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[Throwaway_bicycling]

Okay, so here's another recent Seprix game:
http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150112/log.54109627e4b0750ebc1f6911.1421080732514.txt

Any thoughts on this one? Note: I will allow you did not get the very best shuffle luck.

[Deadlock39]

(Just my 2 cents)
I think it is best if we let Seprix seek commentary on specific games in the Game Reports forum unless he specifically asks for it here.  I think he has received good feedback here, and may not want his games cherry picked.

[jaketheyak]

(Just my 2 cents)
I think it is best if we let Seprix seek commentary on specific games in the Game Reports forum unless he specifically asks for it here.  I think he has received good feedback here, and may not want his games cherry picked.

Yeah, I agree.
I think we've made it clear that Seprix shouldn't assume that he's already playing optimal strategy, this is starting to feel like harassment.

[Seprix]

A win is a win. A loss is a loss. I don't care. Do whatever. I'm reading the chat and taking notes for the future. It's all knowledge to me. I gotta study up for that Season 6 anyways.

[Flip5ide]

I honestly think you're playing with the wrong attitude if you're so dismissive of your opponents' intelligence like that. They're all idiots that play stupid strategies, but they keep beating your expert playstyle because... reasons. Riiight.

Actually, this is probably the biggest advantage that lower-ranked players have over higher-ranked players: dismissing the other player's strategy after they buy a different card than you. If they don't buy the same card as you, they must not be playing the optimal strategy, because you always play the strategy that you feel is the "best" right?

Obviously this is a good player's line of thinking, their mindset. Often they are right and pull ahead. But sometimes you stop watching your opponent and before you know it you are behind somehow.

[dondon151]

Okay, so here's another recent Seprix game:
http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150112/log.54109627e4b0750ebc1f6911.1421080732514.txt

Any thoughts on this one? Note: I will allow you did not get the very best shuffle luck.

This looks like a pretty boring kingdom, but Seprix's Ironmonger buy on T10 should be at minimum a BoM, and Cartographer wouldn't be bad, either.

I'm not certain if Baker is unconditionally better than Cartographer; Cartographer's strength in these sorts of decks is hard to assess.

Turn 14 should have been a Duchy; if Seprix had been tracking his opponent's deck, he would have known that the opponent had not yet played his Gold or either of his Silvers, which basically guarantees a Province. Seprix would reshuffle his deck after turn 14, so his Gold, Ironmongers, and Bakers would go back in, and he would have 4 coin tokens in reserve.

[TheExpressicist]

Buying that turn 9 gold is puzzling. One coin token would have turned that into a Province. By my count, even without the gold he would have had enough coin tokens to buy Provinces on each of the turns that he used his gold.

[Awaclus]

A win is a win. A loss is a loss.

[pacovf]

[guidobass]

Obviously, what you do depends on the Kingdom, but to really simplify things, I teach/tell players to always try to get your money's worth. Got $6, get a gold. Got $8, spend all $8. A Province or 2 early may not hurt you, but may pressure your opponent.

Buy the cards that give you extra actions, actions and cards, actions and money, extra cards/money. Get fall-through cards (+ action) if they help you. Avoid attack cards, unless they benefit your hand when played. Trashers can be good/necessary.

When in doubt, buy money, limit action cars.

[jaketheyak]

Obviously, what you do depends on the Kingdom, but to really simplify things, I teach/tell players to always try to get your money's worth. Got $6, get a gold. Got $8, spend all $8. A Province or 2 early may not hurt you, but may pressure your opponent.

Buy the cards that give you extra actions, actions and cards, actions and money, extra cards/money. Get fall-through cards (+ action) if they help you. Avoid attack cards, unless they benefit your hand when played. Trashers can be good/necessary.

When in doubt, buy money, limit action cars.

I... I can't tell if this is satire.

[Seprix]

Obviously, what you do depends on the Kingdom, but to really simplify things, I teach/tell players to always try to get your money's worth. Got $6, get a gold. Got $8, spend all $8. A Province or 2 early may not hurt you, but may pressure your opponent.

Buy the cards that give you extra actions, actions and cards, actions and money, extra cards/money. Get fall-through cards (+ action) if they help you. Avoid attack cards, unless they benefit your hand when played. Trashers can be good/necessary.

