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51

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions

« on: April 17, 2015, 08:29:23 am »

Stables and Crossroads - one of my favorite draw engines.

52

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Discussion about the Dominion meta

« on: April 16, 2015, 09:09:45 pm »

Work with the heuristics that you have and that you have a dominating control over like "losing a rook is bad" and "Don't buy Counting House in a Mountebankless Province game".

FTFY

FTFY

53

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Discussion about the Dominion meta

« on: April 16, 2015, 04:42:02 pm »

There comes a point in your Dominion career where in order to get better you have to start questioning top-level players. I started doing this maybe 6 months ago and I kinda wish I had started sooner, I think I might have gotten better at the game more quickly than I have been.

I'm at the height of my Dominion career now (25 on the leaderboard) and you should see the mistakes I make -- just this past weekend I missed a pretty embarrassing forced win in a league match and almost lost the game because of it -- I don't think it's practical to assume that the best people in the world never make mistakes.

At best you outplay the best people in the world (which makes you better at the game and feels REALLY good) and at worst you lose and you ask them why, and I don't know of any of them that wouldn't tell you their thoughts on why. Whether or not you believe them is something you have to decide but we aren't so competitive around here that we hold onto our advice so we don't give out advantages to people. No, we write articles and get +1s.

In general, this should come pretty soon. As Mic often says, we don't know what we're doing - it's just that we tend to not know it a little bit better.

54

General Discussion / Re: Maths thread.

« on: April 16, 2015, 02:01:47 pm »

There's that Albert, Bernard, Cheryl puzzle going around. Someone shared a harder one that doesn't seem to have a solution. I modified it a bit, and I think it should have a single solution now:

Albert and Bernard, two nerdy logic geniuses, have just become friends with Cheryl, a girl with a very peculiar sense of humour. They ask her when her birthday is, but instead, she tells Albert the sum of the month and the day of her birthday, and she tells Bernard the product, then she scurries off to flirt with a jock while the other two try to outnerd each other.

Albert: I don't know when Cheryl's birthday is, but I know that Bernard does not know too.

Bernard: Not only didn't I know when Cheryl's birthday was before, but I still don't know now, and I don't even know if we will ever be able to know.

Albert: Even after what you just said, I still don't know if we will ever be able to know either.

Bernard: Same here.

Albert: Now I know Cheryl's birthday!

Can you deduce Cheryl's birthday too?

Oooh, this looks interesting. Let's start: Albert doesn't know Cheryl's birthday, so it's not 1/1, 30/12 or 31/12, which have unique sums.

He also knows that Bernard doesn't know it, so the date can't have a unique product. Thus the day cannot be 17, 19, 23, 29 or 31 - because those days would generate unique products - and Albert must be able to tell that from the sum. Thus the sum of the day and month must be less than or equal to 17.

We can also rule out 14 - 7/7 would make a product of 49, and no other date makes that product.

55

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Discussion about the Dominion meta

« on: April 16, 2015, 09:58:13 am »

In my experience:

• A much stronger player is still going to outplay a weaker player even with a worse 'strategy' quite a bit of the time, so long as the 'worse strategy' isn't way, way worse (in which case, they would just play that better 'strategy'). Naturally assuming that [weak player] can play ANY strategy as well as [strong player] seems to be, well, a poor assumption. So I don't buy skipping Hag for that reason (there are lots of other reasons).
• Playing something wacky and experimental has more to do with your mood (and potentially how much importance you play in the match e.g. for a tournament, possibly if you are streaming or not) than the rating of your opponent.
• Mirroring opening buys to try to copy your opponent tends to be a really bad plan. At some point you can't, and then you don't know what they're doing as well as they do, and you do something pretty sub-optimal (or you do know what they're doing, in which case you're just playing a strategy, and not inherently mirroring them). You basically lock-in to playing a worse version of their strategy.
• As a stronger player, pretty much the only way I am 'taking advantage' of a weaker player's weakness is to just play the (normal) best game I can. Going out of my way means I am actually playing sub-optimally, which, more or less, is just worse. The only possible exception is that there are sometimes more swindle chances by heading for some weird scenario once I have already gotten way behind.

56

Dominion League / Re: WW disconnecting

« on: April 15, 2015, 05:59:23 pm »

I

If you really want my opinion on the forum, here it is.

In your game with Tao Chen you disconnected in a game state that gives you about 2% chance to win.

First of all, his screen name is now hdu88 everywhere, so I would imagine he'd prefer if you called him that, but that's really an aside.
What actually happened is a matter of public knowledge. Anyone can go look at the stream. They don't have to take my word for it, they don't have to take your word for it. They can look themselves.

At this point the only reasonable thing to do is resign.

I actually think that's rather debatable, but not really a point I'm interested in debating here.

