226
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Another What's Missing? puzzle
« on: September 03, 2011, 10:37:38 am »I think op has in mind ways you can gain philosopher's stone and masquerade doesn't gain.Upgrade, Remodel, Expand? Doesn't fit.
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227
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Compare the Villages
« on: August 26, 2011, 12:55:32 am »
Coming from someone whose lowest Win Rate Given Avail over all cards is Native Village: NV is horribly undercosted at $2. I don't understand how the general population has better Win Rate Without than Win Rate With.
228
Game Reports / Re: A game you're proud of, and a game you're not.
« on: August 24, 2011, 04:50:12 am »This is one I'm proud off:Ah, I remember this one. Revised link
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201108/20/game-20110820-030330-32505788.html
Contrary to what Davio stated, I *did* have enough in my deck to buy 3 Colonies, if I Throne Room my Salvager! However I failed to draw Salvager upon playing Bazaar on Turn 15, so was faced with a choice of whether to Throne Room my Wharf or not. If I didn't, there is a good chance I fail to draw my Salvager. (Although now that I think about it, perhaps that isn't disastrous at all! So perhaps I went wrong here, who knows.)
Anyhow, after I Throne Room my Wharf (4th Platinum buried thanks to Davio's Spy), I was then faced with a plethora of options: Salvage a Platinum to buy Colony + Province, Salvage a Colony to buy Colony + Colony + Lab, Salvage a Colony to buy Colony + Colony + Duchy, Salvage a Colony to buy Colony + Province + Province, Salvage nothing to buy Province + Province, Salvage nothing to buy Colony + Duchy, ...... Too many choices, and I couldn't analyse them perfectly since I'd lost track of the exact composition of Davio's deck and didn't know how likely it is for him to hit $22. So I punted with Colony + Colony + Lab, which turned out badly for me.
Congrats Davio, well played. It never occurred to me that Workshop could be viable on this board until you demonstrated it.
229
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: What's missing now?
« on: August 24, 2011, 03:32:00 am »The list is: all cards that can be played for +$ greater than the cost of buying the card.I think Venture belongs on the list too, if Bank does..
If the list was a little shorter than it is, I may have changed this slightly to include Baron and Embargo.
And if the logic were slightly amended to "can give +x$ when played" where x is larger than the printed cost on the card, then I say Trusty Steed and Diadem qualify too.
230
Dominion General Discussion / Re: King's Court purchase timing
« on: August 24, 2011, 02:24:57 am »Here's a good example where both of us go through the motions and pick up King's Court without thinking. I win because I pick up the woefully underrated Adventurer and get rid of the KC nice and early.Actually, I think you won because your opponent firstly didn't have a game plan (with 5's he went Upgrade, then Contraband, Stash, Vault, no clear idea what he wanted), and secondly his play is sub-optimal (Turn 10 starting with Copper/Silver/Militia/Warehouse/Upgrade, surely he should play Upgrade first before Warehouse - he ended up not playing Upgrade, so it effectively misses a shuffle). Whereas you have an end-game plan.
Speaking of plans, Upgrading KC's into Provinces (as opposed to buying Provinces) is also a feasible strategy plan on this board, so I would still be picking up KC's over Golds on $7 if I already have some Remakes & Upgrades in my deck...
231
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 11:15:36 pm »
What would make me go Village+Smithy? I would almost certainly consider it if Peddler was available, but the ending deck may contain not very many Smithies.
Village/Smithy/Baron/Peddler/Sea Hag, with no trashing, sounds like a good candidate to try Village/Smithy as the engine?
Village/Smithy/Baron/Peddler/Sea Hag, with no trashing, sounds like a good candidate to try Village/Smithy as the engine?
232
Game Reports / Re: How would you play this setup?
« on: July 27, 2011, 10:38:55 am »Wow, certainly an interesting board. Would have to try it to get a sense of what works and what doesn't, but if opponent gets a Bishop I think I would definitely be going Remake + NV + Mine. Toss Coppers to his Bishops, Remake Estates into Silvers, buy a 2nd Remake, Get Golds, Mine up to Platinums (alternatively, buy Province and Remake those to Platinums), Colony run. Forge when game is winding down, convert NV+Treasure into green card.How/when are you getting NVs?
I also had a few NVs from spare coins after Remaking something, which proved quite useful in the presence of many terminals.
233
Game Reports / Re: 5/2: how would you open here?
« on: July 27, 2011, 10:35:32 am »
Minion is resilient to absence of trashing in the sense that if neither player has access to trashing, and one player goes minions while the other does not, the Minion player can get enough Minion density to get enough $ while cycling his hand.
After opening TP/nothing against Moneylender/Silver, if you don't touch the Minions then opponent is going to get too many of them.
