Print

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

[liopoil]

In this particular game, I managed to snag multiple Laboratories and Council Rooms.  This was backed up with Militia, Chancellor and Woodcutter because they gave me coins (regardless of their other abilities).  About halfway through the game, I drew my entire deck.  That was a pretty sweet feeling.

You drew your deck without any +2 actions? sure, lab works, but generally not by itself, and you said you used council room...

[jonts26]

With any kind of luck, I'll be ordering Intrigue in the next few days.

Skip intrigue for now. A better next expansion is maybe seaside or prosperity or hinterlands.

Ah, Intrigue's fine. Might as well get it first and get some use out of Scout before the Action/Victory card density gets too low.

Intrigue is fine. But it doesn't have as much to offer as other sets. I happen to think it makes a better first set than base, but not a better second set than many of the other options.

[tolenmar]

In this particular game, I managed to snag multiple Laboratories and Council Rooms.  This was backed up with Militia, Chancellor and Woodcutter because they gave me coins (regardless of their other abilities).  About halfway through the game, I drew my entire deck.  That was a pretty sweet feeling.

You drew your deck without any +2 actions? sure, lab works, but generally not by itself, and you said you used council room...

There were other cards in that deck, I just listed the ones I focused on. I don't remember the entire set up or what I drew, but the end result was the entire deck.  My opponent also used Council rooms, so I started that turn with more cards than usual.

[ftl]

Council Room + Militia is definitely sweet - make them draw extra cards, and then make them discard them again.

Be wary of Chancellor and Woodcutter. Remember, Silver gives you just as much coin as either of them, and doesn't use an Action.

Drawing your whole deck is definitely sweet! There's definitely a bunch of sets where that's the right thing to aim for, especially ones where there's an attack (militia) that you want to play every turn.

[serakfalcon]

For the first expansion, I would definitely echo the sentiment on Seaside and Prosperity. They add a lot to the game without being too complicated.

I think four main critical skills to learn are:
1) Deck management (trashing bad cards (coppers, estates) and increasing the percentage of good cards)
2) Money versus Actions: Some games its better to get money, because with too many actions you'll just draw actions dead, which slows you down. You have to realize that sometimes, an extra silver is better than that shiny action.
3) Action combinations: What actions work well together? IF they do, can you get enough of them fast enough to consistently make 8 or more? If you can build a deck that makes more than 8, do you have the buys to take advantage of the extra money? If not, why bother?
Sometimes I win games against newer players simply because I realized, after my 3rd Lab, for example, that I had enough actions to sustain me through 5 Provinces, and so I stopped buying actions and started buying gold and provinces. If you time the switch right, you can get the jump on an opponent who is building up an engine: by the time they get it started, you've already blown past half the provinces and they can't win. If there are strong actions on the board, you should be able to win by draining provinces in ~14-17 turns.
4) Special ways of winning. Expansions really add to this, but in base there is gardens. If you play a gardens game you can end things really quickly. Actually, its to the advantage of the gardens player to do so. Try
gardens/workshop/village/throne room/market/woodcutter/bureaucrat/spy/cellar/moat
and test out going for a gardens win, without any provinces whatsoever. (hint- you'll need to 3-pile, and fast) That certainly helped me understand a lot more about the game.

[brokoli]

A little thing I don't really like in live games is that some people do not shuffle their deck very well and have too often very good draws.

[Jimmmmm]

Yeah it frustrates me when I do that, even when it benefits me. But I'm not a terribly good shuffler, so the alternative is shuffling for ages which would slow the game down.

[Lekkit]

I tend to get people complaining about me shuffling too much.

[tolenmar]

I have noticed that, too.  Especially since when I bought the set, knowing that we would shuffle so much, I laid down the rule that no one was allowed to riffle shuffle the cards.  It would wear them out too quickly. Solutions?

[DStu]

I have noticed that, too.  Especially since when I bought the set, knowing that we would shuffle so much, I laid down the rule that no one was allowed to riffle shuffle the cards.  It would wear them out too quickly.

Riffle usually shuffles better, so I don't think that that helps...

Solutions?

isotropic?

[Ozle]

The lay them out and mix them round shuffle style is just as quick as riffle and doesnt damage the cards as much.

Just needs a little more space

[Lekkit]

Sleeves works too.

[serakfalcon]

Sleeves works too.

Especially hiding golds up one. Definitely not something you can do on iso

[Willvon]

I sleeved all of my cards several months ago, and the way they slide together makes it pretty easy to shuffle.  However, rifle shuffling is definitely much more difficult with sleeves.  My wife, though, has always preferred to shuffle by dealing out her cards one-by-one into 3 or 4 different piles and then combine them.  It mixes them up very well and it can be done very quickly.