In the heat of the moment you overestimated your chances to 10%-20%. This can happen. If I disconnect on 10-20% I would still resign

This is just so clearly untrue. You can be behind this much turn 5, you wouldn't want to resign. There is so much game to play out! It's about playing the game, you need to be able to convert that advantage. I've definitely won games where I should have been further behind than this because my opponent screwed up. Is it fair to assume he will? Of course not. But it's not really fair to necessarily assume he won't.

but I can understand that maybe you want something that is slightly better then just resigning. Your opponent also clearly thought he was ahead

which isn't in dispute at any time, nor was it ever. Repeating it implies that I contested that, which I did not. This is slanderous by implication.

but you kept reciting points why you maybe weren't losing.

This is simply not true. This clearly, BLATANTLY false. Here's the transcript:

Code: [Select]

Wandering Winder: lost internet :(
hdu88: :(
hdu88: it feels like i had that game, but i'm not sure how many points you could gain per turn
Wandering Winder: not that many, but you still had some junk in your deck?
hdu88: i had a curse and a silver i think
hdu88: possibly a copper, i don't remember
Wandering Winder: 2 curses
Wandering Winder: 2 silvers
hdu88: ah
hdu88: yeah, not sure who would win then
Wandering Winder: I am probably losing, but I don't think it's totally certain
Wandering Winder: trying to check the log
Wandering Winder: thing is, I need you to stall out a turn
Wandering Winder: and then I think I have very good chances
Wandering Winder: you are a favorite to not stall
Wandering Winder: but it isn't impossible
hdu88: I actually have a decent chance of stalling given what I discarded

And it was at that point I stopped digging into the log and suggested a replay, given that he himself had claimed a decent chance of stalling. It was after checking the log later and seeing that this thought of his was actually wrong, and he very clearly wasn't stalling this turn, and very likely not stalling the next, that I just gave up the game. I think it's very clear here that I didn't keep reciting reasons why I didn't think I was losing. I in fact say that I am probably losing. I give one reason I think I might not be absolutely dead lost (he has some junk) then clarify the facts as to the composition of his deck (since I had the log open by then and he presumably did not). And I give a reason why I am probably losing (I *need* him to stall), and claim that while it isn't impossible (this is true, though not to the extent I thought it was at the time, as I hadn't worked out what was left in his shuffle or even his hand yet), I also state very clearly that he is a favorite to not stall. I'm clearly not trying to claim I am not in a bad spot, only that I am not dead lost, not as lost as I would be to resign. Since I wouldn't resign that game, I think it is rather brutish to try to force me into resigning it - yet if he felt certain enough, I probably would have (to avoid the hassle if anything). Certainly it didn't actually take much more time at the log for me to come to that conclusion hey.

In doing so you ignored the opinion of all the players in the chat.

Of course I did! This is not a match between me, hdu88, and the players in my chat. Those players are not involved. Their opinions are entirely irrelevant. They do not know how we would play. And they aren't involved in the match - they have no say. Perhaps the bigger point is that YOU WERE THE ONLY PLAYER IN MY CHAT WHO OFFERED AN OPINION DURING THIS PERIOD (yes, Mic offered one later, but by then I had already minimized chat and moved on), so essentially you are saying "BUT YOU IGNORED MY OPINION HERE". Yes, yes I did. You aren't the center of the universe.

Then you suggested replaying this game, thus giving yourself 50% chance to win it. This I considered and still do consider very unsportsmanlike.

I heartily disagree. I think the way to go really is to have the default position be to replay the game unless one player or other offered to resign (or there is a forced win). Obviously there is no perfect solution. Actually awarding the game, if not entirely won, to any player, definitively deprives the other of some win equity. Even me taking that 3-3 here is depriving my of my ~2%, and hey that's not nothing. It isn't worth the hassle, I agree. But in fact this is one of the most clear cases where I can just resign (and after realizing There is no rule to contradict it in league rules - I have read them, and I actually went and re-read them. There was nothing. In this case, I don't see how trying to come up with a solution with my opponent is unsportsmanlike - in fact, it seems the only option left open to me. Consulting with a third party when he was not would seem to me to be less fair. And I especially don't see how you think it unsportsmanlike when I am clearly not just trying to rip an advantage - it was pretty quickly after the match ended (less than 15 minutes between the post time and last edit of the OP here) that I asked to just lose the game. I actually don't think that is anything but sportsmanlike behaviour, and again, barring hdu88's objection, I actually think I would have been within my rights to claim 4-2. I don't want to do that, after coming to the conclusion that I was so close to dead lost, because I don't think it is actually fair to him. But in general, having the players agree must always be the best and most fair way of resolving anything, and other measures must ONLY be taken if there is unresolved disagreement between the two.

So much that it completely baffled me. The main reason I didn't want to drag this out on the forum is because I didn't want to publicly shame you for it. The fact that you suggested a 3-3 yourself a day later really helped.

Again, your facts are simply wrong here, unless you want to claim that it's somehow important that midnight Eastern Daylight time was crossed, despite neither relevant person living in that time zone (yet only the forum server). It was like 15 minutes after the match ended, not "a day later".

I don't know where you thought I made too much of a fuzz about this.

