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5076

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Is the point counter cheating?

« on: June 14, 2011, 08:33:46 pm »

How would you tell if your opponent is using the point counter? The built-in one doesn't give any indication of when you're looking at it, and the browser extension shows the current point count on the screen to the player running it. (!status is there so the other player can see it.)

The addon, as you mention, gives you the choice to use !status if your opponent is running it.  (It can also have !disable but the addon author allowed that option to be disabled, which is one of the annoyances alluded to above.)  The built-in counter is right on the info page (last line on each player's status), and if you're not checking the info page for other things several times a game, then you're not playing well.

You could actually just memorize everything that's on the info page, with the only exception (I believe) being what's in the black market at the beginning of the game.

I don't really care so much about the point counter, though I do think that if you're using a plug-in one, it should a) be available to both players and b) be disablable (<-that should be a word). If I were being cutthroat, I would insist upon not having it. Per the rules, you can't have one. But also per the rules, you shouldn't be able to have paper or anything either, and that's really unenforceable. But mostly Isotropic has a very friendly atmosphere, and I'm fine with that. If I were being really cutthroat, I'd hide any money I wasn't playing, too. But that really bogs the game down. I imagine that I keep track of stuff better than most of my opponents, and that I could do even better if I actually concentrated hard, though again this *can* sap some of the enjoyment. Also, I'm lazy. And it seems to me that the people that use the counters often don't check them - even the built-in ones based on how badly a lot of the lower-rateds play the endgame (though some of this is just poor endgame play in general, foundation built on the PPR). That being said, I blindly took the last duchy (the third pile!) the other day rather than the last province, and lost by a point. I don't know if I've ever felt more stupid.

5077

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Best/Worst Openings discussion

« on: June 14, 2011, 02:58:03 pm »

Tournament/ambassador will be exceptionally strong. You'll get plenty of uses of the tournament as +1 card/+1 coin as ambassador games are usually very slow to develop. The deck will cycle quickly allowing you to play the ambassador more often. You can still get value from an ambassador hand after with playing an ambassador and two cards with it, negating a common problem for hands with ambassadors. There are no complications with actions clashing. Very few strategies are  excluded by this opening.

A successful ambassador deck is likely to be small so that when you buy a province it will hit the tournaments almost immediately. The prizes will allow you to expand your deck quickly with quality, killing off an opponent who might still be competitive if you expand your deck badly.

And for some reason I wasn't thinking about this half an hour ago and theory crushed me. Really really badly. Very strong opening.

5078

Dominion Articles / Re: Deck Control

« on: June 14, 2011, 12:20:26 pm »

It's more difficult, but if you want to raise your game to an even higher level, you should keep track of what's left in your opponent's deck too. Almost all of the same points apply, but there's a little more uncertainty a) because you don't know what's in their hand right now, and b) because you don't know SOME of the cards that went into their pile (unplayed actions and treasure and VP point cards, generally). Of course, to limit your opponent's knowledge, it's basically strictly better to not play any treasure you aren't benefiting from because of this, but on isotropic this is just SO much slower.

5079

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Best/Worst Openings discussion

« on: June 14, 2011, 12:14:54 pm »

Also, trashing is key - all level 6+ openings include trashing!

Mountebank/Lighthouse begs to differ. Other than that, if you can call Ambassador trashing (not really a stretch), then you're right. Also your point is well taken.
Also, why is Witch/Lighthouse so low?

5080

Dominion Articles / Re: Hunting Party

« on: June 14, 2011, 09:32:00 am »

This is such a great card, sometimes you even dont have to trash your deck out, cause the coppers and estates are discarded anyway.

I think this is a very important point. If copper, silver and gold are your only sources of coins, you will have a hard time reaching 8 for a province.

The game I linked to is a good example of both these things, and I think where HP really shines. copper+silver+gold+(useful action that gives +2, optimally probably militia)+ a zillion HPs is a really, really powerful deck. Obviously Goons is better than militia, but it slows you down to pick one up. But also, there are tons of cards that work here. Militia, Goons, Cutpurse, Monument, Baron, Bridge, Black Market (though you don't really want to go there), Steward, Chancellor, Conspirator, Festival, Fortune Teller, Harem, Grand Market, Hoard (there's a little anti-synergy here, but so much raw power), Jester (again some anti-synergy), Stash, Navigator, Merchant Ship... in short, there are so many good cards, I'm almost always going to be able to play this deck in a non-colony HP game, and win with it.

5081

Game Reports / Re: High Score

« on: June 14, 2011, 07:31:50 am »

But actually Black Market DOES effectively give you extra buys. I'm not sure that people get this. When you buy a card from the BM deck, you've bought a card without using a buy - effectively a limited extra buy, but here, so long as you've played your goons first, it's as good. And with 100s of cards in BM, Fairgrounds can get pretty ridiculous actually methinks.
You won't be able to do that on isotropic though.