When in doubt, buy money, limit action cars.

All of this is wrong.

It all depends on the board, my friend. Gold is usually something you want to avoid/have only one of. Money clogs up your deck in Engines, and isn't something you need if you can buy a Province with all your deck already sans the money. Gold should almost always be bought in a Big Money deck or something where it's necessary and perhaps a few Colony games. It all depends on the board for sure.

Your money's worth idea... It's not at all correct. Think of it this way. There is a kingdom with Scout ($4), Chapel ($2), and Silver ($3). Your starting hand is 4/3. Do you open Scout Silver? Of course not. Chapel is worth the $4 (and Scout is certainly not worth $4) and Silver helps you to get to better cards. Money is just a way to get to cards you want. If you have more money than you're using to spend on cards, you're wasting time you could be spending winning. I know it's an extreme example, but if this game has taught me anything, it's that there is NO SET RULES TO PLAY. There are general guidelines, but there's always an exception. Is there a board where you DON'T want chapel? Sure. It's very rare, but it's there.

Getting Provinces early is okay for new players, but you almost certainly won't be doing that with a good +buy card on the board in an Engine setting. As said before, it's all on what the board is.

When in doubt, buy action cards that aren't terminal. Though this isn't a rule anyone should follow either. What I would encourage is to let people do their own thing, fail, and learn from it. Like me. I don't feel like I'm learning when I lose, but really, I do.

And Attack cards slow your opponent. Sea Hag doesn't help you at all, but it's just so strong anyways. If it helps you, awesome! But if it doesn't, it needs to be a strong attack. Which is why Saboteur fails, but Sea Hag does not.

I don't know really, but I feel like what you're saying isn't right from what I've seen in high level play.

[TheOthin]

This reminds me of a bit of a trickier dilemma I've run into a lot: deciding between two cards you actually want in your deck, but you have more of an immediate need for the cheaper one. Maybe you could pick up a key $5 terminal, but you're a bit heavy on terminals and there's a village you'd rather add first, if you could be sure you'd be able to get the expensive terminal right afterward. But if you can't be sure you'll hit $5 again soon, it can be tempting to spend it while you have it.

Now that I'm typing this out I'm getting the idea that one good general rule for this might be using deck tracking to get a good idea of whether or not you'll hit $4 or whatever you need for the cheaper card before your next reshuffle, but are there any other good things to keep in mind?

[Mic Qsenoch]

This reminds me of a bit of a trickier dilemma I've run into a lot: deciding between two cards you actually want in your deck, but you have more of an immediate need for the cheaper one. Maybe you could pick up a key $5 terminal, but you're a bit heavy on terminals and there's a village you'd rather add first, if you could be sure you'd be able to get the expensive terminal right afterward. But if you can't be sure you'll hit $5 again soon, it can be tempting to spend it while you have it.

Now that I'm typing this out I'm getting the idea that one good general rule for this might be using deck tracking to get a good idea of whether or not you'll hit $4 or whatever you need for the cheaper card before your next reshuffle, but are there any other good things to keep in mind?

I would err on the side of getting the key expensive card, especially if hitting the threshold again soon is at all doubtful. If your fear is mainly about being overterminal'd, then I say go for it (too many terminals > too few). This is very case sensitive though, if you run into this choice anytime soon, post the log. You are correct that deck tracking can be very important here. The important general factors are the obvious things:
- How much money will I have in future turns? How likely am I to reach the expensive threshold again and when?
- How important is having the expensive card (or the cheap one) in my next shuffle?
- Is the split on either component important? If having a limited number of villages will cripple you later, get the cheap village. 

[guidobass]

Obviously, what you do depends on the Kingdom, but to really simplify things, I teach/tell players to always try to get your money's worth. Got $6, get a gold. Got $8, spend all $8. A Province or 2 early may not hurt you, but may pressure your opponent.

Buy the cards that give you extra actions, actions and cards, actions and money, extra cards/money. Get fall-through cards (+ action) if they help you. Avoid attack cards, unless they benefit your hand when played. Trashers can be good/necessary.

When in doubt, buy money, limit action cars.

All of this is wrong.