If by "fuzz" you mean "fuss", as I am assuming you do:

"this feels very wrong to me"
"I guess I'll think about it for a while before doing anywhting [sic]"
"I don't really feel like continuing to listen to him now so good night"
"I have a lot more respect for people who make mistakes and correct them then for those that "are never wrong"" (implying that I claim I am never wrong, which I have never done (okay, I have done so in very obvious jest before, usually after making a very clearly wrong statement); but indeed, you are the one who comes much closer to claiming your certitude and correctness)
"I was very pissed off about this entire affair"


^^Those

Sportsmanlike behavior and fun are both very important things to me for the league. I really don't like it when a public figure in the community breaks it this badly. Simply letting it pass unnoticed was never an option for me. Dragging it out like this is mostly on your own account.

Also, you clearly have misunderstood something about how the league is run. The league organization actually does get to decide.

If Adam, Andrew and I tomorrow decide that all players whose first name starts with an A or and S get 5 free points every season, then that's what it's going to be.

Yeah, I definitely resign from your league IMMEDIATELY. That's ridiculous.

And sure people can decide they don't like that rule and try to talk some sense into us. If someone has something sensible to suggest I usually do listen - at least I like to think so. But in the end I organize the league to the best of my ability, and then it's up to everybody else do decide if they want to be part of it.

The big point here is that none of that stuff is in the rules. Indeed, there's nothing to say that you three have any special power at all, except to make and edit posts, and even that isn't really written anywhere. The league started with a discussion of rules with voting on key issues. I guess after that you just preferred to rule by fiat.

I don't like rule by fiat.

If you're wondering, yes, this is the cleaned up version. I could have said many more unkind things very easily.


(Edited to clean-up a mis-matched quote block issue)

57

Dominion League / Re: WW disconnecting

« on: April 15, 2015, 08:45:54 am »

I will discuss this matter with WanderingWinder, Tao Chen and the other league organizers through PMs before discussing it further on the forum.

The whole thing was handled disturbingly unprofessionally. I do want to say that hdu88 himself has been nothing but a perfect gentleman, moreso than one could expect, so kudos to him.

I really don't know what you're trying to accomplish here. If you have more to say about it to me, please do PM me. I still think nothing good can come from dragging this out on the forum, but if a lot of people are interested in all the ins and outs about this maybe we have to.

In the meanwhile we will come up with some guidelines in the league rules to handle future disconnects more smoothly.

This post is emblematic of the whole problem. Quite apart from not wanting to subject myself to you saying more disrespectful and nasty things to me in private, a PM doesn't solve anything. PMs are private, and when talking about how the league is run, that should be done in public. The league is not any one person's personal pet. It is for the benefit of the community. Discussions about how it should be run should be had in public, not in closed back-rooms. Decisions shouldn't be made by fiat.

Apart from a disconnect happening itself, the only thing that hasn't really been smooth about this is your involvement. There was no reason for you not to simply accept the 3-3 result. Quite frankly, unless hdu88 objected, there was no reason for you not to accept the 4-2 result. But the bigger problem is, it shouldn't be up to YOU, or any one person, to accept it. You don't have the authority. Really, you don't have much any authority at all, but overturning the mutual agreement of the players involved would be truly extraordinary.

Beyond this, you're being deceptive. Now, I don't want to claim you are doing so purposefully, because I certainly don't know that - this is another reason that transparency is necessary. But your post as quoted said that you would discuss the matter further with us. I mean, first of all, these discussions should be public. But beyond that, it wasn't true. I didn't get any more communication from you until you said it was 3-3 in a rather insulting PM. I have no idea what you said to anyone else before that - really, I don't know that you didn't just sit back, say nothing to anyone, and post that a few days later; I don't really think that's the case, but again, transparency is necessary. But the impression you give is that there was some discussion between a big group of people and we all came to some kind of a consensus. Yet this didn't happen at all.

And on top of this, you're capricious. You made a big fuss about this. There was another disconnection yesterday, you made no comment at all on it, just accepted it. Which is fine, that's how it should be. But it's not consistent. What's the difference? Could be you have some kind of vendetta against me. Could be that in that case, the result was more favorable to you. I think most likely is that you simply personally agreed with their decision more. But it's a problem that someone can make those other arguments, and anyway your personal whims and tastes shouldn't really have a big substantive effect on how things are run.

tl;dr be more transparent and don't act like you have unitary power.

58

Dominion League / Re: WW disconnecting

« on: April 15, 2015, 07:20:35 am »

I will discuss this matter with WanderingWinder, Tao Chen and the other league organizers through PMs before discussing it further on the forum.

The whole thing was handled disturbingly unprofessionally. I do want to say that hdu88 himself has been nothing but a perfect gentleman, moreso than one could expect, so kudos to him.

59

Game Reports / Re: Scrying Pool vs. Minion.... huh?

« on: April 14, 2015, 02:30:46 pm »

Sorry this is completely random, but would it ever be good on this board to buy Scouts as Forager fodder because coppers will stop your Scrying Pools from working?