After opening TP/nothing against Moneylender/Silver, if you don't touch the Minions then opponent is going to get too many of them.
234
Game Reports / Re: How would you play this setup?
« on: July 26, 2011, 08:22:14 am »
Wow, certainly an interesting board. Would have to try it to get a sense of what works and what doesn't, but if opponent gets a Bishop I think I would definitely be going Remake + NV + Mine. Toss Coppers to his Bishops, Remake Estates into Silvers, buy a 2nd Remake, Get Golds, Mine up to Platinums (alternatively, buy Province and Remake those to Platinums), Colony run. Forge when game is winding down, convert NV+Treasure into green card.
235
Dominion Articles / Re: Conspirator
« on: July 23, 2011, 03:08:38 am »To have the presence of mind to not trash a Copper so you could buy a Hunting Party is amazing. I would auto-pilot and trash the Copper... but during the buy-phase regret it. Good forseight.Generally, I am at my most alert on Turns 3 to 7 of any game, since this is the time when you have most definite knowledge of your deck and the hands to come. This applies doubly so to mirror Bishop games, since in my experience it is seldom trivial whether to trash on your opponent's Bishops or not!
236
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Never Ending Game?
« on: July 21, 2011, 10:44:41 pm »
It's been brought up on boardgamegeek before; in the King's Court-ed Masquerade pin, your opponent may have managed to Island away more than half of the VPs before you set up your pin. So you never want the game to end.
237
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Must-Buy Cards?
« on: July 21, 2011, 08:19:26 am »
I notice that the vast majority of my 85%+ buys have a negative "effect with"... the ones that don't, excluding Gold and Silver, are:
Tournament (I'm lucky and often win Tournament vs Tournament matches, so sue me)
ISLAND (certainly not expecting this here!)
Mountebank
and that's it. Looks like I really need to stop automatically buying many of my favourite cards.
Tournament (I'm lucky and often win Tournament vs Tournament matches, so sue me)
ISLAND (certainly not expecting this here!)
Mountebank
and that's it. Looks like I really need to stop automatically buying many of my favourite cards.
238
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Small hand, big gain...
« on: July 20, 2011, 10:20:59 am »
3-player game, your island mat contains 12 Islands, 11 Dukes, 9 Gardens, 12 Fairgrounds, and 4 other unique cards that are not Trade Route or Duchy, and you have a Trade Route in hand. So that makes 49 cards, 9 uniques. You play your Trade Route and buy 2 Duchies. This scores: +6 (Duchies themselves), +9 (Gardens), +22 (Dukes), +24 (Fairgrounds), for a total of +61VP.
I would have liked to have another Duke and one less Garden, but that would have run out the game on piles. You can get around this in a 5-player game I think, but I'm not sure of the rules there.
I would have liked to have another Duke and one less Garden, but that would have run out the game on piles. You can get around this in a 5-player game I think, but I'm not sure of the rules there.
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Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Small hand, big gain...
« on: July 20, 2011, 01:42:37 am »
Add appropriate number of Gardens and/or Fairgrounds and filler cards to your Island mat too, because hey you can KC Islands and set aside 3 other cards per Island.
240
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Tournament-shy
« on: July 19, 2011, 08:45:29 am »
This assumes a situation where the Tournament player will choose differently depending on whether you reveal a Province? Cos if he's taking a Duchy anyway, it doesn't affect e.g. your Trade Route. The challenge here will be to demonstrate a situation where the Tournament player's choice is affected by whether you reveal...
Another solution: you know your opponent's hand is King's Court, Tournament, Tournament, Province, Pawn. He plays Tournament first, discarding Province (assume all 4 Action prizes are gone). If you deny him now, he will surely KC his Pawn. Since you are a tricksy one, you withhold your Province for the time being, hoping that he will KC his Tournament...
Another solution: you know your opponent's hand is King's Court, Tournament, Tournament, Province, Pawn. He plays Tournament first, discarding Province (assume all 4 Action prizes are gone). If you deny him now, he will surely KC his Pawn. Since you are a tricksy one, you withhold your Province for the time being, hoping that he will KC his Tournament...
241
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Tournament-shy
« on: July 19, 2011, 07:39:45 am »
If the Tournament player is revealing a Province, he will not be reshuffling unless he chooses to gain a Duchy when none are available, or he chooses to gain a prize with none left.
For some reason, you know his whole hand and he knows that you have an Ambassador in hand, but doesn't know anything else of importance in your hand. He has $0 in treasure, two conflicting terminal actions in hand, but no +2 Actions card and so can't play both (Trusty Steed is gone, and either he can't refuse to gain anything or the top card on his deck doesn't help him). One of the terminals gets him to $8 and a Province buy (say Counting House); the other is Possession. You really don't want him to know that you have a Province in hand, so that he may be tempted to play his Counting House and not his Possession...
