-Is that how the logs are supposed to look, and if so how do all the graphs and stuff work?
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+Action on Hounds gives you draw for an engine there, and then you can put +Card on Oasis / Shanty Town and +Buy on something (Monument?). That shouldn't take too long to get set up, and then you can try and play a bunch of Monuments every turn. Stonemason and Trader aren't great thinning, but you can get an early Trader to make Estates into something and you'll just naturally end up with the Stonemasons to work on Coppers anyway. Colony buys you lots of time to set up, as you just don't contest the Provinces if they go for those for some reason. Eventually you buy some Colonies, and your Monument scoring forms your margin.
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http://ceviri.me/woodcutter/12975020/display/ (http://ceviri.me/woodcutter/12975020/display/)
Kingdom: Haven, Scrying Pool, Ghost Town, Lookout, Bridge, Procession, Salvager, Bazaar, Crown, Knights
I went for: literally everything
I still don't think those logs show up right for me but as long as y'all can see them then I guess we're okay. This was a weird board where I thought everything would be good to have, in some fashion or another. Scrying Pool as the main draw, Knights and Bridge as payload, Salvager and Lookout as thinning, Ghost Town and later Bazaar for +Action, Crown and Procession for flexibility, and Haven just if I had an extra 2 buy at some point (I never did). I found myself wanting +Action more than Knights, so those never quite took off. My Lookout got trashed early on and I didn't notice until we were past the point where I really wanted one. I surprised myself by how early I was able to play my deck, at which point I tried to grab extra Bridges to finish. Procession wasn't as good here as I'd hoped- I never got a 2, there weren't 6s, and I didn't want to Process a Knight. Still, we got through the chaos pretty reasonable, and won.
My questions:
-How much does it matter to you which Knight is available? I might've gone for them harder if Josephine hadn't been on top for so long.
-If you run SP/Knights, do you want to discard your opponent's good stuff, or try to find Knights targets?
-What would even be the good strat in this mess? I don't think the optimal strategy is very often "a bit of everything," but it might be here?
-What's your opening? I didn't think about trying to spike a 3/5 with Ghost Town.
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The main important thing on this board is to pull off the Bridge megaturn. Your deck should be built to accomodate that. Knights are likely too slow to compete, as a Bridge engine can grab a lot of components to compensate for the ones trashed by Knights.
I think it is best to delay the potions for quicker trashing. Open Lookout/Salvager, getting Potion and Bridge next. Maybe you want to add a Silver for economy here depending on your draws. Then build towards the megaturn: 3 Crowns and 4 Bridges are enough to pull it off, if your opponent does the Knights deck you might get some more. You don't really need Bazaars, Crowns are better. Ghost Town is pretty bad here since Scrying Pool can't pick it up, but if you have the components for the megaturn, you can spam Ghost Towns to ensure that you can fire.
For the other questions:
- which Knight is on top generally matters a lot, because if you get the bad Knight, you might give your opponent a good oe to buy. Thus, only get the bad Knight if either you can gain another Knight on the same turn or you know that your opponent won't be able to gain a Knight on their turn.
- you want to find Knight targets. You want to play your Knight as soon as you have hit a good Knight target and then continue to put bad stuff on top, unless you have another Knight, in which case you hunt for the next target.
- see above.
- see above. Spiking $5 doesn't matter unless there's Dame Anna on top... then consider it.
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Board: Hound, Peasant, Smason, Oasis, Shanty, Diplo, Monument, Trader, Cache, RSeal; Colony, Raid, Palace
I went for: Oasis/Diplo/Shanty/Soldier
My questions:
-What stages of Peasant do you usually push?
-How many Soldiers did I want? Did I want Fugitive instead?
-Should I have gone for the Palace strat? Would it have been better in a Province game?
-What do you do with Teacher tokens here?
-Is that how the logs are supposed to look, and if so how do all the graphs and stuff work?
