Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: GendoIkari on April 08, 2013, 06:12:31 pm
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Oh man this is terrible:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4614674_use-village-dominion.html (http://www.ehow.com/how_4614674_use-village-dominion.html)
Instructions
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Realize that it is never a bad thing to have a Village in your hand. At the absolute worst, you can simply play it to draw another card, and no harm is done. However, playing a village also grants you two additional actions, which can be powerful.
2
Buy a Village with your first 3-dollar hand if you plan to buy a lot of action cards. This will ensure that action cards don't get stuck in your hand.
3
Look for cards that let you draw more cards, such as the Laboratory, Smithy, Council Room, and Witch. Add these to your deck in equal proportion along with Villages.
4
Play any Villages you draw immediately. This will increase your number of available actions by one, and draw you a replacement card.
5
Play cards that draw you more cards once you have multiple actions available. Continue trying to draw cards until you have only one available action again, or have a hand full of action cards.
6
Re-check your hand for villages when you have drawn cards and are down to a single action. You can then play the villages, and continue the loop at Step 4.
7
Sort through your hand and find the few other action cards you want to play, and play them in sequence. Getting multiple actions in a single turn will give you a strong advantage over your opponents.
Tips & Warnings
If you see other players buying villages, grab them quickly.
Don't buy too many villages without other action cards. They won't hurt you, but they really need other action cards to be effective.
Possibly worse: http://www.ehow.com/how_4671614_use-thief-dominion.html (http://www.ehow.com/how_4671614_use-thief-dominion.html)
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Watch the board to look for a Moat. Rather than buying the Thief right away, buy the Moat if your opponents buy the Thief. Otherwise, buy cards such as the Village and Adventurer that will help you in the meantime and work well with a Thief later.
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Haha, this is great.
http://www.ehow.com/how_4613280_use-chapel-dominion.html
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Look at the Kingdom cards available for the current game, and decide if you are willing to strip your deck down instead of adding cards to it. If not, you may not want the Chapel.
2
Watch out for the Witch! If the Witch is in the game, you will almost certainly want to buy at least one Chapel (and possibly two) to help you deal with the curse cards.
3
Buy the Chapel in your opening rounds if you have a 2-dollar hand. If (more likely) you have a 3-dollar hand, you should probably start by increasing your purchasing power before acquiring a Chapel in a later round.
4
Play the Chapel as your action to take up to four cards in your hand and remove them from the game. This should be used strategically to set yourself up for better draws.
5
Use the Chapel to remove Curse cards from your deck whenever possible, as these are worth negative points.
6
Use the Chapel early in the game to remove Estate cards from your deck. Although they are worth points, they are useless for most of the game, and your deck will be stronger without them.
7
Play the Chapel once you have acquired some silver to discard the copper from your deck. This will help assure that you draw more valuable treasure.
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Hadn't gotten to that one yet! I read through Mine, Moneylender, Adventurer.... Chancellor is actually pretty much accurate.
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Some other gems:
How to Win at Dominion / http://www.ehow.com/how_4609786_win-at-dominion.html
Spend all of your money unless you have a good reason not to. The treasure is all use it or lose it, so if you have $5 to spend on your turn, don't settle for a $3 silver if you can grab a nicer action card.
Throne Room / http://www.ehow.com/how_4671613_use-throne-room-dominion.html
Focus on playing the Throne Room on cards that give you more cards and actions, such as the Laboratory and Village.
Moat / http://www.ehow.com/how_4610052_use-moat-dominion.html
Get a Moat early in the game if other players are buying up attack cards such as Thief, Witch and Militia. If the board is heavy with attack cards, you may want to buy a few Moats, but keep in mind that having more than one Moat in your hand is a bad thing.
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Hey, it gets better and better.
Workshop for Feasts if possible, and then use the Feasts to acquire 5-value cards.
This one is my favourite so far: Play Remodel on Curse cards to remove them from your deck and replace them with a Moat (especially if a Thief is in play) or a Cellar. You can later Remodel the Moat and Cellar into more Remodels.
The Bureaucrat is perhaps one of the most powerful cards in Dominion. Buy the Bureaucrat as soon as possible. This is almost always the correct play if you are trying to add treasure to your deck.
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The chapel one's not bad at all. It's not completely correct in every optimalization, but
1) See if heavy trashing is useful in this kingdom, or if it's not worth the tempo loss
1.5) Double-check: Junkers make Chapel better
2) Buy Chapel early if you're buying it, and probably not more than one
3) Trash Curses, Estates, and Copper, in that order of priority
Is pretty simple, effective advice for Chapel, especially if you're still at the "why would I trash my own cards" stage.
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Also ehow is totally an ad farm; most of their articles are similarly basic, with tons of page rank farming links so they show up high on google for the revenue.