It all depends on the board, my friend. Gold is usually something you want to avoid/have only one of. Money clogs up your deck in Engines, and isn't something you need if you can buy a Province with all your deck already sans the money. Gold should almost always be bought in a Big Money deck or something where it's necessary and perhaps a few Colony games. It all depends on the board for sure.

Your money's worth idea... It's not at all correct. Think of it this way. There is a kingdom with Scout ($4), Chapel ($2), and Silver ($3). Your starting hand is 4/3. Do you open Scout Silver? Of course not. Chapel is worth the $4 (and Scout is certainly not worth $4) and Silver helps you to get to better cards. Money is just a way to get to cards you want. If you have more money than you're using to spend on cards, you're wasting time you could be spending winning. I know it's an extreme example, but if this game has taught me anything, it's that there is NO SET RULES TO PLAY. There are general guidelines, but there's always an exception. Is there a board where you DON'T want chapel? Sure. It's very rare, but it's there.

Getting Provinces early is okay for new players, but you almost certainly won't be doing that with a good +buy card on the board in an Engine setting. As said before, it's all on what the board is.

When in doubt, buy action cards that aren't terminal. Though this isn't a rule anyone should follow either. What I would encourage is to let people do their own thing, fail, and learn from it. Like me. I don't feel like I'm learning when I lose, but really, I do.

And Attack cards slow your opponent. Sea Hag doesn't help you at all, but it's just so strong anyways. If it helps you, awesome! But if it doesn't, it needs to be a strong attack. Which is why Saboteur fails, but Sea Hag does not.

I don't know really, but I feel like what you're saying isn't right from what I've seen in high level play.

This is why I hate putting messages into threads.

I understand all the strategy stuff, what SHOULD be done. I understand that doing certain things early goes against the grain for you, and the experts.

I did say "Obviously, what you do depends on the Kingdom", and no idea is all correct because "Obviously, what you do depends on the Kingdom". But the person who started this was looking for help, not an analysis of how to play a Kingdom that they may not ever play again.  There's a lot more to think about in any game, as the poster probably knows. They want something to try.

Maybe you all play top quality players all the time so you have to be "on your game". I don't think "high level play" is what was asked for here. I didn't get technical, I just gave simple advice on what to try, not make your mantra.

So, it's not "all wrong" or satire. It's just advice. General guidelines in 100 words or less, or more.

[jaketheyak]

Sorry, didn't mean to be snarky, but it was just such very very bad advice that it looked like you were deliberately trying to be funny.
Everything you said looked like a list of mistakes that new players make:

Spending the full value of your hand instead of buying the key cards that your deck actually needs.
Buying Provinces as soon as you hit $8, regardless of what kind of shape your deck is currently in.
Avoiding attack cards that only hurt your opponent and don't help you (this one is often true, but ignore Sea Hag at your peril).
Buying money and avoiding buying too many actions, i.e. favouring a big money strategy over an engine.

The one thing you definitely got right was when you said "trashers can be good/necessary", but that is such an incredible understatement.

Yes, it always depends on the board, but high-level players will almost always put together an engine if there is one to be had.
Try and watch some of the videos that these players have on Twitch/Youtube (like Mic Qsenoch here).
In particular, I personally found it quite an eye-opener to realise just how long really good players will delay buying green cards.
It takes real control to let your opponent take an early lead, whilst being confident in your ability to come back with a power engine.

ETA: Oh, also, these are all mistakes that I have made/continue to make. Getting good at this game is hard work, which is why I objected to Seprix's original comments in the first place.

[Seprix]

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150116/log.5139535be4b0cd4b5a40dccd.1421474488643.txt

This one stung. I think what I should have done was first off, NOT buy Squire. I didn't want more Silver, but I should have just gotten nothing there I think. Also, I for sure did not get enough Bridges early on. I think my buying was not optimal, though I rallied for this awesome comeback for a second there. In the end, he won. It's hard to overcome a 3 Province deficit, and I didn't want to Green yet because I just wasn't ready, I felt.

[c4master]

If you wanted to go for a bridge megaturn (I'm not sure whether that's possible on this board), you should avoid silver and I personally wouldn't have opened Ironworks, I guess.

