Dominion Strategy Forum
Archive => Archive => Innovation Game Reports => Topic started by: Jfrisch on March 26, 2013, 05:06:52 pm
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I've often does this, and it seems a common trend to do so, but achievements are really, really, important, and simply playing for them is often sufficient. This wasn't a perfectly played game on both sides (I was allowed to clothing into monument). But it feels unique in that I never had a card age 5 or above and still won. Usually the game doesn't go that short. http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201303/26/game-20130326-140252-55178ecf.html
[Editor's note: fixed confusing typo]
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I've often does this, and it seems a common trend to do so, but achievements are really, really, important, and simply playing for them is often sufficient. This wasn't a perfectly played game on both sides (I was allowed to clothing into monument). But it feels unique in that I never had a card age 5 or above and still won. Usually the game doesn't go that short. http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201303/26/game-20130326-140252-55178ecf.html
[Editor's note: fixed confusing typo]
I have played a lot of games that I have won despite being out-teched. I think this is going to diminish somewhat now that established Inno players are gaining some experience, but it is worth noting that low-level achievements are just as valuable as any other. They're all 1/6 of a win.
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I have played a lot of games that I have won despite being out-teched. I think this is going to diminish somewhat now that established Inno players are gaining some experience, but it is worth noting that low-level achievements are just as valuable as any other. They're all 1/6 of a win.
The thing is that while low level achievements are worth the same as high level ones, there are also other priorities you have to consider, like setting up your board. If you’re just scoring with Agriculture or something, you’re going to quickly find yourself behind and unable to actually get the higher achievements. The Dominion analogue is buying a Province on turn 3-4. Sure it’s worth as much as a Province later, but it puts you behind someone who is building an engines to reliably get Provinces later.
The balance is going to be a little different from Dominion because trying to build up to an engine is not going to be as reliable due to the sheer randomness involved in Innovation, and as Dominion players, we tend to err on the side of overbuilding. I do think, however, that just as in Dominion, when skill level increases, the balance of early scoring/achieving vs building is going to shift more towards building.
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is this like saying an early bought province scores the same amount of VP as a later bought province?
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So agriculture is very, very slow. As is pottery. A turn spent drawing and agriculturing gets you 2 maybe 3 points. Double pottery gets you 2 maybe 4. Both of these have no other benefit. The scorepile is also a resource. If you have a decent (5-10 pt or more) lead in scorepile you can share scoring cards with impunity in the midgame and then claim the achievements. Maybe it's just me, but I've noticed a ton of players failing to spend 1 turn to pick up a standard achievement when, in my experience, its always been worth it. I'm also not convinced that 1/6 of a win is the totally correct way to view achievements. They act as both threats of victory (if you have 4 or 5 achievements your opponent has to be incredibly proactive against you) and defense against your opponents winning on achievements. I've won many times with inferior boards at the end of the game. Just like how in Dominion you can have the better engine at the end of the game and still lose, in innovation you can have a much weaker tableau and still be creamed.
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is this like saying an early bought province scores the same amount of VP as a later bought province?
Tehnically that's true, although IMO Dominion is a far less situational game than Innovation is. There seem to be some situations, at least to me, that would call for earlier use of agriculture than others depending on what the opponents' respective boards look like.
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is this like saying an early bought province scores the same amount of VP as a later bought province?
Maybe, except in this game the first province costs $2, the second $4, the third $6, ... Preventing your opponent from grabbing a cheap achievement is a good reason to get the achievement yourself!
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I think this is the reason people start to lose games more after they've gotten past the noob level. A noob will spam Coal without even realizing how much he's hurting his icon power, and so grab lots of achievements... a novice will think "no my precious stack/splays! There must be a better way to score" and turn down perfectly viable, if damaging, ways to achieve.
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Maybe grabbing the low achievements is the Big Money of Innovation?
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is this like saying an early bought province scores the same amount of VP as a later bought province?
No. In particular, an early Province significantly disrupts your deck. In Innovation, the achievement itself doesn't change your board at all. In addition, an early Province almost always costs your whole turn, but taking an early achievement costs half a turn.
I'd say there's a huge difference here.
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Early Achievement is good as :
1) you are closer to win
2) You block your opponent to end the game early.
However, achievement no. 1 and no. 2 usually comes with player who play clothing or metalworking. That's why it is not always possible to do early achievement.
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agriculture is slow, but pottery is not slow by any means, especially if you have a nice wheel share to empty out the decks in a hurry.
I mean, return a 3 , score a 3, draw a 3? that's pretty powerful in the base game. The point being your hand is continuously being replenished without a draw action.