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Also ehow is totally an ad farm; most of their articles are similarly basic, with tons of page rank farming links so they show up high on google for the revenue.
Indeed.
These were quite obviously written by someone who will lose at Dominion.
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The Bureaucrat is, perhaps, the most powerful card in all of Dominion.
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This almost made me cry.
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The Bureaucrat is, perhaps, the most powerful card in all of Dominion.
Unfortunately, I used to also follow the philosophy of "buy bureaucrat ASAP." Gaining silver just seemed so awesome!
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So I guess the best $5 is now Explorer?
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I thought dominion had been solved by only buying treasure and victory cards. Should I add bureaucrat into this strategy as well?
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Library is okay actually.
Gardens is interesting to some extent, they mention woodcutter and market but not workshop. It is also advised to buy the gardens immediately. There is a comment on it that recommends buying moat if militia is on the board and you are going for gardens.
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There is a comment on it that recommends buying moat if militia is on the board and you are going for gardens.
Especially if the Thief is also on the board!
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Moat / http://www.ehow.com/how_4610052_use-moat-dominion.html
Get a Moat early in the game if other players are buying up attack cards such as Thief, Witch and Militia. If the board is heavy with attack cards, you may want to buy a few Moats, but keep in mind that having more than one Moat in your hand is a bad thing.
What's wrong with this?
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This is almost as good as the memes thread.
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Using Upgrade on a Gold or a Province also means that you simply discard the card, as there are no cards worth 1 coin more than either of these cards. When deciding whether to play Upgrade, consider whether you have a good card to upgrade in trade for gaining another card and an Action.
Read it again and then decide whether you just want to - as there is no upgrade available for it - discard this advise or trash it.
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Using Upgrade on a Gold or a Province also means that you simply discard the card, as there are no cards worth 1 coin more than either of these cards. When deciding whether to play Upgrade, consider whether you have a good card to upgrade in trade for gaining another card and an Action.
Read it again and then decide whether you just want to - as there is no upgrade available for it - discard this advise or trash it.
interestingly though, you trash Coppers and Curses...
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This is pure comedy gold. Somebody should put a "greatest quotes" list together. :D
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playing the Militia may force her to discard some good cards.
>her
So whoever wrote these, never played online. Well, then they couldn't have known that there are people who have won a hundred games for each game the writer has played and that their advice will be laughed at on some forums devoted to Dominion strategy.
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I feel like writing an article praising Scout to the sky. Clearly the most powerful card in all of Dominion.
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I feel like writing an article praising Scout to the sky. Clearly the most powerful card in all of Dominion.
It can be +1 Action + 4 Cards. clearly powerful.
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Tips for the "Dominion" Game (http://www.ehow.com/info_12092500_tips-dominion-game.html)
"The Village is the best card to collect in Dominion because it gives you plus 1 card and plus 2 action..."
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Tips for the "Dominion" Game (http://www.ehow.com/info_12092500_tips-dominion-game.html)
"The Village is the best card to collect in Dominion because it gives you plus 1 card and plus 2 action..."
"...however, the card you play may allow you to play another turn, such as in the case with the Village, where you can play two additional turns..."
Taking additional turns, well, that's powerful! But now which advice should I take, should I piledrive Villages or Bureaucrats?
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Tips for the "Dominion" Game (http://www.ehow.com/info_12092500_tips-dominion-game.html)
"The Village is the best card to collect in Dominion because it gives you plus 1 card and plus 2 action..."
"...however, the card you play may allow you to play another turn, such as in the case with the Village, where you can play two additional turns..."
Taking additional turns, well, that's powerful! But now which advice should I take, should I piledrive Villages or Bureaucrats?
So villages are strictly stronger than Outposts! ;D
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"Smithy is often not your best choice on the first turn, because you have a high chance of drawing your Estates card with it."
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"Smithy is often not your best choice on the first turn, because you have a high chance of drawing your Estates card with it."
This I think is actually correct. If there is nearly any way of trashing Estates, it's better to open with that. It says "often", not "never". Usually you're only opening Smithy if you're going something like Smithy Big Money.
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"Smithy is often not your best choice on the first turn, because you have a high chance of drawing your Estates card with it."
This I think is actually correct. If there is nearly any way of trashing Estates, it's better to open with that. It says "often", not "never". Usually you're only opening Smithy if you're going something like Smithy Big Money.
I disagree. First of all, it's not often an either-or choice - how many $4 trashers are out there? Moreover, if the trashing is bad, or not there, then you are very often opening something like smithy-silver if you want to build an engine. Even with the trashing, trasher-smithy is not too bad of an opening, though I guess more often you want some coin-producer, whether an action or a silver.
But more, the reasoning there is terrible. I mean, "Smithy is often not your best choice on the first turn" is true, though you can substitute virtually any card for smithy there and be correct. But because you have a high chance of drawing your estates? Who cares! And actually, you are drawing those estates anyway...
