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[Gherald]

I have found that in IGG games without moderate to heavy trashing, the extra coppers are very useful.  They dilute the curses and are good for duchies.

So when I play IGG when the trashing is light-to-none, I'll take the free copper 98% of the time, even if I don't need it for a buy.

I have noticed that my opponents seem to take those extra coppers only 10% of the time.  Why the hell? Coppers are good for a slog!

One of my favorite combos is IGG+Beggar.  It gets provinces pretty easy adding +4 or more coppers to a hand.

[sudgy]

Usually, I'll get the copper if I think my money density is less than 1 (I just estimate this), or I need it to buy something.  Which happens quite a bit.

[SCSN]

Taking Coppers early on is pretty bad, as it makes it nearly impossible to buy a Province, which you'd otherwise be expected to do 1-2 times on average in IGG games.

[blueblimp]

Taking Coppers early on is pretty bad, as it makes it nearly impossible to buy a Province, which you'd otherwise be expected to do 1-2 times on average in IGG games.

Yep. Simulation has shown that in an IGG mirror, you only want to take the extra coppers when needed for your buy, at least for most of the game. (There's a reasonable argument for taking the coppers late, but you're unlikely to see them again anyway, so it doesn't change outcome much.) The reason is that massing IGGs is actually not that bad for buying Provinces, even if some Curses are incoming, because they are Silvers the turn you use them. Coppers, though, are bad for buying Provinces. Spiking Provinces is how IGG mirrors are won.

All of the above is false in special cases, like IGG/Gardens where you obviously want the coppers.

[WanderingWinder]

In short: coppers are good for getting to IGGs and duchies, but the chance to get provinces usually outweighs this, and for provinces you don't want copper.

[Gherald]

Avoiding unnecessary copper will increase your chance of hitting $8, but also increase your chance of having less than $5 in such a slog.

At 6VP province is obviously nice, but not necessarily nicer than consistently buying IGGs and 3VP.  With the extra copper two 3VP cards in your deck is about the same as one 6VP, if you can stay ahead of your opponent.

Another thing I practically never do on IGG boards w/o trashing is buy gold with $6..

[dondon151]

Avoiding unnecessary copper will increase your chance of hitting $8, but also increase your chance of having less than $5 in such a slog.

At 6VP province is obviously nice, but not necessarily nicer than consistently buying IGGs and 3VP.  With the extra copper two 3VP cards in your deck is about the same as one 6VP, if you can stay ahead of your opponent.

Did you just ignore the simulation results?

[blueblimp]

The best IGG mirror bot I know of is WanderingWinder's, so if you can find a bot that uses early copper buys to significantly outperform it, cool. Even in that bot I don't recall the late copper buys adding much to win %. There is other discussion of IGG mirror strategy in that thread, too.

[AdamH]

I've taken IGG just to gain Coppers on an engine board where the only +Buy was Spice Merchant and the only gainer was IGG. I'd love to search for the game log, because I remember the game was with Qvist and I could probably locate it based on that, but drunkensailor is down so you'll have to take my word for it. There was no video of the game either...

But I realize this is probably not what this thread is about, no? Well that's how you get +1s on this forum so we'll just go for that

[flies]

I've taken IGG just to gain Coppers on an engine board where the only +Buy was Spice Merchant and the only gainer was IGG. I'd love to search for the game log, because I remember the game was with Qvist and I could probably locate it based on that, but drunkensailor is down so you'll have to take my word for it. There was no video of the game either...

But I realize this is probably not what this thread is about, no? Well that's how you get +1s on this forum so we'll just go for that

yes, sometimes I've gotten copper gainers just for forager/salvager/altar/etc fodder.

also, +1. 

[2.71828.....]

But I realize this is probably not what this thread is about, no? Well that's how you get +1s on this forum so we'll just go for that

Wait, are you saying that you want us to +1 your comment, or are you saying that most respect is given for off-topic things, or are you saying that you feel unrespected because you don't get as much respect for your on-topic posts as those who post off-topic posts?

Anyway, I gave you the +1

[KingZog3]

But I realize this is probably not what this thread is about, no? Well that's how you get +1s on this forum so we'll just go for that

Wait, are you saying that you want us to +1 your comment, or are you saying that most respect is given for off-topic things, or are you saying that you feel unrespected because you don't get as much respect for your on-topic posts as those who post off-topic posts?

Anyway, I gave you the +1

Yes to everything.

[-Stef-]

Did you just ignore the simulation results?

