Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[c4master]

I found myself wondering how effective a very basic engine could be, i.e. one that uses only three different cards. Since engines usually require 4 things, namely trashing, villages, draw and payload, there need to be cards that can do several of these things. Cards such as Steward.

On a very basic version it would only desire any village to be an engine on it's own. Yet, this would be a very bad engine since it needs to gain at leats 10 cards before greening and it can't green very well. It also needs 5 turns of trashing your 10 starting cards, so you could maybe hope to be ready around turn 11 or 12 to pick up one Province per turn. Too late for many other strategies. You could, of course, add attack cards to slow down your opponent. However, I wondered if some simple gaining like workshop would be enough to catch up.

It's pretty obvious that every card potentially strengthens this engine, but I wonder wether the bsic version consisting only of Steward, Village and Workshop would be good enough to compete against Big Money strategies. Maybe you need to exchange village and replace it by farming village (you don't want to draw green cards once you start greening).

Is there any estimation of what can be worth it or how much it takes to be worth going for the engine - especially without +buy?

[pingpongsam]

Often when playing with people new to Dominion I will dissect my deck at the end of a game and they are astonished at how soundly beaten they were by a deck with no more than 4 action cards in it. Obviously there are exceptions but generally speaking a common mistake is to add unnecessary parts to an engine.

[AdamH]

The best answer is "play a lot of engines so you can get a good feel for how strong certain components/engines are" but that's not helpful. You want to be able to know how strong an engine is before you play it without playing every possible kingdom, which is reasonable.

There are a few exercises I go through in my mind when analyzing a board; on almost every one of my videos I do this out loud and a lot of people have found that it helps. Why do I do this? I mean you could look at it as me just saying stuff that is or isn't on the board and then magically deciding what to do. How does that translate?

Well here's my mindset, maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't.

If you put ten piles of kingdom cards face down on a table and ask me what I'm doing with that kingdom, I'd tell you I'm building an engine. Why? Well I see no reason not to build an engine and engines are the best thing you can do. Only after seeing that an engine isn't going to work am I going to think about other things; I like to dream big and then come up with reasons why it's not going to work -- usually the lack of just one "engine component" can be worked around if the other ones are strong enough.

Is there no village? Well I think about the best turn I can have with only one terminal per turn. If that sounds awesome, then sure I'll go for it.

Is there no draw? Well that's rough, you're looking for a deck that resembles a mega-turn deck, and these usually require strong trashing. Be careful with draw because you actually want to increase your hand size with cards that will be useful -- Scout or Apothecary on the board won't necessarily help you get more Goons/Bridges into play (unless you have Cellar or something).

Is there no +Buy? Well look for gainers, I think about the most points I can score in a turn and whether or not that will be enough to catch up.

Is there no trashing? Well if there's not strong draw then an engine just won't come together. If the draw is weak then you really need some trashing to put together anything that resembles an engine.

Are attacks going to ruin your day? Well if there's a way to deal with it then that's actually good for the engine, but if not and the best way to deal with the attack is to play it on your opponent too, probably no engines today.

Of course this is all subjective, and sometimes everything you need is there and the components are weak. Knowing which cards are strong for what they do is really helpful, and playing engines with those cards will help you get a better feel for just how powerful things are.

[c4master]

Thanks for these kind replies. :-)

I've seen like a hundred of your videos, Adam, and I love them. I just wondered what would be the minimum number of different cards needed to create something like an engine. Obviously Steward + Village would do it, but these two alone are too slow since you cannot catch up and you need to build up first. Adding any +buy will - on the other hand - very likely will resolve into something good.

But what if there are only gainers and no cost reducers? I would say, that this is not good enough to compete with the best non-engine strategy.

Although you have told us, we can use typical non-engine cards like Jack in an engine. You can only win those games, if your name is Adam, though.

So I feel like going for the engine without attack and without +buy is just never worth it (*). And I want to be wronged.