Per that logic is fine, Scout is better than copper, huzzah. But no, it's never going to be good on this board to buy scout, because Throne Room, Monument, or Walled Village - and likely all three - will always be better.

60

Game Reports / Re: IGG strategy defeated by a surprising pair of cards

« on: April 14, 2015, 01:22:08 pm »

It's an imperfect analogy, ok? The biggest point is, you aren't really improving your deck.

61

Game Reports / Re: Scrying Pool vs. Minion.... huh?

« on: April 14, 2015, 09:54:03 am »

Since I was going for Pools, I couldn't use Trading Post as my trashing because Silver would be an extra non-action card I'd have to get through.

Well, it's not exactly clear to me what you're saying here. You certainly CAN use Trading Post anyway - the reason you don't want to here is just that Forager is better - it's non-terminal, a decent 3, and there are things you'd like to do on 4 (and to some extent 5). But having silver as an extra card to get through... I mean, yes, it is, but on the other hand, you trashed 2 to start. Trash 2, up 1 is basically equivalent to trash 1.

So I got payload from the various $2-giving actions on the board. My opponent, meanwhile, opened Monument, got terminal trashing, didn't get a single village or +Buy, and pulled off a Minion deck that beat my Pool engine.

This is actually just wrong. He got a forager on turn 2. That's a +buy card. And while he got a terminal trasher, he got as many non-terminal trashers as you. As for villages, not only did he start with Necropolis, he got 3 Throne Rooms. So he has Villages.


The biggest things I see here are 1. Based on what you wrote, you seem to have written off what your opponent did as being bad, which leads to you underestimating what he did, and not paying attention to him. What he did isn't THAT different from what you did, really. 2. I want to say that Fortune Teller is not a good card here. It makes $2, but it's terminal, and the attack does very little against an opponent who is trashing and a you who have scrying pool anyway. 3. You don't have a clear goal as to what you're building to. You have this vague, you are getting terminal silvers. For what? To buy provinces, I guess. That isn't actually all that strong? You should be aiming to play lots of Monuments. And most of all (related to this), 4. You don't build enough. Getting more monuments (and throne rooms to help you play them) is a thing you want to do here. If you can do that early enough, it's going to score more points for you than the green card anyway, while being better for your deck. Also, greening as early as you do not only hurts your deck, it actually mitigates the weakness of a minion deck anyway, that it can't handle bloat very well.


Now, I don't want to say, you got completely crushed or played really badly or much worse than your opponent or anything like that. But there are several little ways you could have improved, and those things really can add up, and most of all, what he did isn't so much worse anyway.


PPE: and lots of responses already.

62

Game Reports / Re: IGG strategy defeated by a surprising pair of cards

« on: April 14, 2015, 08:43:22 am »

If your opponent isn't contesting you, opening IW to only get Great Halls is kind of like opening Province. It takes a slot in your deck, and all it does for you is score points. Against Bureaucrat it's probably even quite a bit worse, and with IGGs it's probably a bit worse still. Ironworks is still a reasonable card, because it can silver flood in a similar way to Bureaucrat, which is reasonable here. Bureacrat, Squire, and Ironworks all do that - IW is probably just better than squire given that you don't need the buys or actions, but it's not 100% clear on IW vs BCrat. I suspect Ironworks is better, but the thing is, you want to usually be gaining Silver, NOT Great Hall.

The other thing is, I would really be looking at Lookout. Not sure it's good, but it wouldn't surprise me.

63

Rules Questions / Re: "Naming" a card

« on: April 13, 2015, 11:45:40 am »

I think it's pretty clear that the thing you name must be a card, even if that card isn't part of the game.  Since Expedition isn't a card, you can't name it.

Similarly, while you can name the Ace of Spades, or Black Lotus, or Caravanseray, or Chennai, or Power Plant #25, you cannot name the T Pentomino, or Tobacco Plantation, or Waterdeep Harbor, or Yahtzee, or N-34, none of which are cards.

I am going to make cards with those names just because.

Obviously what you say doesn't matter if it isn't a card in the (supply/your deck/wherever the card needs to be)

64

Dominion League / Re: Season 7 - Announcing Livestreams

« on: April 11, 2015, 03:16:44 pm »

Streaming matches tonight at 9 Eastern (100 UTC tomorrow) vs kylar, Friday at 1 Eastern (1700 UTC) vs AdamH, Saturday at 6 PM Eastern (2200 UTC) vs jaybeez.

The last of these is going to have to be rescheduled to an as-yet-undetermined date, due to illness.

65

Dominion: Adventures Previews / Re: Previews #3 - Amulet, Swamp Hag, Hireling

« on: April 11, 2015, 07:27:25 am »

I don't think this was asked before: If i have Hireling in play and i have no cards (except cards on mats or Durations in play), do i discard Hireling because it won't have an effect? I assume no, just checking.

Edit: Just re-read it, and i guess you can never be sure it won't do anything "for the rest of the game". So it should stay out. Sorry for the dumb question.

