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51

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Scout/Great Hall - what makes it worthwhile?

« on: January 12, 2012, 07:40:55 pm »

I agree. Tribute suffers, similarly. Scout and Tribute are designed to thrive on Nobles, Great Hall, and Harem. People online are beginning to think of these as bad cards - because in the Isotropic environment, they genuinely are. But if you've ever seen a Tribute flip a Nobles and a Province, it becomes the equivalent of two Laboratories and a Trusty Steed, all in a single card. That is beyond-dominant.

52

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What's the difference between a level 30 and a level 40 player?

« on: January 12, 2012, 07:08:09 pm »

Tahtweasel's post is cool and all, but be wary of FPS (Fancy Play Syndrome). I feel that quite a lot of the +30 (and even +40) suffer a bit from FPS where they want to combine all these cool actions or win in an unconventional matter while some boards are really not suited for those kinds of shenanigans.

Of course, the only thing at stake is your rating and not your huge chip stack in a poker tournament for real money, so I'd say: if you're having fun, go nuts and play as fancily as you can!

I agree that I'm probably influenced a little bit by the joy of using Thief or Bureaucrat correctly. I use them in 3% and 7% of games, respectively, but maybe it should be more like 2.5% and 5%. But I'm better-off than a player who never uses them.

I'd say that the primary "fancy play syndrome" cards are ones like Highway. I can actually think of games where my opponent and I reached 4 provinces in 17 turns, despite having no attacks and Smithy on the board. Your simulator would have been ashamed of us.

Lastly, probably 70% of games between high-level players are mirror matches, where the players are executing identical strategies with almost-even tactical ability. My first post ignored these games because I can't offer much advice on winning them. "Try to draw 2 Estates with your Chapel on turn 3 or 4" isn't very helpful.

Bureaucrat is legitimately useful way more than 7 percent of the time; I'd put it at almost 20 percent these days, though it was way less than that pre-Hinterlands. 

I think by now you all know how often I consider Thief to be a useful card.

Looking at your stats, it appears that you have probably gotten more thieves from Swindler than you have actually bought on your own.

53

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What's the difference between a level 30 and a level 40 player?

« on: January 12, 2012, 07:07:27 pm »

And as for FPS, last night I did this: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120111-162402-4dae122d.html. Provinces? What Provinces? I'm just going to spend all game building up on lots and lots of cantrips and no money!

That's excellent play, and not FPS at all. Hamlet is one of the absolute best linchpins of a Vineyards strategy. It's a cheap cantrip that gives you +buys to get more cheap cantrips.

Vineyards is a great strategy in long games. Province stalls in long games. You took him to 21 turns, and he wasn't prepared for that. WP.

54

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What's the difference between a level 30 and a level 40 player?

« on: January 12, 2012, 05:27:33 pm »

Tahtweasel's post is cool and all, but be wary of FPS (Fancy Play Syndrome). I feel that quite a lot of the +30 (and even +40) suffer a bit from FPS where they want to combine all these cool actions or win in an unconventional matter while some boards are really not suited for those kinds of shenanigans.

Of course, the only thing at stake is your rating and not your huge chip stack in a poker tournament for real money, so I'd say: if you're having fun, go nuts and play as fancily as you can!

I agree that I'm probably influenced a little bit by the joy of using Thief or Bureaucrat correctly. I use them in 3% and 7% of games, respectively, but maybe it should be more like 2.5% and 5%. But I'm better-off than a player who never uses them.

I'd say that the primary "fancy play syndrome" cards are ones like Highway. I can actually think of games where my opponent and I reached 4 provinces in 17 turns, despite having no attacks and Smithy on the board. Your simulator would have been ashamed of us.

Lastly, probably 70% of games between high-level players are mirror matches, where the players are executing identical strategies with almost-even tactical ability. My first post ignored these games because I can't offer much advice on winning them. "Try to draw 2 Estates with your Chapel on turn 3 or 4" isn't very helpful.

55

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What's the difference between a level 30 and a level 40 player?

« on: January 12, 2012, 04:36:59 pm »

I like it quite a bit actually, as a psuedo +Buy, when the conditions are right (no great terminals, not getting $5 or $6 isn't a death knell).

Other key characteristics of a pro-Smugglers game:

• Actions are cheap
• Everyone agrees that certain cards are very good and should be picked up

The ideal setup for Smugglers would be something like Caravan, Highway, Fishing Village, Laboratory, Steward, Smugglers, and four useless Kingdom cards.

