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Author Topic: Hello and need help  (Read 5651 times)

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Azhur

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Hello and need help
« on: February 24, 2014, 08:36:57 am »
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Hi,

New to the forums, have been playing lots of base dominion on goko against bots and keep losing. I've read the most common base strategies (big money/gardens & workshop/chapel etc), but when those aren't around I tend to lose horribly. I really want to become more consistent against bots with base set, before purchasing other expansions. Any general tips how to improve besides playing more?
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AHoppy

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2014, 09:25:27 am »
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Hello and welcome!

Could you post a log so we can see what you're doing?
How many players are you playing with?


(please people, he's coming for dominion help, no forum games yet, all in good time)

AHoppy

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2014, 09:32:33 am »
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Without looking at any logs, I would say that one of the biggest points in Dominion is timing.  What I mean is, knowing when it is time to stop buying actions/money and transition over to buying green cards.  This is something I have still not mastered, but what I would say is it is good to recognize that the first time you hit 8 (could be on the second shuffle!) may not be the best time to buy a province.  Sure, it puts you ahead on points really early, but that province could have been a gold or an engine component that will get you 2-3 provinces more easily in the future. 

Azhur

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #3 on: February 24, 2014, 09:53:39 am »
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Here's the first log, I'll be adding more of these later:

http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20140224/log.516e68dce4b082c74d7d7cc7.1393253215554.txt
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #4 on: February 24, 2014, 09:59:31 am »
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Turn 7 was probably too early to buy a Province. (EDIT: actually you did have 2 Golds, so it's probably fine.) Turn 15 should definitely have been a Duchy. There was 1 Province left and you were 3 points up. As your opponent was the first player, if you had bought a Duchy and he had still bought a Province, you would have won.

Also, looking at your final deck, I doubt the Village did anything for you, and Moneylender probably isn't the best in a BM deck, especially as you only got to play it twice.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2014, 10:01:06 am by Jimmmmm »
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AHoppy

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #5 on: February 24, 2014, 10:01:30 am »
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Here's the first log, I'll be adding more of these later:

http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20140224/log.516e68dce4b082c74d7d7cc7.1393253215554.txt
Well, the biggest thing I see here, is turn 15 you buy a library.  Knowing there is only 1 province left, the game is nearly over.  It is very important to remember to check how many cards are left and look out for the game ending on provinces or 3 piles.  So, if you had bought a duchy there instead of a library, you would have won because you had taken less turns than your opponent.

AHoppy

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #6 on: February 24, 2014, 10:01:52 am »
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Dang, Jimmmmm beat me to it :P

AHoppy

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #7 on: February 24, 2014, 10:03:28 am »
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If it were me, in this set, I would probably have opened moneylender and gone for a library-festival deck with a militia thrown in to slow my opponent down.  I don't really know how viable that is, but I know it's more fun that BM :P

Jimmmmm

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #8 on: February 24, 2014, 10:04:07 am »
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As more of a general comment, if it's late enough in the game that you don't think you'll ever actually draw the cards you're buying, you should be greening with every opportunity.

Ha!  :D
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #9 on: February 24, 2014, 10:04:41 am »
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If it were me, in this set, I would probably have opened moneylender and gone for a library-festival deck with a militia thrown in to slow my opponent down.  I don't really know how viable that is, but I know it's more fun that BM :P

I probably would have done the same.
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AHoppy

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #10 on: February 24, 2014, 10:14:22 am »
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Here is an example of the same set using the engine I mentioned.  There was a turn where I misclicked and meant to buy another festival I think.

Long story short, is this is a good example of a time in the  base set where the engine > BM.  It enabled a double province turn and 2 province-duchy turns.

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20140224/log.512add69e4b0c02658feaef2.1393254716297.txt

AHoppy

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #11 on: February 24, 2014, 10:16:45 am »
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Another good thing to note here is that library meshes really well with festival, but also is an excellent counter to militia. 

Awaclus

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #12 on: February 24, 2014, 10:20:41 am »
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Here's the first log, I'll be adding more of these later:

http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20140224/log.516e68dce4b082c74d7d7cc7.1393253215554.txt
On this board, there are some different strategies you can use:

1) Council Room/Big Money: buy 1 or 2 Council Rooms, lots of Treasure cards, Provinces after you have 2 Golds in your deck and Duchies after half of the Provinces have been bought. It has a hard time dealing with Militia, so you shouldn't do this in a game against a human opponent, but you probably would've won against this bot.

2) Library/Big Money: The same thing except with Library instead of Council Room, and you might want to get a third Library if the game is long. You still don't want any action cards other than Library, though. It can deal with an opponent's Militia pretty well, but on the other hand it makes your opponent's Council Rooms incredibly strong so this probably isn't the best strategy against a human opponent either.