That it's for the rest of the game doesn't even matter - game doesn't know you won't gain cards on opponents' turn; they just stay out.

66

Dominion Articles / Re: Rebuild in Non-Mirrors

« on: April 10, 2015, 05:48:05 pm »

They don't absolutely need to buy Province, though - you can buy Duchy or even Estate and work them up the ladder.

Anyway, I will try to re-work a few things to get this point across more clearly.

I'm sure my post wasn't very clear either. Anyway, the rebuild player can buy duchies and estates in the end game, sure, but if they can't use rebuild because they don't have enough vp then they're probably still going to lose.

Yeah yeah - if you get the penultimate province with a 6+ point lead against them, you are going to be pretty golden.

67

Dominion Articles / Re: Rebuild in Non-Mirrors

« on: April 10, 2015, 04:31:24 pm »

I think it's important to mention that if a rebuild deck falls behind then the milling of vp is an even worse proposition for the rebuild player than it would be for opponent. To score the winning points, rebuild necessarily destroys some of the available vp. The rebuild deck may be relying on pure luck to buy provinces directly. When this is true, there is an implication that to beat the rebuild deck you just need to score enough points in the available turns to prevent the rebuild player from gaining the penultimate province (or its equivalent) in a winning position. If the rebuild deck cannot secure the win by then, it never will (it can continue to gamble on outscoring but that's still a gamble).

Rebuild can also mess up a variety vp strategies, either by denying cards or closing a game a quickly by trashing province->province. You do need to think through the consequences before going for a big alt vp score.

You make a good point. I am kind of getting at this in the 'be fast' category, but I can be more explicit about it.

They don't absolutely need to buy Province, though - you can buy Duchy or even Estate and work them up the ladder.

Anyway, I will try to re-work a few things to get this point across more clearly.

68

Dominion Articles / Re: Rebuild in Non-Mirrors

« on: April 10, 2015, 12:42:00 pm »

For countering, Swindler can be devastating, especially if it can hit a player's first Rebuild.

In the 'slow them down' section, I talk about trashing attacks being potentially good if you can hit their Rebuild. I certainly don't feel Swindler deserves more mention than that.

69

Dominion Articles / Rebuild in Non-Mirrors

« on: April 10, 2015, 12:10:39 pm »

