never open a non $ village is kind of a rule
i would be very surprised many village openings with high +skill among council room's best openings.
i would be very surprised many village openings with high +skill among council room's best openings.
I also favor a hermit here. it helps trashing even faster, rids you of the chapel after, plus it helps bulk up on menageries and poor houses. You also need a storeroom, and oases aren't bad, especially given that you can discard a fortress and then hermit to pick it back up out of the trash. It can also add estates in a pinch, and the gains help control the endgame.
I also favor a hermit here. it helps trashing even faster, rids you of the chapel after, plus it helps bulk up on menageries and poor houses. You also need a storeroom, and oases aren't bad, especially given that you can discard a fortress and then hermit to pick it back up out of the trash. It can also add estates in a pinch, and the gains help control the endgame.
I actually think hermit is really slow here compared to stonemason trashing a fortress. I might pick a hermit through stonemasoning a fortress, but I doubt it since menagerie and poor house are both more important (in my reasoning). I think the ideal engine here would include fortress, storeroom, menagerie, poor house, and stonemason. The neat thing about those 5 cards is that the only ones you ever have to purchase are fortresses and stonemasons (aside from your starting chapel which we can all agree is necessary). Other cards (hermit and oasis for example) would be useful, but in a game that will be ending in 10 turns I just don't think they are important enough to pick up
i would be very surprised many village openings with high +skill among council room's best openings.
With the exception of Native Village/Bridge, openings involving a Village are obviously never going to rank very high on an absolute list of best opens, but that doesn't at all imply that opening with a village isn't a good play on a decent number of boards, because all those power opens just don't show up that often.
Hamlet and Shanty Town (not Hamlet/Shanty Town :P) are particular favorites of mine to open with, and in a game like this, with both Chapel and Poor House on the board, opening anything but Village/Chapel is a blunder.
I understood it as "It's a bad rule because sometimes it should be broken".i would be very surprised many village openings with high +skill among council room's best openings.
With the exception of Native Village/Bridge, openings involving a Village are obviously never going to rank very high on an absolute list of best opens, but that doesn't at all imply that opening with a village isn't a good play on a decent number of boards, because all those power opens just don't show up that often.
Hamlet and Shanty Town (not Hamlet/Shanty Town :P) are particular favorites of mine to open with, and in a game like this, with both Chapel and Poor House on the board, opening anything but Village/Chapel is a blunder.
I agree with this as well, but it is consistent with the observation that opening non $ village is usually unwise. I can't tell if you disagree with the latter or if you're saying it's a bad rule b/c the typical case is barely more than half the time or something.
i would be very surprised many village openings with high +skill among council room's best openings.
With the exception of Native Village/Bridge, openings involving a Village are obviously never going to rank very high on an absolute list of best opens, but that doesn't at all imply that opening with a village isn't a good play on a decent number of boards, because all those power opens just don't show up that often.
Hamlet and Shanty Town (not Hamlet/Shanty Town :P) are particular favorites of mine to open with, and in a game like this, with both Chapel and Poor House on the board, opening anything but Village/Chapel is a blunder.
I agree with this as well, but it is consistent with the observation that opening non $ village is usually unwise. I can't tell if you disagree with the latter or if you're saying it's a bad rule b/c the typical case is barely more than half the time or something.
Moreover, you'd do yourself a big favor if you stopped thinking in terms of such simplistic rules entirely, as they are training wheels for newbies that give them a fast way to improve from terrible to merely bad (e.g. this particular "rule" is meant specifically for the village-idiot type), and once you become decent they only hold you back by preventing you from seeing each decision node in Dominion as a unique situation where all possible options should be considered on their own merit, independent of some nonsense you may have read on a forum.
The notable exceptions are when you need the actions but aren't sure you'll hit $4 again soon (Ambassador war and probably some other things), Shanty Town (which is usually not for the Village effect but the draw, this is effectively an economy/cycling card in the early game), and Hamlet (which you often open with just because you hit 5/2, but sometimes you get it so you can use the plus buy to get more Hamlets).
These types of heuristics aren't for noobs only, I use them on a regular basis to evaluate boards and make decisions. They help make complex scenarios more manageable, and focus your thoughts on the important strategic considerations.
They effectively compile the statistical results of a large number of games played by a large number of people.
I've always found that making the rule explicit actually helps me see the exceptional cases.
You might say "Cursers are important" gets you the same effect, and that's probably true, but "Never skip Cursers" also tells you which side to generally err on: buy those Cursers.
And in contrast to what you mentioned, I've always noticed players who are good but not great because they try fancy plays all the time, and pesudo-combos that don't do anything. (Seems we have different minds! Why can't you just think the way I do?!?)
QuoteYou might say "Cursers are important" gets you the same effect, and that's probably true, but "Never skip Cursers" also tells you which side to generally err on: buy those Cursers.
And that last thing is exactly what I see as bad advise. Well, it's great if all you care about is maximizing your win % in your current game, as you almost certainly want to in a tournament match, but outside of those you'd ideally focus not on winning this particular game but on becoming a better player.
And in contrast to what you mentioned, I've always noticed players who are good but not great because they try fancy plays all the time, and pseudo-combos that don't do anything. (Seems we have different minds! Why can't you just think the way I do?!?)