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"Smithy is often not your best choice on the first turn, because you have a high chance of drawing your Estates card with it."
This I think is actually correct. If there is nearly any way of trashing Estates, it's better to open with that. It says "often", not "never". Usually you're only opening Smithy if you're going something like Smithy Big Money.
I disagree. First of all, it's not often an either-or choice - how many $4 trashers are out there? Moreover, if the trashing is bad, or not there, then you are very often opening something like smithy-silver if you want to build an engine. Even with the trashing, trasher-smithy is not too bad of an opening, though I guess more often you want some coin-producer, whether an action or a silver.
But more, the reasoning there is terrible. I mean, "Smithy is often not your best choice on the first turn" is true, though you can substitute virtually any card for smithy there and be correct. But because you have a high chance of drawing your estates? Who cares! And actually, you are drawing those estates anyway...
It might be worth noting that playing Smithy on turn 3 or 4 will cause your turn 4 purchase to miss the reshuffle whereas it wouldn't have otherwise...
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"Smithy is often not your best choice on the first turn, because you have a high chance of drawing your Estates card with it."
This I think is actually correct. If there is nearly any way of trashing Estates, it's better to open with that. It says "often", not "never". Usually you're only opening Smithy if you're going something like Smithy Big Money.
I disagree. First of all, it's not often an either-or choice - how many $4 trashers are out there? Moreover, if the trashing is bad, or not there, then you are very often opening something like smithy-silver if you want to build an engine. Even with the trashing, trasher-smithy is not too bad of an opening, though I guess more often you want some coin-producer, whether an action or a silver.
But more, the reasoning there is terrible. I mean, "Smithy is often not your best choice on the first turn" is true, though you can substitute virtually any card for smithy there and be correct. But because you have a high chance of drawing your estates? Who cares! And actually, you are drawing those estates anyway...
I'm fairly confident Smithy+trasher is usually a bad opening. What is your Smithy going to draw? Coppers, Estates and your trasher, dead. It's a little cycling which is nice, but probably worse than Navigator, which no one is ever thrilled to open. Maybe you want to do it if you want to have the Smithy for later, but you're probably usually better off getting something which gives economy to go with your trasher. Smithy openings are nearly always going to be Smithy+Silver/FG/Fishing. Smithy+Silver into engine can work for non-trashing engines, or things with something like Forge where you can mass trash later. But this is not super common. Generally I think Smithy is a pretty weak opening, not because it draws Estates you wouldn't otherwise draw, but because playing Smithy to draw Coppers and Estates is not one of the more useful things you can do in the early game. I guess I just interpreted the statement differently than you did.
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"Smithy is often not your best choice on the first turn, because you have a high chance of drawing your Estates card with it."
This I think is actually correct. If there is nearly any way of trashing Estates, it's better to open with that. It says "often", not "never". Usually you're only opening Smithy if you're going something like Smithy Big Money.
I disagree. First of all, it's not often an either-or choice - how many $4 trashers are out there? Moreover, if the trashing is bad, or not there, then you are very often opening something like smithy-silver if you want to build an engine. Even with the trashing, trasher-smithy is not too bad of an opening, though I guess more often you want some coin-producer, whether an action or a silver.
But more, the reasoning there is terrible. I mean, "Smithy is often not your best choice on the first turn" is true, though you can substitute virtually any card for smithy there and be correct. But because you have a high chance of drawing your estates? Who cares! And actually, you are drawing those estates anyway...
I'm fairly confident Smithy+trasher is usually a bad opening. What is your Smithy going to draw? Coppers, Estates and your trasher, dead. It's a little cycling which is nice, but probably worse than Navigator, which no one is ever thrilled to open. Maybe you want to do it if you want to have the Smithy for later, but you're probably usually better off getting something which gives economy to go with your trasher.
I don't disagree.
Smithy openings are nearly always going to be Smithy+Silver/FG/Fishing. Smithy+Silver into engine can work for non-trashing engines, or things with something like Forge where you can mass trash later.
Still with you here.
But this is not super common. Generally I think Smithy is a pretty weak opening, not because it draws Estates you wouldn't otherwise draw, but because playing Smithy to draw Coppers and Estates is not one of the more useful things you can do in the early game. I guess I just interpreted the statement differently than you did.
Okay, I disagree with you here. you want the smithy for later. A lot. And drawing those coppers estates, and usually the silver, is not super awesome amazing times, but what on turn 3-4 are you doing that is? I mean, sometimes there is something (chapel, ambassador, the rare CC-like shenanigans), but most often, not really.
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But this is not super common. Generally I think Smithy is a pretty weak opening, not because it draws Estates you wouldn't otherwise draw, but because playing Smithy to draw Coppers and Estates is not one of the more useful things you can do in the early game. I guess I just interpreted the statement differently than you did.