Rebuild in Non-Mirrors
   People have learned – pretty well, I think – how to play Rebuild mirrors by now, thanks in no small part to AI and SCSN’s excellent article on the subject. Seriously, if you haven’t read that, go do it – while it doesn’t get you to 100% perfect Rebuild mirror play, it gets you, in my estimation, about 90% of the way there – really the best you can expect from an article which isn’t unreadably long. I hope to be able to do something similar for Rebuild in games which aren’t mirrors. Like all such strategic points, knowing how Rebuild goes in non-mirrors is what will allow you to determine whether or not to play a Rebuild strategy at all, so even though your opponents will often mirror you, leading you to really need to know how to play mirrors, knowing how to play different strategies is important, too. And the fact of the matter is, especially with Rebuild, mirrors play a lot differently from non-mirrors. (Note: there’s actually yet another category of Rebuild game, where you use Rebuild in strategies other than the straightforward monolithic “Rebuild strategy”, but I think that requires yet-another-article).
The Rebuild Plan
   As has been said before (I think Tables might be the one I remember saying it first), the point of the game is not so much to score the most points before the game ends, but more to end the game whilst you have the most points. This is the mindset you need to get in as the Rebuild player. How do you do that? As a baseline, you’re looking to get half the points. When Big Money decks look to do this, that means 40 points past starting. But with Rebuild, you actually shift that number downwards with each play of the card. Point destruction is a huge tool. Another common win condition for the Rebuild player is to empty all the Provinces – again, you don’t actually need to get all eight here, as you can destroy some. In either case, the name of the game is to play the actual card Rebuild as often as possible.
   There are a few ways of going about this. The most straightforward is to get as many Rebuilds as you can. In the mirror, rule of thumb is to get two, then switch to duchies. That’s because you actually need points pretty quick, and the duchies are going to run out. But in the non-mirror, these tend to not really be a concern, so you will want to pile on more Rebuilds. You’re fine turning Province into Province for quite a while, and the extra points are not worth the extra plays of Rebuild over the course of the game – at least until fairly late. A very (very) rough rule of thumb here is to start thinking about picking up Duchy over Rebuild just after all your green cards are Provinces. The other way, of course, of playing your Rebuilds a lot, is by sifting through your decks to get them more. Warehouse-style cards are good here. I’d like to point out Oasis as a card that does both this and help you buy more Rebuilds.
   I think it’s useful to look at where you want to be at the end of the game. When do you have them locked out? Five Provinces will (effectively) do it, considering five Duchies are gone. That takes 8 Rebuild plays and 2 Duchy buys. Four Provinces with two milled is just about as good – that takes 9 Rebuild plays but only one Duchy buy. If you need to empty the Provinces, that will take 11 Rebuild plays all-told (unless you get very lucky to spike buying one). These are the kinds of things you need to think about when deciding on the Duchy vs Rebuild question, because really, that will come down to how your draws have been, what your opponent is doing, and the game state at hand. One last thing I will mention is that toward the end, you can buy one cheaper victory card (or even multiples, as long as they’re the same name)
Playing Against Rebuild
   If you’ve determined you’re not going to play the monolithic Rebuild strategy, then you’ll want to know how to fight it. I want to start with the number one mistake I see players making in this situation, and that is buying duchies fairly early. That’s something you want to do against the Rebuild deck in a mirror, because Duchies are something you’ll want anyway, and denial can really be a thing. But in the non-mirror, it’s quite bad – Duchies won’t run out, they’ll hurt your deck a lot, and the points aren’t going to get you there. Since we’ve seen they’re looking to mill you out, even if you do lock out all the remaining duchies, it’s usually not a big deal. Okay, having said that, let’s move on to your actual game-plan. There are three main ways to try to beat that Rebuild strategy.
   1. Be Super Fast Yourself
   If it takes 8-9 plays of Rebuild to lock you out, then if you can get to the point where you’re outscoring them before that, you’ll be in good shape. Now, they’re actually putting up a fairly quick clock in getting there, so this is not going to be a terribly common occurrence. But it will happen. Really fast engines can get there. But the surprise factor here is actually Big Money. You need a very sharp-and-quick Big Money deck to get there, but with a couple of good cards, it is indeed possible. At the very least, it’s something to keep in mind.
   2. Stop or Slow Them From Their Plan
   It’s often thought that Rebuild is incredibly resilient to attacks; you can’t stop it. And it’s true, once they have their Rebuilds, it’s hard to disrupt that. But it isn’t impervious, and you really can slow them down. Discard attacks don’t stop them from playing Rebuild, but they really hurt their ability to get more. Junking attacks slow their ability to acquire Rebuilds and to play them. If that junk is curses, the points are going to add up as well – suddenly they do need to be buying more green cards. Trashing attacks can knock out the victory points, but mostly you would want to nail their Rebuilds. If you can do that reliably, it’s very nice.
   I also want to note shelters here. Needing to turn OGE into Estate makes them need an extra play of Rebuild, and the need to buy more green cards slows them down a little bit as well. Of course, they can time their spots as optimally as possible, so this won’t be an amazingly huge difference, but you’re picking up a couple of turns against them, and that might well be enough to push you over the edge, if it was otherwise close.
   3. Go over the top:
   They’re working on a 50% of the VP, point destruction theme. Using a source of points other than Province can really make their job much harder. They have to switch to run-the-provinces, which makes them need a few more plays of Rebuild. They can’t lock you out, so they need to end it fast enough for that to still be more points than your source. You on the flipside need a source that can still set up a good number of points fairly quickly, without needing to touch the Province stack. Sloggy kinds of VP are generally not very good for this – they just don’t set up their points fast enough.
   Colony is a different story. It takes them three extra plays of Rebuild to get their original cards into Colonies plus any additional Duchy buys will take extra plays to turn into Colony as well. This is a significant slow-down. On the other hand, strong engines are usually only slowed a couple of turns to flip to Colony, so, in a relative sense, they gain a fair bit. The Rebuild player can potentially just try flipping to the “empty the Provinces” plan, but that is generally worse: it doesn’t really make them need fewer Rebuild plays, and it’s basically just worth fewer points. 2 Colonies and the last Province will overcome 4 provinces even, and merely 3 Colonies match up against 5 Provinces.
   Vineyards and Goons can also provide a large enough points to make a fight against Rebuild, but they’re going to need a good amount of support. The problem Vineyards have is you tend to only be getting 1, maybe 2 a turn, which means by the time you switch to them, you need to have quite a number of actions already. Definitely doable, but needs support. And Goons, you will need a few multi-Goons turns, so you want to be able to set up an engine reasonably quickly to get that.



Example Games
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150329/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1427650528815.txt
In this game, I power out lots of Rebuilds quickly, and then chomp down on Provinces. My last few turns I would not at all mind picking up a Duchy, but I’m not hitting $5 here. My opponent is just a couple too slow with a roaring engine which is just getting online.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150404/log.508ae4c20cf264ac914cc446.1428187198445.txt
Here, my opponent uses Ambassador to junk my deck up, and Possession to capitalize on my Rebuilds. The problem is, it’s a bit slow. Key thing here is to name Estate at the right times, which ensures that Province trashing – if the game is going much longer, I will be sunk (which is also true if he can force me to Amb him a Province)

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150329/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1427642635257.txt
Here, I use Scheme to get my Rebuilds to have good consistency. This is really important against my opponent, who is able to get a thin deck reasonably quickly – normally Knights would do a pretty good job of skewering me, but Scheme not only helps me play the Rebuilds more often, it protects them safely in my hand.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150313/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1426265509444.txt
In this game, my Rebuild-based plan get edged out by effectively Sea Hag into Embassy-Big Money. Note that my opponent actually gets out to a significant lead here by being faster, which really damages my get-a-lead-then-lock-out “Plan A”.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150316/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1426540995147.txt
Here, I just edge out Mercenary-BM with my Rebuild plan.