5082

Game Reports / Re: High Score

« on: June 13, 2011, 11:32:08 pm »

You actually need a very full black market so that you don't run out of stuff to buy. With as many buys as you're talking about, you will be able to run the money piles out. You can also use stuff in there to keep you going. And you should have gardens and vineyards and fairgrounds as piles, as they're going to be worth ridiculously high amounts of points once you buy all that stuff.

5083

Dominion Articles / Re: Hunting Party

« on: June 13, 2011, 11:26:18 pm »

Yeah, thinking about it, rrenaud is totally right here - all the situations where I said HP isn't good, it's really that it's not ridiculously good there, but even then it's almost always better than Lab, which is itself a really strong 5. The couple situations where I still don't like HP so much are a) with chapel, b) with coppersmith decks, where you want a lot of copper, and c) bank and/or venture decks, though you'd probably prioritize HP over venture.
Let me repeat that: HP better than what I think is the most underrated and on of the top 10 5s. So a bank/Tactician deck is the biggest, clearest place that both is good and prefers Lab to HP. On the chapel thing, HP is good as an opener, better than silver, but there are, I think, a number of 5s, 4s, and even some 3s maybe that I'd rather have than it, including lab, as an opener with chapel.
Overall, I think it's on average the 3rd best 5 behind Mountebank and Witch, and actually even with them, I'd start buying it after only the 1st of those, in lieu of multiples.

5084

Game Reports / Re: Fast Gardens Game

« on: June 13, 2011, 07:20:07 pm »

I don't see much there. You posted two games. Furthermore, that was focused on Workshop/Gardens, and there are a good number of things which beat that deck (though it's still fairly strong). And the Ironworks/Workshop/Gardens actually won. Bishop is the anti-gardens, but I don't think it's good enough to beat Ironworks/Gardens. Ironworks is SO much better than Workshop for Gardens.
I'll have a standing challenge to anyone to beat me Ironworks/Gardens without going Ironworks/Gardens themselves (okay, mirror match is fine too, but that's a different story altogether, and I haven't gotten it often enough to be confident I have it 100% tuned for the mirror). I'm not saying I'll win every time, but I should win over 50%, especially if you control for player order advantage.

5085

Game Reports / Re: Fast Gardens Game

« on: June 13, 2011, 06:05:05 pm »

Yeah, Ironworks/Gardens is what I think is the "root Combo". By this I mean the thing that is so good, absolutely nothing else beats it. And since I made that postulation, at least in my own games, it's been true: in any game with both ironworks and Gardens on the board, I've only lost in games where my opponent also went for a variation of this strategy. Now, this isn't to say you shouldn't go for other cards WITH this combo - i.e. if workshop is on the board, you should prolly go workshop/ironworks/gardens - but I have yet to think of a board where a gardens/ironworks-centred deck doesn't win at least 50% of the time. It's incredibly resilient at any rate, and can absorb most problems other decks can throw at it, especially curse-givers, which a lot of other strategies can't boast of, and it is fast enough to beat a lot of other strats.

5086

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Duke Analysis?

« on: June 13, 2011, 04:21:26 pm »

Blaeu, I think that's some mis-analysis. Yes, the +3 formula maximizes your points off Duchy/Duke, but in the case where you're both going for it and you split the duchies 4/4, you don't only want one Duke... you want as many as you can get. Sure, it's less efficient than having more duchies, but them's the breaks, and at that point, it's the best you can do. It's also virtually never a good idea to hop the train for provinces. They'll end up ending the game on provinces faster, which you don't want (unless you've already gotten all of the duchy/dukes, in which case you've probably already won), and you'll be too slow to get many because your deck is too bloated with green to get up to 8 with any consistency whatsoever. I think a more interesting question is whether to pop for that Gold when you get an early 6 or plow on into your VP - I think it's usually gold early, duchy later (sometime around turn 7). Finally, on the question of three-piling it, it's usually not SO important, as you'll want to keep going for duchies/dukes, and if you can get all of both of those before your opponent ends the game, you're in good shape (unless it's a colony game and they can go colony+province, but then I'd basically never suggest going for dukes in a colony game). But if you need to find something after duchy+duke are both gone, I'd suggest estate. The extra VP will put you over on the off chance that it matters, and at $2 it's one of the few things you can still grab reliably with all that green floating around your deck. Also buy copper late (maybe early too) any time you have an extra buy you aren't going to use. It'll actually help you increase your money density in a VP-heavy deck.