In general, ignoring simulation results is a great advice. At least I always ignore them and it doesn't seem to have a huge negative influence on my dominion play.
I really don't get the faith so many of the top players here have in these simulations.
Problem is that the bots are very bad at playing or tactical decisions. Engines lose quite often in sims while in reality they don't.

However, some very specific match-ups the bots actually do know how to play. In general these are questions like 'how to tweak this boring mirror match'.
IGG without strong trashing could very well be one of them. "should I buy rabble or smithy as my only terminal" is another.

I've taken IGG just to gain Coppers on an engine board where the only +Buy was Spice Merchant and the only gainer was IGG. I'd love to search for the game log, because I remember the game was with Qvist and I could probably locate it based on that, but drunkensailor is down so you'll have to take my word for it. There was no video of the game either...

But I realize this is probably not what this thread is about, no? Well that's how you get +1s on this forum so we'll just go for that

Nice one. Something similar: I was playing a Horn-of-Plenty deck and I knew this would be my next-to-last turn. Next turn I would most likely win if I could get to 8 different cards and almost certainly lose if I didn't (3 pile imminent, opponent far ahead on points). My drawing power was ok but not great. IGG meant I only had to draw one and yet could play two different cards, and that's exactly how it went down.

[WanderingWinder]

Did you just ignore the simulation results?

In general, ignoring simulation results is a great advice. At least I always ignore them and it doesn't seem to have a huge negative influence on my dominion play.
I really don't get the faith so many of the top players here have in these simulations.
Problem is that the bots are very bad at playing or tactical decisions. Engines lose quite often in sims while in reality they don't.

However, some very specific match-ups the bots actually do know how to play. In general these are questions like 'how to tweak this boring mirror match'.
IGG without strong trashing could very well be one of them. "should I buy rabble or smithy as my only terminal" is another.

Basically this - sims are pretty bad at engines, in general, especially if you don't put just loads and loads of work into nuancing them (which nobody does). Their usefulness is roughly limited to BM+X(maybe +X and Y) and slogs.

[DG]

I really don't get the faith so many of the top players here have in these simulations.

If you've played a game and want to learn from it then you can't always take the results at face value. The winning strategy could have been the low percentage strategy with better luck. To get round this you can be incredibly astute when reviewing games, you can play many games to see a larger sample of results, or you can use simulations to play those many games for you.

Problem is that the bots are very bad at playing or tactical decisions.

If all the bots are making the same tactical mistakes it can equalize out. Of course the user should be aware of the times when the simulator will not give accurate results.

[blueblimp]

Ignoring sim results is fine these days because there aren't that many random kingdoms where sims are relevant. However, in this thread, the question is specifically about a scenario (simple IGG mirror) which is in the sweet spot for simulation. So, dondon's question is perfectly relevant in the context of this thread.

[AdamH]

Whenever I lose a game, I always assume it was because my strategy was inferior and it's because I played it incorrectly. YMYOSL, etc.

[Awaclus]

Whenever I lose a game, I always assume it was because my strategy was inferior and it's because I played it incorrectly. YMYOSL, etc.

Whenever I lose the game, I announce it publicly.

By the way, it just happened.

[Davio]

This had to be made:

[Ozle]

Whenever I lose a game, I always assume it was because my strategy was inferior and it's because I played it incorrectly. YMYOSL, etc.

Whenever I lose the game, I announce it publicly.

By the way, it just happened.

DAMN YOU!!!!

[KingZog3]

Whenever I lose a game, I always assume it was because my strategy was inferior and it's because I played it incorrectly. YMYOSL, etc.

Whenever I lose the game, I announce it publicly.

By the way, it just happened.

Amazing that I only lost now and not the first time I read the post.

[dondon151]

In general, ignoring simulation results is a great advice. At least I always ignore them and it doesn't seem to have a huge negative influence on my dominion play.
I really don't get the faith so many of the top players here have in these simulations.

I know what you mean, -Stef-, and I'd agree with you in any other context, but your post is a non sequitur. As blueblimp pointed out, tactical decisions really are limited in IGG mirrors and they do indeed come down to who spikes $8 the most.

[Davio]

Whenever I lose a game, I always assume it was because my strategy was inferior and it's because I played it incorrectly. YMYOSL, etc.

Whenever I lose the game, I announce it publicly.

By the way, it just happened.

Amazing that I only lost now and not the first time I read the post.

I lost like a couple of days ago, out of nowhere, but couldn't find the thread to post it in.

[AdamH]

Found the log! http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131028/log.5085f5130cf270038ff92212.1383008775832.txt