Note: This is a rough draft. I'd love comments on this. I'm glad more dialogue is happening lately on engine building.
Engine Building 201For all the articles written about big money, how often do you play something big-money-ish? Maybe 30%? Less? So lets talk about engine building, because that's what you are going to be doing in roughly 70% of your dominion games. We talk about BM alot because its easy to talk about. Talking about engines is harder because the situations vary so much, but there are general principles that apply to all engine building. Geronimoo also wrote an excellent article on this topic just recently, using the "starting kingdom" as an example:
http://dominionstrategy.com/2012/07/30/building-the-first-game-engine/.
When building an engine, you want to develop the following three things: threats, consistency and economy. This is also roughly the order you want to prioritize the three. Note that these are not mutually exclusive categories, for example, buying a laboratory can be considered as improving all three axes.
AttackingAttacking your opponent is really about denial of resources. Obviously the best and most effective way to do this is with cursers or ambassadors. Indeed the stronger the "attack", the more important it is to focus on this aspect of the game and "win the war". However, any time you have an opportunity to deny resources to your opponent, you should take it. It is important when attacking your oppenent to identify what they need. Your opponent opens potion? Embargo the alchemists. Your opponent has lots of silver in his deck from trader? Maybe you want to play margrave every turn to deny him provinces. Is your opponent building a +actions/+draw chain, and he has already bought a few torturers? Maybe you want to buy out all the hamlets before he can start effectively chaining them. Competing over a key card is a very important part of resource denial, and its important to identify the "lynchpin" resources, whether that is because they are just awesome (wharf), or because they perhaps provide something important for the board, such as a +buy or +actions.
ConsistencyConsistency is about minimizing shuffle luck. The easiest way to do this is with a good trashing, such as remodel, upgrade, or chapel. When you are building an engine, even mediocre trashing such as lookout or remodel can be very useful(though you probably want to avoid develop in most circumstances). You don't need trashing to have consistency though, filtering (warehouse, cellar, cartographer) can either substitute if trashing is not available, or supliment, as its useful in many cases to filter out victory cards even in a "tight" deck. There are a few other odd cards that seek out specific cards, such as golem and hunting party, that can simulate a small deck as well. Finally, you don't neccessarily need a small deck for consistency if you draw nearly all of it, whether that is with tactician, wharf, or some other means. However you do it minimizing turns where you draw copperx2,estate, and two smithies is important.
EconomyEconomy seems like an obvious part of building a deck, but its important to realize what are the long and short term goals for your economy. In the short term are you aiming to buy border village+torturer, or caravans? In the long term are you aiming for 1 province a turn because there's no extra buys, or do you have a plan to gain multiple provinces a turn by remodeling minted golds? In engines you are often being greedy: you want to trash down, draw cards, gain money, actions, +buys, all while attacking your oppoent. Because of this, cards that gain you other engine pieces (remake, horn of plenty, haggler, university), or build your economy quickly (hoard, mint), are an important part of building up either during or after the process of trashing down.
Winning the GameOkay, so these are the basics of building an engine: attacking your opponents resources, making your deck consistent, and building your economy. So how do you actually win the game? I think one of the best ways is to think about how the end of the game might look, and build your deck with that endgame in mind. WanderingWinder wrote a great article about this idea:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3033.0. Generally speaking, games are won or lost for the following reasons: winning a resource battle, better engine choices, or in close games, managing to edge out a victory by piling out or just barely buying the last two provinces. "Attacking" has already been discussed somewhat, although it cannot be stressed how important it is to find weaknesses in your opponents strategy, and exploit them. Lets discuss the other two ways of winning the game.
PacingMaking better engine choices than your opponent means not building your engine in a box, but building based on the cards available AND the choices your oppoents make. The most important consideration is
pacing, or "how long is this game going to be". For instance, if Jack is on the board, and your opponent is buys one, you know you have about 14/15 turns till half the provinces will be gone. In that case, going for alchemist might be a bad idea, where as a faster engine like hunting party + X might be okay, especially if X is something spicy like baron or an attack or monument.
Lets take a sample game to look at the opposite end of the spectrum:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120719-213949-a109baf3.html. Both Sea Hag and Young Witch were available, with Steward as the bane. Other relevant cards include hamlet, rabble, mint and alchemist. I had a suboptimal 5/2 start and decided to open steward/hamlet, to my opponents Hag/Steward. I know at that point that the game is going to be a slog, and even moreso when my oppoent buys a second hag. Instead of joining the curse battle (which I would have lost), I bought a second steward to keep my deck slim, and bought alchmists, which were fantastic in such a slow game, and allowed me to win, along with my minted gold economy.
In fact this is a good time to mention a learning experience of mine when I started playing dominion. I learned early on that cursers make it harder to build engines... which is true. And that buying trashers just to get rid of curses was a bad a idea... which is true. Except that if reasonably strong trashing is present,
and a reasonably good engine is present, neither of these statements are really true at all. In fact, cursers slow the game down so that your engine can have time to build up, and once your engine does start up, it often helps you play your attacks more often. Witch + chapel is good, but witch + chapel + laboratories is even better.
Getting back to pacing, two specific things that can change things are alternate victory cards, and piles that are likely to run out, such as caravans, fishing villages, or minions. In both of these cases, it is important to update your sense of pacing as the game goes on. If your opponent doesn't buy any caravans, they are less likely to run out, or if your opponent is trashing, they probably aren't going to be buying gardens.
ReachFinally, the final way you can win is by just sneaking by your opponent to buy the last two provinces, or buy emptying the estates to three pile. It is important if you think a game is going to be close for you to build your deck with "reach". That is, make sure you have the economy and the +buys to grab multiple victory cards. Perhaps if the game is going to end on piles, you might want to buy an ironworks or a horn of plenty so that you better control when those piles empty out. Multiple hagglers and +buys is an excellent example of this: even though they don't get you victory cards, this combination can often give you the power to say buy the last four islands and at the same time completely clear out another pile. The following was a game where reach was critical:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120717-131556-2933cfd8.html. It featured highway, bridge, horn of plenty, and no trashing. If my opponent had a one more buy he could have won outright instead of tied. Though it didn't quite come together for me, I was trying to focus on reach, with my horn and the extra bridges, while my opponent was focusing a bit more on consistency by focusing on highways and GMs. It was my thought that I could get one big turn, convert my horn into a province and empty and pile or two. It always hard in these situations to be sure what the right way to play is, but you should always have a plan. Of course one should pay attention to how much "reach" your opponent has as well.
ConclusionsIn summary, building an engine is much more complex than simple big money games, but there are general principles you can apply. Attack your opponents resources, find ways to make your deck consistently "fire", and make specific goals for your short term and long term economy needs. As you do this pay attention to how you are going to win the game: "pacing" should strongly impact engine choices as well as when to buy victory cards, and "reach" is critically important, particularly in close or fast paced games.