[Awaclus]

If you wanted to go for a bridge megaturn (I'm not sure whether that's possible on this board), you should avoid silver and I personally wouldn't have opened Ironworks, I guess.

You have to open Ironworks if you're going for a Bridge megaturn.

[eigensheep]

Definitely go for bridge megaturn.

Your big problem here is that you got 5 villages before your second terminal.

Trashing needs to be gotten early. Every time you play your bishop it's like gaining a laboratory.

[Throwaway_bicycling]

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150116/log.5139535be4b0cd4b5a40dccd.1421474488643.txt

This one stung. I think what I should have done was first off, NOT buy Squire. I didn't want more Silver, but I should have just gotten nothing there I think. Also, I for sure did not get enough Bridges early on. I think my buying was not optimal, though I rallied for this awesome comeback for a second there. In the end, he won. It's hard to overcome a 3 Province deficit, and I didn't want to Green yet because I just wasn't ready, I felt.

Last post for me on this thread, I swear.

Okay, so your commentary here is focusing on what you bought/didn't buy rather than what your overall strategy or approach was. Again, it's easy to tell what what your opponent was up to: Big Money with Lab for additional draw, aided by Haggler. Also note that this is pretty fast: four Provinces in 13 turns as played, and six Provinces in 17 turns, aided somewhat by a 5/2 opening. But wait: as you note, there is Bridge on the board, and cards that can help you acquire and play a lot of them.

So: imagine (say) turn 15 where you play (say) 6 Bridges and $12. Opponent already has 4 Provinces, but you can buy the other 4 plus 3 Duchies and, of course, you acquired another Duchy with Ironworks earlier in the turn. Game over, and Seprix wins! It could happen...now how might you try to make that happen?

[eHalcyon]

Definitely go for bridge megaturn.

Your big problem here is that you got 5 villages before your second terminal.

Trashing needs to be gotten early. Every time you play your bishop it's like gaining a laboratory.

Not a great comparison. Bishop helps your opponents just as much, so you're not gaining anything over then other than the VP. That said, it's possible that the trashing will help you more than your opponent.  Even so, Ironworks is more important early on because most of your key cards are $4.

[Seprix]

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150116/log.5139535be4b0cd4b5a40dccd.1421474488643.txt

This one stung. I think what I should have done was first off, NOT buy Squire. I didn't want more Silver, but I should have just gotten nothing there I think. Also, I for sure did not get enough Bridges early on. I think my buying was not optimal, though I rallied for this awesome comeback for a second there. In the end, he won. It's hard to overcome a 3 Province deficit, and I didn't want to Green yet because I just wasn't ready, I felt.

Last post for me on this thread, I swear.

Okay, so your commentary here is focusing on what you bought/didn't buy rather than what your overall strategy or approach was. Again, it's easy to tell what what your opponent was up to: Big Money with Lab for additional draw, aided by Haggler. Also note that this is pretty fast: four Provinces in 13 turns as played, and six Provinces in 17 turns, aided somewhat by a 5/2 opening. But wait: as you note, there is Bridge on the board, and cards that can help you acquire and play a lot of them.

So: imagine (say) turn 15 where you play (say) 6 Bridges and $12. Opponent already has 4 Provinces, but you can buy the other 4 plus 3 Duchies and, of course, you acquired another Duchy with Ironworks earlier in the turn. Game over, and Seprix wins! It could happen...now how might you try to make that happen?

Because Bishop was not great trashing (opponent gets trashing here too for free), my plan was to draw my entire deck every turn, and from there, Bridge out. Except I didn't trash aggressively enough. Ironworks Silver is the right call for turn one, but after that, no silver. My main mistake is getting $3 hands, and buying anything with it.

[Asper]

Just one word to those accusing Seprix' question of being rude: Asking why you are always losing recently doesn't imply you think that all your opponents are morons. It just implies that you don't think they all became much better than you overnight. Which is reasonable, i might add.

[WanderingWinder]

Just one word to those accusing Seprix' question of being rude: Asking why you are always losing recently doesn't imply you think that all your opponents are morons. It just implies that you don't think they all became much better than you overnight. Which is reasonable, i might add.

In defense of those people, before he edited the OP, it called people he lost to all the time "complete idiots", which does indeed imply that.