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[pubby]

Some of these posts are overstating how often moat is dead. As far as I'm concerned, if you manage to block an attack then moat cannot be considered dead, regardless of whether you play it or not. And blocking attacks can be _really_ good.

Moat is percents-play card. It's not going to win you games, and trying to rely on it is idiotic, but buying a single moat or two can increase your chances of winning an attack-heavy game.

[qmech]

michaeljb ends up getting Platinum a turn before I do, and he also has first player advantage.

Good example.  Allow me to comment on a side point: at this point in the game "first player advantage" has become first player disadvantage, as you have to contend with the unfavourable tie break rule.  Any advantage from being first player is screened off by the game state and you having come out of the early Ambassador war ahead.

[ehunt]

I know we're dropping "goes with," but goes with: Fishing Village, +buy.

[dondon151]

Good example.  Allow me to comment on a side point: at this point in the game "first player advantage" has become first player disadvantage, as you have to contend with the unfavourable tie break rule.  Any advantage from being first player is screened off by the game state and you having come out of the early Ambassador war ahead.

Right, except that michaeljb recovers from the Ambassador war and now his deck composition is slightly ahead. Suppose that michaeljb and I start getting Colony on the same turn, and suppose that both of us are capable of getting a Colony every turn for 4 consecutive turns. Once michaeljb gets his 4th Colony, if I want to win the game, I have to gamble on him not being able to buy a Colony and me being able to buy a Colony after adding a Province to my deck. Additionally, if michaeljb gets a Province instead of ending the game with his 5th Colony, I still can't win the game until I buy a lower VP card that michaeljb can't match and close out the game with my 4th Colony buy.

So assuming evenly matched and consistent decks, michaeljb can easily force the tie, and I lose if my deck falters.

Now suppose that michaeljb gets 3 Colonies and then doesn't make $11 on the next turn, so he buys a Province. If I buy my 4th Colony, michaeljb wins if he can buy his 4th Colony on his next turn. If I observe PPR and buy a Province, then michaeljb can still try to force the tie if he can buy his 4th Colony, even though his deck faltered once. This is basically what happened in the game, except I was confident in breaking PPR because I tracked his deck.

The only time where first player is disadvantageous to michaeljb is if I start buying Colony on the turn before he starts buying Colony, in which case he would lose on a VP tie.

[jaketheyak]

Man, if you're both buying Colonies at the same rate, the correct result is a tie, so what's the problem?

If Player One wants to take a detour via a Province when there are two Colonies left and the scores are tied, well that is a strategy that comes with no small measure of risk.
The fact that Player Two can counter this strategy by doing the exact same thing suggests strongly to me that no advantage exists there.

Yes, in this scenario if Player Two instead buys the penultimate Colony he puts himself at risk of a loss, but there is nothing Player One can do to force you to make that decision.
The game at this point is perfectly symmetrical, therefore no advantage exists.

Arguably, this is a stalemate but, again, if both players really have the exact same buying power in their decks, a tie is the result that best reflects this fact.

[dondon151]

Man, if you're both buying Colonies at the same rate, the correct result is a tie, so what's the problem?

Because sometimes you're playing a tournament set and you want to get a win when your opponent has first player advantage.

Also, this is completely the wrong way to look at it. If michaeljb and I did not diverge strategically, then indeed the game would probably have ended in a tie (caveat below). But because I added Moat to my deck and he didn't, I swung the odds in my favor despite not having first player advantage.

I also explained in the previous post that in this situation where both players are buying Colony at the same rate, if second player gets a bad draw, he loses the game unless he hopes that first player also gets a bad draw, whereas first player needs to get two bad draws in order to lose.

[jaketheyak]

Man, if you're both buying Colonies at the same rate, the correct result is a tie, so what's the problem?

Because sometimes you're playing a tournament set and you want to get a win when your opponent has first player advantage.

Also, this is completely the wrong way to look at it. If michaeljb and I did not diverge strategically, then indeed the game would probably have ended in a tie (caveat below). But because I added Moat to my deck and he didn't, I swung the odds in my favor despite not having first player advantage.

I also explained in the previous post that in this situation where both players are buying Colony at the same rate, if second player gets a bad draw, he loses the game unless he hopes that first player also gets a bad draw, whereas first player needs to get two bad draws in order to lose.

I get it, it's there, but it's a small thing and I think the rule of awarding ties with unequal turns to player two does enough to mitigate it.
And bad draws, well, YMYOSL.

As for tourneys, any tourney worth playing in will have opponents play equal numbers of games as player one anyway.
Maybe first player matters more in some games than others but, hey, it's a card game, there's some randomness involved.
If you really want to make a tourney as fair as possible, you can play each kingdom twice taking turns as player one.

I personally don't believe it's that big a deal.
Usually the better player wins.

[dondon151]

I get it, it's there, but it's a small thing and I think the rule of awarding ties with unequal turns to player two does enough to mitigate it.
And bad draws, well, YMYOSL.

As for tourneys, any tourney worth playing in will have opponents play equal numbers of games as player one anyway.
Maybe first player matters more in some games than others but, hey, it's a card game, there's some randomness involved.
If you really want to make a tourney as fair as possible, you can play each kingdom twice taking turns as player one.

I personally don't believe it's that big a deal.
Usually the better player wins.

There are so many contentious points in this post that I don't know where to start.

First player advantage is not mitigated by player 2 winning on ties with uneven turns. First player advantage has been shown to exist in simulation, and every top player will agree that first player advantage exists in almost every sort of kingdom with player 1 having a win rate of 55% or greater assuming skill is controlled.

Your use of the YMYOSL meme is inappropriate in this context. Assuming that every deck strikes the proper balance between speed and consistency, there is usually a point at which consistency has to be sacrificed for speed in order to maximize win rate. YMYOSL also doesn't invalidate the fact that player 1 has more leniency than player 2 when it comes to not losing a split. This has been observed whether the split in question is a victory card or an important supply pile. Player 2 only has to have bad luck once in order to lose a split; player 1 must have bad luck twice.

A tournament with elimination is not designed to have both players play equal numbers of games as first player. You can't guarantee a set winner with an even number of games if all of the games end in a win and a loss.

The 2012 f.DS championship rules were that the higher seed was player 1 in game 1 and the winner of a game would be player 2 in the subsequent game. Therefore, it was important to win game 1 to maintain first player advantage through the entire set, and in order to claim first player advantage from a disadvantageous position, you had to win as player 2.

Requiring that players play a kingdom twice is not fairer. The second play of a kingdom is more informed and more optimized than the first play of a kingdom. Suppose that Mic Q and I play a kingdom twice, the first time with him being player 1. Since I'm probably now a substantially worse player, suppose that I pick a bad strategy and Mic Q picks a near-optimal one. Now in game 2 where I'm player 1, I can copy Mic Q's game 1 strategy (with appropriate modifications) and get a win in a kingdom where I was completely outplayed game 1. In this case, since I am very likely to lose game 1, I could just use that as an opportunity to sandbag, experiment, and note what a better player does so that I can use that information in game 2 when I'm player 1.

Finally, all of this is a dumb digression. In the game that I posted, the fact remains that by buying Moat, I took a match that would otherwise have ended in a draw or a loss and turned it into a win. This demonstrates an instance in which Moat was a good card.