- I think that oasis/shanty/diplo thing is a lot of work and needs careful play but should give good deck development. Getting the deck balance right is going to be more important than blindly pushing peasants at times, particuarly if you're thinking of adding 3 terminals with stonemason/peasant. Preferably, teacher and as many disciples as you can squeeze out here.
- Soldiers generally fit with other attack cards and the exceptions would be in better engines than this one. Considering diplomat, keep no soldiers.
- Palace isn't anything here as an engine player can beat it with monument points. In an engine mirror the monument comes into play for a late lead before a 3 pile ending.
- I don't think there's a single right answer to the tokens here. With a stonemason you can trash an action card into two smaller ones and instantly create a different type of deck.
- Having said all that, it's hard to pick out what an opponent will do and this will need some adversarial play. The game could run short or long (if nobody builds with many masons).
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Boy I picked a bad time to resurrect this project. Also, the extension did not load the log properly, but it's game 13430092.
Kingdom: Hamlet, Black Market, Oasis, Scheme, Workshop, Salvager, Villa, Archive, Governor, Peddler; Ferry, Colony
I went for: Governor, Peddler/TfB, Black Market
This was a bot game (about half my games are less-than-super-serious bot games with BM, Colony, and >1 Landmark all required) but an interesting board. I got BlMa, Ferried the Governors, and did fun engine things with Peddler, Hamlet, and 4s. Nothing life-changing came out of the BM. I spaced out more than I should have on greening, but was able to save the win with a decent megaturn at the end.
-This board was too fast for Black Market, wasn't it?
-Is Peddler a good counter (by remodeling to Plat) to Governor here/in general? If so, does that change how hard you go for Governor or what modes you use when?
-All the Governor options seemed good at various points- I don't often take the Gold but it seemed like a decent attack towards the end when I was playing catchup. What do you use here? Should I have started remodeling Gold/Plat into Province/Colony before the last turn?
-Ferry on Governor was a good move, right? But I probably should've gotten a Workshop? I usually ignore Ferry, and Workshop too for that matter.
-I also skipped Scheme, Oasis, and Archive. Were those worth a buy at some point? (probably at least a Scheme instead of that BM, right?)
-I think Rattington always goes for Provinces in Colony games, and I frequently struggle to catch up with his pace. Is Province a more frequently viable route than I'm realizing, or am I just having too much fun playing with engines?
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Ferry + Governor is such a strong synergy; I wouldn't bother with Black Market on that board. However, if Black Market reveals a handsize attack it could definitely pay off, so it isn't unreasonable. I would probably open with Salvager + Ferry on Governor. I want to get the trashing started quickly; the fewer starting cards in my deck, the fewer Governors need to be used for draw. I also like Salvager to help pick up Peddlers in the midgame, and to trash Peddlers in the lategame. But, mostly, I'll be gaining as many Governors as I can. Workshop probably won't pay off, but I'm not sure; Villa makes it more attractive. Peddlers aren't really a counter to Governor, because you shouldn't be using Governor for Remodel in the early game here; it's already too risky because it might let your opponent turn an Estate into a Governor (with Ferry). My early plays with Governor would be draw (to see Salvager), and Gold gain. Once Governors run out, it's reasonable to turn a Silver or two (from your opponent's Governors) into Archives, I think.
I'm not sure what the best greening strategy is; probably a hybrid of Provinces and Colonies. Governor is much more efficient at gaining Provinces than Colonies, but Salvaging Peddlers should provide the coin to spike some Colonies. I think this game could easily end on three piles: Governor, Peddler, and Villa. With Ferry on Villa, they only cost 1 net coin, so it's easy to pile them if you find yourself in the lead with two piles empty. Speaking of Villas, it's probably correct to get 1-2 in the midgame (when it doesn't cost you a Governor gain) so you can buy more Peddlers on future turns. So, maybe the Workshop pays off? But it's hard to fit it into the build. Oasis and Scheme don't seem valuable on this board. You might pick up a Hamlet or two with a spare $2, and you can use it to get an additional Peddler.
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I re-ran that board with that strat, and it did quite nicely!