(*) Exception: Horn of Plenty

[Jack Rudd]

Fishing Village - Torturer. That particular engine will often do very well even with no support at all from the other eight cards.

[Awaclus]

So I feel like going for the engine without attack and without +buy is just never worth it (*). And I want to be wronged.

(*) Exception: Horn of Plenty

This isn't true. Even if you can't buy more than one Province per turn, you can usually build an engine that buys a Province every turn, while a big money approach would buy Provinces maybe earlier, but not every turn. You just have to think how long it's going to take you before you have a deck that draws itself and generates $8 every turn (how many turns you spend trashing your cards and doing nothing else, how many turns you spend buying engine parts, how many turns you spend buying money) and then estimate how fast the big money is going to be and compare them.

Actually, even when there is +buy, pretty often you'll find yourself just buying one Province per turn because there isn't enough time to build more and add more payload; the +buy is way more useful for building the engine than greening, and gaining that lets you gain the relevant engine parts is better here.

[silverspawn]

Fishing Village - any card that draws 3 or more cards. these will usually do very well even with no support at all from the other eight cards.

FTFY

torturer is especially good, but pretty much any draw + FW will easily beat BM.

[Awaclus]

Fishing Village - any card that draws 3 or more cards. these will usually do very well even with no support at all from the other eight cards.

FTFY

torturer is especially good, but pretty much any draw + FW will easily beat BM.

I don't think Fishing Village + Council Room beats Masterpiece + Council Room.

[silverspawn]

Fishing Village - any card that draws 3 or more cards. these will usually do very well even with no support at all from the other eight cards.

FTFY

torturer is especially good, but pretty much any draw + FW will easily beat BM.

I don't think Fishing Village + Council Room beats Masterpiece + Council Room.

it's not "BM" if you use Masterpiece, it's "BM + Masterpiece."

[DG]

Masterpiece is the biggest money you can buy.

http://dominionstrategy.com/2013/01/23/the-five-fundamental-deck-types-the-engine/ may have some engine building answers.

[c4master]

Masterpiece is the biggest money you can buy.

http://dominionstrategy.com/2013/01/23/the-five-fundamental-deck-types-the-engine/ may have some engine building answers.

Thx. I've already gone through this a few months ago and I found it pretty well-written. :-)

Anyways, Torturer is an attack card that also draws, so yeah. Pretty much every attack will be enough to keep me away from BM.

Explorer/DoubleJack/Navigator etc. are pretty good at buying one Province per turn and doing this regularly. I've checked that with the simulator and found out, that DoubleJack gets all 8 Provinces in ~18 turns and it easily gets 4 Provinces in 13 turns if it's not attacked. I guess, the similar numbers would be there for Explorer, Navigator, Masterpiece etc.

It's different, of course, if there is non-cheap alt VP (Colony, Fairgrounds, maybe Duke) or a strategy that doesn't buy green cards anyways (golden deck, Monument, Goons).

[qmech]

Turns to X Provinces is not a good metric for comparing strategies.  It leaves out direct interaction between players, but more importantly it leaves out the idea of control.  One of the main strengths of a powerful engine is the ability to end the game when it is advantageous for you to do so.  (End the game when you have the most points, don't aim to have the most points when the game ends.)  If an engine player does not want to buy Provinces then they should be able to do something else useful that will enable an even more explosive finish later on.  This is one reason why lack of +Buy is one of the most painful constraints on engine-building.

[c4master]

Turns to X Provinces is not a good metric for comparing strategies.  It leaves out direct interaction between players, but more importantly it leaves out the idea of control.  One of the main strengths of a powerful engine is the ability to end the game when it is advantageous for you to do so.  (End the game when you have the most points, don't aim to have the most points when the game ends.)  If an engine player does not want to buy Provinces then they should be able to do something else useful that will enable an even more explosive finish later on.  This is one reason why lack of +Buy is one of the most painful constraints on engine-building.

I can't see how this contradicts my statement, if you meant to correct me.

The problem is, that you will basically never have a lead when building your engine. Without +buy and without an attack, you probably just cannot close the gap before the game ends, even if there is gaining like Workshop or Armory.