For some reason, you know his whole hand and he knows that you have an Ambassador in hand, but doesn't know anything else of importance in your hand. He has $0 in treasure, two conflicting terminal actions in hand, but no +2 Actions card and so can't play both (Trusty Steed is gone, and either he can't refuse to gain anything or the top card on his deck doesn't help him). One of the terminals gets him to $8 and a Province buy (say Counting House); the other is Possession. You really don't want him to know that you have a Province in hand, so that he may be tempted to play his Counting House and not his Possession...
242
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Early remake, coppers -> trash or estates -> 3 cost
« on: July 19, 2011, 01:53:22 am »
I will champion the idea that Remaking your 2nd Estate into your 3rd Silver (assuming you started Remake/Silver) is worth less than trashing your first Copper.
243
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Village/Smithy: A thought experiment
« on: July 19, 2011, 01:46:10 am »
Playing Village + Smithy has the same effect as playing 2 Labs. And Lab seems to be receiving quite a lot of love around here.
Of course PURE Village + Smithy doesn't do well, you need to buy money in conjunction with it. Just like a PURE Lab deck which buys only Labs, with no Silver or no Gold (if I recall correctly, there's a graph showing that a Lab advantage has a higher correlation with win rate than a Gold advantage) will never buy Provinces with only $7 in the deck. But I think a single Silver is often sufficient, say opening with Silver/Smithy and after that just getting Provinces, Golds, Villages and Smithies (not that you expect many hands of <$6 after the first reshuffle) does better than you give it credit for. Certainly with a Silver/Smithy opening you expect to pick up a Gold on Turn 3/4 more often than not, which also diminishes the value of Silver thereon.
Of course PURE Village + Smithy doesn't do well, you need to buy money in conjunction with it. Just like a PURE Lab deck which buys only Labs, with no Silver or no Gold (if I recall correctly, there's a graph showing that a Lab advantage has a higher correlation with win rate than a Gold advantage) will never buy Provinces with only $7 in the deck. But I think a single Silver is often sufficient, say opening with Silver/Smithy and after that just getting Provinces, Golds, Villages and Smithies (not that you expect many hands of <$6 after the first reshuffle) does better than you give it credit for. Certainly with a Silver/Smithy opening you expect to pick up a Gold on Turn 3/4 more often than not, which also diminishes the value of Silver thereon.
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Early remake, coppers -> trash or estates -> 3 cost
« on: July 19, 2011, 12:23:40 am »
This may be a crazy idea, but what about trashing one copper and turning one estate into a silver, instead of trashing 2 coppers or remaking 2 estates?
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Village/Smithy: A thought experiment
« on: July 18, 2011, 04:51:00 am »
(1) I disagree with your analysis for 3rd card, and perhaps even with your 2nd card. If you buy a 2nd Smithy, you now have more ways to make your Smithies collide (drawn together in same hand of 5, or Smithy A draws Smithy B, or Smithy B draws Smithy A). With a Village, only one of those is happening. Certainly when it comes to the third card with 2 Smithies, Village is helping loads.
(2) Just because your general strategy is Village/Smithy doesn't mean that you're barred from buying a single Silver (or Tournament).
(2) Just because your general strategy is Village/Smithy doesn't mean that you're barred from buying a single Silver (or Tournament).
246
Rules Questions / Re: Masquerade and Watchtower
« on: July 18, 2011, 02:21:01 am »Originally Masquerade counted as both gaining and trashing. Valerie didn't like how it was gaining without gaining and trashing without trashing. To me gaining meant "now it's yours" and trashing meant "now it isn't," but to Valerie gaining meant "take it and put it into your discard pile" and trashing meant "move it to the trash." She could see it being that you gained the card but didn't trash it, but I felt it should be both or neither. So it's neither.Interesting how possessed masquerades would work otherwise.
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Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Grand Market
« on: July 18, 2011, 02:08:25 am »
Why is it Contraband gets mentioned, but not Quarry ?
248
Game Reports / Re: Another interesting combo
« on: July 09, 2011, 11:25:16 am »
This combo deserves an article on the main blog. With fast trashing or pseudo-trashing, Stashes mean perfect shuffles! And Stash/NV looks even better than Stash/Chapel, which I just encountered...
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Game Reports / Re: Crazy Remake Strategy Works
« on: July 07, 2011, 06:22:05 am »
If your plan is to trash fast in the beginning without regard for buying, would Remake/Loan have been better than Remake/Silver?
250
Dominion Articles / Re: Conspirator
« on: July 07, 2011, 04:52:33 am »
Double-Province turns = 8 Conspirators/Festivals, unless you're also buying Treasure. Is this faster, or the simpler Wharf/Gold engine (possibly with Festival and/or HP support) faster?