Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Jorbles on November 14, 2011, 02:51:59 pm
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In a Prosperity game (ie. one with Platinums and Colonies) is it ever worth it to try and rush the game and go for Provinces instead of waiting until you can hit $11 and go for Colonies? It's something I've always wondered about. I've tried it on a few specific boards with mixed success, but was wondering how the forum would weigh in on this.
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Generally, going for provinces is not going to work very well, with the big contributing factor being that your basic province strategies are usually a lot slower when they need to get all 8 as opposed to 4 or 5, and this gives the colony-seeking player a good chance. But this is pretty board-dependent, and there are a good number of situations where going for provinces is the right thing. The issue is, usually when provinces are better, they're a little bit better, but when they're worse, they can be a LOT worse
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I can think of two situations where I went for Provinces and think it was a good idea to go for Provinces over Colonies.
The first and probably most likely situation to do this was a Curse game that looked like it was going to end on piles before either of us could get to Colonies.
The second was a game where I had a super turn and could end the game by buying up the Provinces, but wouldn't have been able to afford the Colonies and end it.
Are there other situations that people can think of?
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One word: Tournament.
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One word: Tournament.
And Explorer! ;D
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I recently had a goon-ghost ship game with embargoed platinum. My strategy was to go for provinces.
It didnt work out because my opponent loaded up noble brigands and we three piled duchies, goons, pearl diver.
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Provinces can be good if your opponents aren't expecting it, especially with an accelerator like remodel or salvager (ie. trash a province to get another province if you have nothing better to do, simply to speed the way to the end). Remodel can be particularly useful (or at least it has in some of my games) in that having numerous 6 cards (eg grand market) as part of a a thundering great deck is more common in colony games, so some times you can bag a several provinces really quickly. As mentioned though, it's certainly not an even split between whether to go provinces or colonies, provinces is more considered and context-specific choice.
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One word: Tournament.
I don't think this would actually work in a pure (Tournaments, plus Prizes) way. Even with the added benefits of a Trusty Steed or Followers you're going to have a really tough time finishing the game when you're all bogged down with green, while your opponent racks up points with a colony engine. If your opponent can get to five colonies (50 points) before you get all eight provinces (48 points) you are in trouble. I'm mostly just speaking from my gut though, I tend to ignore Tournaments (or just treat them as any other Cantrip) in Colony games.
You can counter this by getting Duchies, but this is just going to make finishing the game fast even tougher as you'll end up with even more garbage hands.
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A dogged Hoard rush (focusing primarily on Provinces) can be fast enough to beat a Colony deck, as long as there's not some other powerful and fast engine available.
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You know, I'd be interested to see how the ultimate great-for-province not-for-colony rusher, JoaT, would do against a weak colony strategy
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You know, I'd be interested to see how the ultimate great-for-province not-for-colony rusher, JoaT, would do against a weak colony strategy
If you consider islands + treasure to be weak then it's about as good as a weak colony strategy, according to the simulator.
There are plenty of occasions when it may be better to go for provinces but they're all exception cases and hard to quantify. I had 3 or 4 games in one week where I successfully ignored the colonies but I've hardly used the tactics since. One of those games I mentioned was against pirate ships and the other against cities. Both situations could crop up again.
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You know, I'd be interested to see how the ultimate great-for-province not-for-colony rusher, JoaT, would do against a weak colony strategy
i lost hard with theory playing exactly this strategy against me on a board without much going for the colonies. there was no time for platinum.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111103-120202-bbef64ed.html
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Hi ehunt,
you bought Provinces in this game. I doubt you should do that, since his deck should slow down and struggle gaining the last two Provinces. Even more if you would have bought Embargo in turn 3 and 5 after seeing that theory goes for Jack-> Provinces.
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I think there are some games in which going for Colony isn't really an option, no matter how hard you try.
Curse or Saboteur/Swindler heavy games come to mind. In those games, it's crucial that you're the first one to notice it and switch to Provinces. It may be hard to clear the entire pile on your own, but you can regularly 3-pile while ahead (Duchies and or Estates for example).
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Hi ehunt,
you bought Provinces in this game. I doubt you should do that, since his deck should slow down and struggle gaining the last two Provinces. Even more if you would have bought Embargo in turn 3 and 5 after seeing that theory goes for Jack-> Provinces.
Yeah, my tactics were definitely wrong in that game, although I still suspect his strategy would be dominant on a board with so little hope for a good colony buying deck. I didn't realize he was going for a province rush till too late, thinking instead that he had made a mistake and underestimated how much the silvers would keep him from buying colonies.
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3-4 player games!
Two players can conspire to empty the Province pile and beat one or two colony players.
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How about Vault? The fact that Vault + Gold = Province, but not necessarily Platinum and Vault + Platinum is not necessarily a Colony should help out.
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Vault + Platinum + Silver = Colony
All it takes is to draw one card which is better than a copper in addition to drawing the Platinum. There probably isn't a very large difference.
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I am aware of that, but it is not just the fact that you need Platinum + Silver, it is just the concept of needing that for a Province, you need $2 beyond the $1 per card, but for Colony you need $5 beyond the initial $1 per card. I imagine that Colonies would be considerably slower, but I doubt slow enough to make Provinces better. Throw in a cursing attack, and it could obviously be a whole new game.
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You also need to consider that you need something better than Copper for Vault + Gold to net you a Platinum.
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Ran some sims with Vault, and Vault definitely goes better grabbing platinum/colony than trying for a province rush.