70

Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Doctor/Fool's gold

« on: April 10, 2015, 09:33:56 am »

The whole thing is under the premise that you are going for a FG rush. There are plenty of strategies that just beat FG rushes period. Ambassador+village and an enginey thing is one of them. However when it comes to FG rushes, my claim is that doctor is just about as good support as you can get, especially if you hit 4 or 5 on turn 1. In a FG rush you do ignore 7-8 of the kingdom cards, and if some of them aren't ignorable, you shouldn't go for a FG rush.

It is better than chapel, steward, masquerade, or ambassador when it comes to a FG rush. That's because it is faster than all of those while still managing to buy a FG every turn. The reason it is faster is that 1) It begins trashing in the first two turns and 2) It cycles extremely quickly, and so you will see it more often. Those other 4 cards are also support for FG, but doctor is just better support than all 4. I look at these cards in a vacuum because if I don't look at in a vacuum then a FG rush is not the way to go.

When it comes to other support cards like storeroom or remodel, I am not sure if doctor is better or not, but my instinct says that if you get 4 or 5 on turn 1 then it is. See my sample game for how fast it can be.

In the end, FG rushes are a big money strategy, where you just buy fool's gold, no more than a couple actions, and green. Big money is quite often completely outclassed by any sort of engine. But when it comes to big money, I would consider doctor/FG to be one of the best.

I don't really see how it's better than Steward. There isn't a hand where replacing Steward with Doctor lets you buy an FG which you otherwise wouldn't. Sure, it's nice if you open on $5, maaaaybe on $4. And it can potentially trash faster, but in practice, I wouldn't think this is going to make up for Steward's ability to +$ or draw, which is really not nothing.

My 'this is not a combo' was not intended to say you should never play this, but there's a substantial amount of cards that pair better with FG 1-on-1, and Doctor itself isn't doing anything THAT special IMO.

71

Dominion: Adventures Previews / Re: French Preview : Pistage / Quête

« on: April 09, 2015, 07:14:02 pm »

I for one am having a hard time not referring to it as Pistache.

I keep thinking Pastiche.

72

Goko Dominion Online / Re: strange rating again

« on: April 09, 2015, 05:53:05 pm »

thanks arctic pinguin for at least one serious answer. So you mean that although I won by points, both "not quitters" (eellzzss and me) are treated equal, because Instant Moniker quit? Should be more points for both of us nevertheless, because he has the highest rating. But as Shecantsayno correctly mentioned: Of the many roads leading to insanity.... 

Yeah, and it has to be this way - you can very often be in a much player position than another player even if they have more points than you - think about a player who opens Estate/Estate/Estate/Estate. You will beat them essentially every time, but if a third player quits on turn 4, they will have more points than you....

As for why it's only 2 points... well, one thing is that it's shared 1st, which I think it is treating like you tied with the other guy, which it probably shouldn't. So my 'it has to be this way' is maybe not entirely right - the thing that "has to be this way" is that you can't get awarded a win over the guy you were left in the game with just for having more points on game-end. But you probably also shouldn't naturally have it thrown at you that you did equally well as him, because who knows, maybe you really were crushing him. The software doesn't exist to be smart enough to know that though; it's beyond reasonable programming capacities, I think, because it requires an actually good AI, which hasn't really been made for this game, and beyond that actually, it would need to know how you would play the game out, and well, that's obviously unrealistic.

The last thing I would note is that what MF displays is not actually what they have down as your rating (in terms of how strong they think you are), but that number MINUS some uncertainty number. So there are a few things in that which can hurt you here. (I'm going to simplify this a bit because most people don't want a small lecture on Graphical Models). If you don't play often, your uncertainty number might be really high. In that case, and if your opponents' uncertainty numbers were much lower, then it might actually think you're much better than the other players (despite you having similar displayed ratings), thus giving you not so much credit (and having your tie with the other guy penalize you more than you might think). The other thing would be if at least one of those players had really high uncertainty, your rating might not move much at all. Did you get before-and-after rating numbers for both of them? Probably not - it's pretty hard to get afters sometimes, and you could easily not get befores in some cases, too.