56

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What's the difference between a level 30 and a level 40 player?

« on: January 12, 2012, 04:27:08 pm »

I stand corrected. You're not the author of the "Fun With Popular Buys: Card Power Levels" article that appeared on DominionStrategy, which placed Smugglers in the "What Were You Thinking?" category.

57

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What's the difference between a level 30 and a level 40 player?

« on: January 12, 2012, 03:53:49 pm »

View from level 39: I am strongest when I completely flout all of the conventional wisdom of the game. I am strongest when I refuse to buy Province, or buy weird cards that everyone hates, or use Throne-roomed Feasts as a makeshift source of +buy on a Highway set.


Here are two important pieces of anti-conventional wisdom:

1. The game length is extremely variable.

I know that sometimes, Province is a trap card. I love watching people build for a 14-turn game and realize that I've turned it into a 29-turn game. I buy Provinces significantly less often than my opponents, despite winning 2/3 of my games. Sometimes Goons, Monument, Bishop, Gardens, Duke, Vineyard, Ambassador, Rabble, Saboteur, or Silk Road can totally change the landscape of the game and drag it out too long.

Some strategy article writers make a big point of comparing your strategy to a 13-turn, 4-province baseline. All well and good. But what if I refuse to meet you on the other side? Rabble-Ghost Ship-Monument-Fishing Village. I don't even touch the Provinces. Have fun with your 3-dead-card hands.


I'm also willing to dramatically shorten a game. I've feasted a curse to run the pile out, and I've won games -1 to -7. I don't care if my wins are pretty.

2. "Bad cards" are good more often than we'd like to admit. Some "Good" cards are bad more often than we'd like to admit.

Some of my best cards are practically a who's who of cards that level 30 players have dutifully learned to stay away from or be wary of. Theory's articles [Edit: articles published on DominionStrategy that weren't actually written by Theory] will tell you that Smugglers is a very bad card. This is a white lie to help new players, who fall for it as a trap card. Smugglers is a bad card in 70% of games. In the other 30% - well, you know those games where you get reduced to a sputtering rage because your opponent keeps getting "free" copies of the Wharves and Festivals you "worked so hard for?" Yeah, I'm that guy. Smugglers is one of my three best cards given available. I buy it in 30% of games, but I buy it in the right 30%. I'm similarly strong with Black Market and Outpost, which are also commonly considered traps because they're overrated by new players.

Some of my cards for best Win Rate With? Thief(!) is actually #1, with Stash, Explorer, Bureaucrat, Noble Brigand, and Oracle up there as well. I only rarely gain these cards (3%, 7%, 7%, 6%, 11%, 24%) but I do so in the games where they actually are worthwhile.

My best win rates without: Gardens, Alchemist, Militia, Farmland, Hoard, Smugglers, Silk Road, Secret Chamber, Ghost Ship, Apprentice.

Seven of those are incredibly powerful cards I love to have in my deck in most games. (Smugglers, SC, and Farmland aren't particularly powerful.) The difference between me and a level 30 player is that I buy these powerful cards less often than they do, because I see something that they don't about the shape of the board.

If you see a level 40 player buying Ghost Ship, you should be worried. If you see a level 40 player skipping Ghost Ship, you should be terrified.

58

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Scout/Great Hall - what makes it worthwhile?

« on: January 12, 2012, 02:02:30 pm »

Scout is rarely or never a linchpin of a strategy. It is a card you maybe pick up when you're stalling a little bit because of green, and you don't want a silver.

59

Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $4 cards Part 2/3 posted

« on: January 12, 2012, 01:59:41 pm »

Think of Spy as an inferior version of Caravan. It strictly improves 95% of decks, by self-replacing with a couple of small extra benefits. I agree that those benefits are inferior to Caravan's benefit (1 card next turn) but not by nearly as much as people seem to think. They go bonkers for Caravan and hate Spy.

There are some games where no card below $5 improves your deck after a certain point. Cards like Spy, Pearl Diver, Great Hall, Caravan, and the villages can rectify that, and modestly improve your deck without hurting anything.

There's a point to these cards - they're just not openers. They're alternatives to Silver.

Cards that Spy helps out with: Conspirator, Scrying Pool, Vineyards, Peddler, Jester, Swindler, Tunnel.

60

Help! / Re: What's the strategy for Trusty Steed?