3) Festival/Library engine: Open Moneylender/Silver, (get a Militia at some point if it looks like your opponent isn't going for a Library based strategy) and try to get rid of your Coppers while buying Festivals and Libraries. Don't buy another Silver, because it would just get in your way (the first one gets in your way too, but the extra speed early is worth it). Then you can play your Festivals for +actions, +buy and +$ and draw a new hand of 7 cards with Library after that. Militia doesn't really hurt you a lot, Council Room still helps you. This is an option that's worth considering.

4) Council Room/+action engine (with Militia): Open Moneylender/Silver or Moneylender/Workshop, if you opened Workshop, use that to gain Villages (and possibly a Militia and/or some Moats depending on your opponent's strategy). An early Mine is worth considering. Buy Council Rooms and some Festivals with $5 hands, Villages and perhaps some Silvers with $3 hands. Then you can easily build a deck which draws all the cards in your deck every turn and then plays a Militia to reduce your opponent's handsize back to three after the Council Rooms (unless he has a Library, then the Militia just lets him discard junk cards and draw more potentially good cards with Library). This is possible to counter with a Moat, but buying a Moat is probably not worth it in Big Money decks and the Festival/Library deck doesn't really care about Militia anyway.

I think that Festival/Library has the best match ups against the other strategies on this board, and it's pretty strong on its own too, so it's probably what you should do.
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AHoppy

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #13 on: February 24, 2014, 10:26:55 am »
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Read this article
http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/03/28/the-penultimate-province-rule/


It will help with figuring out the end-game and would have helped you win the game for the log you posted.  I know it is hard to keep track of the score, however, you should at least have a good idea in your mind about how well you are doing in relation to your opponent.

Azhur

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #14 on: February 24, 2014, 11:08:48 am »
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Wow, thanks a lot for your answers!

One of my problems is indeed that I don't know when to buy duchies. I only go for Provinces, fearing that duchies only slow my deck down. At times I'm surprised how the AI can still stay even or even ahead in gold gain when (s)he has more Duchies and/or Estates. I guess I should at least learn to keep track of the victory points.

Another thing is that I still need to learn a lot of the synergies between cards. I didn't know most of the strategies Awaclus listed, but they seem so obvious now that I think about them. Does there exist a comprehensive list of all available card synergies in base set?

I've been trying to learn the game by watching Qvist, but he has only a few base set videos. Any idea where I can find more base set only vids?
« Last Edit: February 24, 2014, 11:14:56 am by Azhur »
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DG

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #15 on: February 24, 2014, 12:18:29 pm »
+1

The bots play simple treasure decks in the base set quite well and even their weaker strategies (adventurer) can be resistant to attacks. In some kingdoms the best human play may only ever get a 60-40 win rate. Some of the first things you can learn can be learned from the bots themselves:
- big money strategies
- workshop/gardens
- no taking too many terminal actions
- not buying ineffective villages
- buying duchies and estates at a reasonable time

The bots typically buy a province at every opportunity, duchies when half the provinces have gone or one pile is empty, and estates with a couple of provinces left (the conqueror bot has a theme of buying more vp). Those are reasonable vp buying rules but a human can usually improve on them by preparing the deck slightly before buying the first province. One empty pile is not always a good reason to buy duchies in a two player game. You also can consider how many more times you will draw your vp cards when deciding whether to buy duchies and estates.
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KingZog3

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #16 on: February 24, 2014, 01:46:56 pm »
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Wow, thanks a lot for your answers!

One of my problems is indeed that I don't know when to buy duchies. I only go for Provinces, fearing that duchies only slow my deck down. At times I'm surprised how the AI can still stay even or even ahead in gold gain when (s)he has more Duchies and/or Estates. I guess I should at least learn to keep track of the victory points.

Another thing is that I still need to learn a lot of the synergies between cards. I didn't know most of the strategies Awaclus listed, but they seem so obvious now that I think about them. Does there exist a comprehensive list of all available card synergies in base set?

I've been trying to learn the game by watching Qvist, but he has only a few base set videos. Any idea where I can find more base set only vids?

Perhaps it's bette to think of what a card does. Don't think that only Council Room is good for money strategy. Smithy is too.

Try to see what the end result is of a card. There is a reason Lab cost $5 and Village cost $3, even if they both give you 3 things. And as people have said before, base set is tougher to have a consistent win rate because Money strategies can only be controlled so much.
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sudgy

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Re: Hello and need help
« Reply #17 on: February 24, 2014, 05:44:08 pm »
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(please people, he's coming for dominion help, no forum games yet, all in good time)

He's gotten help now!  Azhur, you should check out the Forum Games!  ;)
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   Quote from: sudgy on June 31, 2011, 11:47:46 pm
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