73

Dominion Articles / Re: The 10 words card summary challenge

« on: April 09, 2015, 05:38:44 pm »

The biggest problem with going for something like CSM or Storeroom is that the other player is going to adapt to what you're doing. Sometimes, that will mean contesting you on Gardens. If you rush your enabler, they'll just build their economy out, then contest you a little on Gardens at the end, probably picking up a couple. Alternatively - and probably more common - they will just go 'over the top'. You're getting Gardens? That's cute, I'll get every province in the supply. The key adaptation here is that they don't waste their time going for things like duchies, preferring to build their economy up more. You, the Gardens player, need a way to end the game. So you can get 8 Gardens. Sure. And you can get 40 cards in your deck, I believe you. But how are you ending the game? You may be ahead on turn 14, but the game is not about that - it's about ending the game whilst ahead. This is the great advantage Ironworks has - it gets to both establishing your matrix of Gardens and cards quickly, and then being able to slam the door shut afterwards. Cards like CSM and especially Storeroom lack this closing power. Let's say you're playing Storeroom/Gardens, and I completely ignore what you're doing. It's going to take you at the very least 22 turns, and probably 23-24, to actually end the game. You can get 5 point Gardens in that timespan, plus all the estates. Sure. I just need to get all the Provinces by then, which is not too terribly hard for a BM deck focusing on that. But it's actually even worse than that - in order to achieve your turn 23-24 result, you need to empty the Storerooms ASAP, then move to Gardens, then finally Estates (actually you could go for Estates before at least some Gardens, and possibly should in this not-realistic-simulation-world - you are going to run into too many hands without Storerooms after very long, and that's going to cost you a few turns). But if you wait so long, then Big Money player can actually snipe Gardens from you towards the end, which on one hand speeds you up, but on the other actually has more impact for them than a Province in terms of swing (minus five for you, plus three for them in a lot of cases). They don't want to do that until late, because it hurts their deck more, plus it's helping you end the game. But late enough - let's say, stealing two - and they're going to have very nice chances indeed. So you can move to pick up your Gardens sooner, to try to combat that, but now you have fewer Storerooms going in, which is going to make your deck grind to a halt more easily/often, which means you're oozing a few more turns, so they can ignore you now and just head straight for Provinces.

The key is adaptability, and the problem you have as the Gardens "rush" player is that they have much more of it than you do. Now, why do they? Well, basically because their deck is economically better, and this lets them split for more different kinds of victory points at whatever time they want, and be better-equipped to do more things afterwards. They also have access to a source of VP which is just worth more than you. Plus you don't really have a good plan to end the game on your own terms, which gives them a lot of flexibility.

And this is all talking about Big Money - engines are going to generally do all these things even better; Engines are a bit slower, but you are playing a really slow game, which allows them a lot of time to do anything they want.

The issue is, these things aren't really rushes, because you don't really have a way to make sure the game ends against an unpanicking, uncooperative opponent (and good players will have both of these characteristics, even if simulators do not). So you're really not playing a rush so much as you are a slog. Slogs can work, but they need to be able to have access to large amounts of VP that it's really hard for other decks to get to. Duke works really well for that because they're worth nothing if you don't prep by getting duchies first. Gardens CAN work for that, but you really need to be able to get lots and lots of cards and/or be able to get lots of Gardens AND lots of duchies relatively quickly. Silk Road, very similar thing, generally. There are nuances of course, but hey, I've written a lot already. Anyway, this is why Beggar/Gardens is really strong. Only a few Beggars gets to the Gardens pretty quickly, you get massive amounts of copper (so lots of points), and you don't have tons of problems reaching into duchies. But it's more a slog than a rush.

CSM is a little trickier, I haven't tested it, maybe you can rush a bit. I'm not totally sure. But I have a feeling you're going to run into some of the same problems as Storeroom, though maybe not quite as bad. You do have the added issue that you're buying a bunch of coppers-with-buys, though, and that is just not a really strong card. In any case, I would guess that the Jack deck wants one CSM in it, at least if you know/once you figure out they're going for mass CSM/Gardens. Possibly just in general.

(Edit to fix a typo).

74

Dominion Articles / Re: The 10 words card summary challenge

« on: April 09, 2015, 04:01:38 pm »

Gardens: Rush if you can quickly gain two cards every turn.

(I've been meaning to write an article about Gardens, since most of the current content predates Beggar, Storeroom, Candlestick Maker, and other important enablers)

Is being able to quickly gain two cards every turn better than being able to slowly gain two cards every turn?  Like, maybe your opponent won't notice that you're going to go for Gardens rush?

Yeah - it's a lot faster to get half a dozen cards that cost 3 than half a dozen cards that cost 5, and every turn you take to get set up is a turn your opponent is closer to Provinces.

I'd probably go with:

Gardens: Alt VP aids engine, but rush if Ironworks is present.

Seems to capture the essence of the card nicely. Gardens rushes are generally bad outside of basically only Ironworks.

This is just flat out, plain, and completely wrong. Maybe before the last couple of expansions this was the case, but Beggar, CSM, and Storeroom are all top tier Gardens enablers that can easily beat many standard strategies. CSM actually beats DoubleJack a decent amount of the time.

You're flat out, plain, completely wrong there.

Edit: Ok, not 100%, beggar is good (though not a rush), and Storeroom is, well, not really good, just not totally often.

75

Goko Dominion Online / Re: strange rating again

« on: April 09, 2015, 03:18:09 pm »

Why the caustic tone? I wasn't aware isotropish didn't rate 3p games because I never play them myself.

I don't think my post is any more caustically-toned than yours.