Okay, I disagree with you here. you want the smithy for later. A lot. And drawing those coppers estates, and usually the silver, is not super awesome amazing times, but what on turn 3-4 are you doing that is? I mean, sometimes there is something (chapel, ambassador, the rare CC-like shenanigans), but most often, not really.
Also, drawing those Estates now means you aren't drawing them next turn. It seems like a common error to play something that draws cards, sees that it just drew you complete crap, and then be upset about it. You just saved your next turn.
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We're making fun of it because it's only edge-cases where you would want to not play a Smithy for fear of drawing cards dead that would just be dead next turn if you hadn't played Smithy. Why would you want Estates in your hand next turn? The only thing I can think of is if you also had multiple Crossroads that could end up drawing multiple cards off each Estate you started with. This reasoning does not make Smithy a bad opener, since you aren't going to have that engine in place after just one shuffle.
You can talk about reshuffles all you want and you have some ground to stand on. You can talk about optimizing engine building by finding a better opener and you still have some ground to stand on. Good times. Most of the base set card "how to"s pertain only to the base set anyways, where Big Money is usually dominant, and in BM+Smithy, I think we've conclusively shown that Smithy is the correct opening.
The difference between us and eHow is that there you have people giving advice that is not only too generic, but is not a good idea a vast majority of the time and for the wrong reasons (and that give reasons for their advice that don't make much sense to experienced players). Here, you have people who will not even attempt to give such advice, but will rather analyze all of the exceptions to the rules to the point where we don't even know what the rules are.
It always depends on the kingdom, but talking about all of this extremely detail-oriented stuff doesn't do anyone any good if there is no understanding of the generic case. I don't play Dominion hoping to memorize the way every single combination of two cards interact. I try to understand the generic ways that cards can be good, how well they fit those roles, and then think about specific interactions only when presented with a kingdom that may suggest such an interaction.
Aside from certain combo decks that play very differently from this mold (NV+Bridge, Hermit+Market Square, WS/Gardens, etc.) the only advice that has a huge meaning to me, and almost all of the advice that's made me a better player has been generic in nature.
However misguided their advice may be, maybe there's something we can learn from it?
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Also, drawing those Estates now means you aren't drawing them next turn. It seems like a common error to play something that draws cards, sees that it just drew you complete crap, and then be upset about it. You just saved your next turn.
This is why Scout is so underrated.
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But this is not super common. Generally I think Smithy is a pretty weak opening, not because it draws Estates you wouldn't otherwise draw, but because playing Smithy to draw Coppers and Estates is not one of the more useful things you can do in the early game. I guess I just interpreted the statement differently than you did.
Okay, I disagree with you here. you want the smithy for later. A lot. And drawing those coppers estates, and usually the silver, is not super awesome amazing times, but what on turn 3-4 are you doing that is? I mean, sometimes there is something (chapel, ambassador, the rare CC-like shenanigans), but most often, not really.
I still disagree here. I think you generally don't want the Smithy "a lot" as the game goes on. It's useful as an additional draw card, but usually there are better sources of drawing, like almost any of the Smithy variants or Lab variants. And if Smithy is actually the best drawing card AND there is no early game trashing, then it's not looking much like an engine game. Of course there are things like KC and Forge which change this story, but I think Smithy openings, at least for me, are pretty rare (like there's 30 $4-or-less cards I open with more often). It doesn't trash, attack, or gain, and it forces your other card to be Silver, so you can't even have another card doing one of these things.
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But this is not super common. Generally I think Smithy is a pretty weak opening, not because it draws Estates you wouldn't otherwise draw, but because playing Smithy to draw Coppers and Estates is not one of the more useful things you can do in the early game. I guess I just interpreted the statement differently than you did.
Okay, I disagree with you here. you want the smithy for later. A lot. And drawing those coppers estates, and usually the silver, is not super awesome amazing times, but what on turn 3-4 are you doing that is? I mean, sometimes there is something (chapel, ambassador, the rare CC-like shenanigans), but most often, not really.
I still disagree here. I think you generally don't want the Smithy "a lot" as the game goes on. It's useful as an additional draw card, but usually there are better sources of drawing, like almost any of the Smithy variants or Lab variants. And if Smithy is actually the best drawing card AND there is no early game trashing, then it's not looking much like an engine game. Of course there are things like KC and Forge which change this story, but I think Smithy openings, at least for me, are pretty rare (like there's 30 $4-or-less cards I open with more often). It doesn't trash, attack, or gain, and it forces your other card to be Silver, so you can't even have another card doing one of these things.
The problem with "any smithy variant is better" is that they almost all cost $5, so it's a false dichotomy. Not to mention that with most of them, smithy is almost as good. I also reject the notion that smithy being the best draw means you probably aren't going engine, even without decent trashing.