5087

Dominion Articles / Hunting Party

« on: June 13, 2011, 04:08:56 pm »

Hunting Party is one of the "Power Cards" which emerged from the new Cornucopia release. The obvious comparison is to Laboratory, against which it is usually better but sometimes worse. Like Laboratory, it usually nets you +1 card (+2 cards +1action -1card and action for actually playing it). But the ability here is really key, in that it gets you a card you don't already have in your hand. This makes it look like it would combo well with Menagerie, but it can also get your hand so big, and you often want so many Hunting Parties, that the synergy is not so strong as it might be.
The cons of Hunting Party are, in addition to the uselessness of Lab when you're drawing your whole deck every turn, when there are no more cards in your deck that you don't have in your hand, it turns into a cantrip with the chancellor effect. This is still not so horrible, but not really what we're looking for in a power $5. So naturally, Hunting Party is at its weakest in a very trimmed deck and/or a deck where you have one card (especially a treasure or terminal) that you want to spam a lot. Hunting Party is also not so resilient against handsize-reducing attacks, as the cards you're dumping away are probably going to be the ones you want Hunting Party to skip over anyway, and now it won't.
On the other hand, Hunting party is at its best when you have a handful of cards that you want to all draw at once. Want to be able to play KC and Bridge in the same turn? Hunting Party is your card. Want to have multiples of each? Not so much. But generally a good Hunting party strategy is to use it to need only one of the top money (gold or platinum, depending on whether or not there are colonies) card and still be able to draw it every turn. For instance, in a non-colony game, I'll often get a single gold, an attack or useful card that nets me $2, at least one silver, and then a bunch of Hunting parties. This nets $8 pretty reliably, with an attack every turn to boot. It's important to note that in this kind of deck, every turn you get $5-$7 after you have your one Gold, you want to go Hunting party until either a) they run out or b) it's time to turn for duchies. But this is extremely powerful. Check out this game where I smash my opponent's Chapel(!) opening  with a good Hunting party deck of this type, with Cutpurse as my $2-gaining terminal.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110610-211238-aabfd032.html
Obviously you'd rather have Militia, Monument, or Mountebank for this spot, but even Cutpurse is pretty good.
You can also play every Conspirator in a deck with pretty good frequency in a HP deck, which is a fairly good combo to have. Just remember to play your Conspirators BEFORE your HPs after they're non-terminal. It's to remember that if you do get the chancellor-effect out of HP because you have everything, you probably don't want to play that last card-drawer in your hand without another HP, as then all of the actions you've just played in your chain will miss out on the reshuffle, and your next time through you'll see only the cards you've got multiples of - your coppers, estates, and maybe silvers - without having a shot at any HPs to restart the chain.

Works With:
Other Hunting Parties
Spammable non-terminals (see Conspirator)
Fairly tight decks where you want to get exactly 1 of every card
Attacks, which it lets you play very often
Opponents' curse-givers (sort of), which it helps you sift through


Conflicts With:
Spammable terminals (see Goons, Wharf)
Opponents' Handsize-reducing attacks
Your own trashers

5088

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Duke Analysis?

« on: June 13, 2011, 03:17:35 pm »

THE way to counter duchy/duke is to buy a few duchies, but you want to let him commit to the strat first, and then steal like 3. You can just power through to provinces, but in less you've got a super-fast deck, it's not going to hold up. This is especially true if you aren't paying attention and act like it's still a province-v-province game. What I mean by this is that you usually need to do some more deck set-up before you turn for green; otherwise, your deck will tend to stall somewhere around the 5th-6th province.
Obviously in a colony game it's a lot different, you pretty much just go for the colonies and nab a duchy or two if they're hardcore into the D/D.
One card I want to mention as a facilitator of Duchy/Duke is feast. Action collision isn't such a big deal with all the green in your deck, and it's one of your key cards for 4 rather than 5. Also, Bureaucrat is actually pretty good in such decks, as you WANT to be flooded with silver.
Also, most of the articles about duchy/duke math neglect to focus on the fact that you should pretty much buy straight-up duchies for the first huge stretch of the game (I get at least 5 before my first duke) because any reasonable opponent is going to start buying them up as a block. Sure, they can buy the dukes to block as well, but that nets them fewer VPs than the duchy. In fact I usually go to 6-7 duchies before I duke, though around the 6 range it's about tallying points, how fast your opponent's deck is, and how many more times you think you'll get $5.

5089

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Advanced Strategy: Managing Game Flow

« on: June 13, 2011, 03:05:07 pm »

I'll usually go for the gold, but then again, gold is usually part of my strategy
I tend to play closer to big money more often than the other top players, so this isn't so much a big choice for me, but I do find that I am more comfortable "buying for less" the more I play.

5090

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Best/Worst Openings discussion

« on: June 13, 2011, 03:02:48 pm »

Let me preface this by saying that Ambassador is my least favourite card.
I always go ambassador/silver. I most usually pick up a second ambassador on my second reshuffle, especially if my opponent has an ambassador.
However, there are some cases where you can get around picking up an ambassador at all, and I pretty much always go for them (whether I should or not).