« on: January 04, 2012, 02:18:18 pm »

Trusty Steed is a perfectly nice card, and there are edge cases where it's really nice, but rarely do I build a strategy around it.

An example of where it's very important could be a game with, say, Hunting Party, Goons, and Chapel, but no +actions. The Hunting Parties likely let you draw the Steed every turn. Steed gives you the incredibly strong ability to double up on your Goons, or both trash and play Goons in the same turn.

Steed doesn't do many things brilliantly; he's just a great card that you can get for free.

In contrast, the other cards are far more board-dependent. Followers is the strongest, but not if there are other curse givers. Sometimes even having another strong handsize reducer plus trashing is enough to make it useless. In a game with Village, Wharf, Ghost Ship, and Chapel, Followers is weak.

Princess is dependent on how action-heavy you are and how many cards you want to buy per turn.

Bag of Gold is terrifying when paired with, say, Salvager or Apprentice, and it holds up pretty well in action-based decks with strong drawing and +buy. It's bad when you're trying to build a lean attacking machine deck. (For example, if you already have Followers, and want to play it as much as possible, the golds can actually be nearly a net negative.)

Diadem only becomes a monster in a few sorts of games (typically games with King's Court and nonterminals) but it's often great in a +actions/+cards engine. If you don't have +actions, avoid it entirely, but if you do, it is at very least a "why the hell not?" card most of the time.

61

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Exception to the Rule, Part 5

« on: December 29, 2011, 01:08:38 pm »

I have played a colony game with King's Court, Highway, Feast, various powerful draw cards, and no +buy. Believe it or not, the correct strategy was to King's Court your feasts into stuff.

62

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: December 22, 2011, 04:44:35 pm »

SMITHY BETTER THAN SILVER

HAREM BETTER THAN NOBLES

63

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Thought Experiment: No Waste Dominion

« on: December 07, 2011, 02:37:21 pm »

Big money would become disgustingly dominant, because it is one of the few strategies not massively disadvantaged by the forced buy.

64

Dominion Articles / Re: Three-sentence overview of each card in Hinterlands

« on: November 10, 2011, 01:04:48 pm »

But in general, a gold is much better than a lab.

It isn't gold vs lab. It's TERMINAL gold vs lab.

65

Dominion General Discussion / Re: 5/2 start with no $2: When would you buy a Copper?

« on: November 02, 2011, 06:18:24 pm »

I have opened ironworks/copper with a 5/2 in a gardens game. I doubt there's a strong difference between it and ironworks/nothing, though.

66

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Make "Bad" Cards Shine!

« on: August 14, 2011, 10:04:47 am »

Thief is bad but tremendously underrated. It's quite useful when the opponent has some copper trashing but is still reliant on cash to win. I think it's better than the rest of the cards on YOUR list, as well as outpost, and transmute.

Thief is among the best two or three action cards in Gardens games. It's one of the few ways to change your advantage in deck size by 2 with a single action. (Possessed Ambassador is another. There might be a couple more that I haven't thought of yet.)

We think of workshop and ironworks as being great gardens cards because it costs an action to gain a card. Thief usually gains a card *and* takes one away from the opponent.

67

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Can you beat the Lucky Chancellor ?

« on: August 11, 2011, 10:55:51 pm »

A possible set people haven't tried yet: Chapel, Goons, Wharf, Village, Bridge, Iron Works, Nobles, Watchtower, King's Court, Chancellor. You need 52 points, which will mostly come from copper, purchased and trashed through watchtower. You have to reliably draw your whole deck, otherwise bad things can happen.

68

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Can you beat the Lucky Chancellor ?

« on: August 11, 2011, 10:46:09 pm »

Do you get to choose whether you start 5-2 or 4-3?

69

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Treasure Map in mid game?

« on: July 21, 2011, 08:14:26 pm »

Treasure maps create good bishop fuel.

70

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Never Ending Game?

« on: July 21, 2011, 08:07:29 pm »

Golem, Farming Village, Possession, Chapel. Both players have all their money trashed. (This is actually optimal because your opponent can play your deck more often than you can.)

This sort of game actually is never-ending, and absolutely can happen.

71

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Combo: Horse Traders/Library

« on: July 07, 2011, 07:58:36 pm »

Masquerade is key in a KC game, to the point that both of you clearly should have opened silver/masquerade. That combo is very nifty, of course, and horse traders also works well with minion, menagerie, or watchtower.