Maybe, I'm wrong. If so, I would like to see such a kingdom.

edit: I've just reread Adams posting and I've found this quite useful:

s there no +Buy? Well look for gainers, I think about the most points I can score in a turn and whether or not that will be enough to catch up.

So, Workshop or Armory might help me, if there is Alt VP like Gardens or Silk Roads, which can be "gained".

On the other hand, gainer + Gardens/Silk Roads always cries for a rush. Is there another possibility to score more than 6 points without +buy? Maybe Altar? 

[silverspawn]

Alt VP like Gardens or Silk Roads, which can be "gained".

On the other hand, gainer + Gardens/Silk Roads always cries for a rush. Is there another possibility to score more than 6 points without +buy? Maybe Altar? 

butcher is likely the one, if there is butcher, chances are it doesn't matter if you have no +buy.

[Mic Qsenoch]

On the other hand, gainer + Gardens/Silk Roads always cries for a rush. Is there another possibility to score more than 6 points without +buy? Maybe Altar? 

Rushes are generally overrated, Workshop rushes are terrible (need a very weak board to be good). Armory is pretty bad also. Ironworks is the only card that makes me consider a rush strong. The rest can be outraced by almost anything.

There are almost a million cards which can gain Duchies or extra Provinces: Remodel, Expand, Butcher, Remake, Upgrade, Governor, Develop, Stonemason, Horn of Plenty, Forge, Graverobber, Altar, Count, Hunting Grounds, Tournament, Highway (honorable mention, needs a gainer). It's actually hard to find a board where Duchies aren't a viable source of "alt-VP" for an engine player.

[Awaclus]

Is there another possibility to score more than 6 points without +buy?

Why do you need to score more than 6 points per turn? Big money can't score more than 6 points per turn either, and it doesn't even score 6 points every turn unlike an engine.

[qmech]

I can't see how this contradicts my statement, if you meant to correct me.

No, I wasn't meaning to correct you.   It used to be fairly common to discuss Smithy/Jack/Envoy in terms of how many turns it took on average to get 4 Provinces, but it isn't done much any more because it's not generally a helpful piece of information.  I think most serious players now understand the importance of control, but it took a while for it to become something approaching common knowledge.  I just mentioned it in case you found the observation helpful.

[dondon151]

There are almost a million cards which can gain Duchies or extra Provinces: Remodel, Expand, Butcher, Remake, Upgrade, Governor, Develop, Stonemason, Horn of Plenty, Forge, Graverobber, Altar, Count, Hunting Grounds, Tournament, Highway (honorable mention, needs a gainer). It's actually hard to find a board where Duchies aren't a viable source of "alt-VP" for an engine player.

Addendum: in some of these cases, as long as you have something like a Silver-gainer, then the gained Silvers can be converted into points. You just need to be creative.

[Davio]

You should always go for the engine, because it's more fun.

[c4master]

On the other hand, gainer + Gardens/Silk Roads always cries for a rush. Is there another possibility to score more than 6 points without +buy? Maybe Altar? 

Rushes are generally overrated, Workshop rushes are terrible (need a very weak board to be good). Armory is pretty bad also. Ironworks is the only card that makes me consider a rush strong. The rest can be outraced by almost anything.

There are almost a million cards which can gain Duchies or extra Provinces: Remodel, Expand, Butcher, Remake, Upgrade, Governor, Develop, Stonemason, Horn of Plenty, Forge, Graverobber, Altar, Count, Hunting Grounds, Tournament, Highway (honorable mention, needs a gainer). It's actually hard to find a board where Duchies aren't a viable source of "alt-VP" for an engine player.

Sometimes, it's hard to believe one could forget about all the Tfb-Cards. Shame on me for that.

Anyways, thank you. I'm going to try out some of these combinations to get an idea of how well they perform.

-----

I'm also going to check some rushes. I still believe that any Village+Gainer+$4-VP might outperform other strategies.