[tolenmar]

I sleeved all of my cards several months ago, and the way they slide together makes it pretty easy to shuffle.  However, rifle shuffling is definitely much more difficult with sleeves.  My wife, though, has always preferred to shuffle by dealing out her cards one-by-one into 3 or 4 different piles and then combine them.  It mixes them up very well and it can be done very quickly.

I do this for other games, usually after we've played several in a row, and I want to be sure it gets done right every once in a while.  Heck, its a requirement for our munchkin deck, sets 1 through 6, there is no way we could ever riffle those stacks otherwise.

[LastFootnote]

When my wife is losing, she starts taking forever to shuffle. It's not usually a conscious decision on her part, but it sure gets annoying. Especially because it means I have to re-sleeve more often.

[Awaclus]

When my wife is losing, she starts taking forever to shuffle. It's not usually a conscious decision on her part, but it sure gets annoying. Especially because it means I have to re-sleeve more often.

Whenever I'm losing, my opponent is always taking forever to do everything. 

[tolenmar]

Okay, a few days down the road...

First, thanks for the links to the videos. That is a lot easier for me to understand.

I mentioned how I noticed I seemed to grab one card of multiple types. Basically, I was unfocussed, and obviously, that wasn't working. But that simple realization was a big breakthrough for me.  Since I noticed that, I take a moment before committing to play to look the board over.  During the opening stages of the game, I try to stick to one or two core cards, and then depending on how the game goes, branching out from there. It has made a world of difference.

I still have yet to be able to beat my son at the game, but that's largely because we can't play face to face that often with him in school. He prefers playing through Iso, but that's because he can use any of the cards in any of the sets.  That puts me back on the defensive because I don't know that many of the cards yet.  Once I've played with multiple card multiple times, I'll start to feel my way through them and improve.

Having said that, when I lose, it is usually a lot closer, and we are talking one or two points difference.  This has also shown up on Goko bot play.  I'm guessing here, but that breakthrough seems to have driven my win rate up past 75%.  That's probably conservative.  And again, when I lose, it's usually only by a few points. (On the flip side of the coin, when I win, I usually destroy the bot...60-65 vs 10-15 is a pretty good bet.)

I don't know why  didn't notice my previous playstyle and how it was hurting me, but now that I have, I've seen big improvements. I may even be confident enough to play a few strangers online now...well, soon anyway.  So look for me, I'll likely be around more often over there now.
 
Of course, the way my luck runs, I'll start to rise up the leaderboard on Iso, and that's when it will shut down. =)

[Qvist]

Okay, a few days down the road...

First, thanks for the links to the videos. That is a lot easier for me to understand.

I mentioned how I noticed I seemed to grab one card of multiple types. Basically, I was unfocussed, and obviously, that wasn't working. But that simple realization was a big breakthrough for me.  Since I noticed that, I take a moment before committing to play to look the board over.  During the opening stages of the game, I try to stick to one or two core cards, and then depending on how the game goes, branching out from there. It has made a world of difference.

I still have yet to be able to beat my son at the game, but that's largely because we can't play face to face that often with him in school. He prefers playing through Iso, but that's because he can use any of the cards in any of the sets.  That puts me back on the defensive because I don't know that many of the cards yet.  Once I've played with multiple card multiple times, I'll start to feel my way through them and improve.

Having said that, when I lose, it is usually a lot closer, and we are talking one or two points difference.  This has also shown up on Goko bot play.  I'm guessing here, but that breakthrough seems to have driven my win rate up past 75%.  That's probably conservative.  And again, when I lose, it's usually only by a few points. (On the flip side of the coin, when I win, I usually destroy the bot...60-65 vs 10-15 is a pretty good bet.)

I don't know why  didn't notice my previous playstyle and how it was hurting me, but now that I have, I've seen big improvements. I may even be confident enough to play a few strangers online now...well, soon anyway.  So look for me, I'll likely be around more often over there now.
 
Of course, the way my luck runs, I'll start to rise up the leaderboard on Iso, and that's when it will shut down. =)

Isn't that a great feeling? We're glad that we could help you.

[dondon151]

Having said that, when I lose, it is usually a lot closer, and we are talking one or two points difference.  This has also shown up on Goko bot play.  I'm guessing here, but that breakthrough seems to have driven my win rate up past 75%.  That's probably conservative.  And again, when I lose, it's usually only by a few points. (On the flip side of the coin, when I win, I usually destroy the bot...60-65 vs 10-15 is a pretty good bet.)

Keep in mind that the margin of victory doesn't necessarily represent how much better you played than your opponent. A blowout could essentially be a mirror with one guy getting better luck or ending the game as player 1. A close game could be a guy totally controlling the game and ending on piles with an extra Estate.

[tolenmar]

I'm gonna go sit on Iso for a while, if anyone wants to play a rookie, I'll be waiting.  Until I get bored, anyway...