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[ososnilknarf]

Hello,
This is my first post on this forum. I just started playing Dominion about a week ago, and have become kind of obsessed with it.
I discovered the app and have been playing through the base set campaign against the AI. I was wondering if some of the experienced Dominion players here on the forums could share your thoughts on this game.

In Base: Act 1, Game 7 the kingdom consists of:
Spy, Thief, Council Room, Festival, Library, Moat, Chancellor, Village, Bureaucrat, Militia.

The first time I played this board, I won. I had tried to set up some kind of +Cards/+Actions engine using Council Rooms, Festivals, and Villages. I also played some Library and Militia. It was something like that. But after that initial win, I kept playing and couldn't put together a win for several games in a row. The AI just plays Big Money with a single Council Room on this board, and it seems to go pretty fast. My first win may have been a lucky fluke.

I finally came up with a simple strategy that seems to win by just buying a Militia, then playing Big Money with single Council Room. This seems to win but by a close margin. Playing Big Money with Council Room seems to get there very fast, especially with both players using Council Room, since it gives the opponent a card too.

How would you analyze this board? Are there better ways to play?

--Pete

[werothegreat]

The base set is rather Big Money centered, and Council Room is a shining example of that.  If both players are playing Council Room, but one is trying to cobble together an engine, the BM player will win - they're drawing too many cards, which will be mostly Treasures.  The trick here is, if you're doing the engine, you have to have a Militia to play once you've done drawing with Council Rooms.  Make sure your opponent only starts with 3 cards.

Let's say you just play a Council Room.  The AI then gets:

Full hand (4, not counting CR) + bonus from you (1) + its own CR (4) = 9 cards to try to get a Province.  Even with only Coppers, that's going to buy a Province every turn.

Now let's have you dump a Militia after you Council Room.  AI gets:

Stunted hand (2, not counting CR) + no bonus (0) + its own CR (4) = 6 cards.  A lot harder to buy a Province if you play effectively a single Laboratory.

[aku_chi]

Village + Council Room + Militia is a powerful combo.  Use Villages and Council Rooms to draw your deck and make the opponent discard down to three with Militia.  BM strategies really struggle against consistent Militia play.  So, I would go for that.  Getting an early Council Room is important for the +buy.  I would probably open with Council Room / nothing on 5/2, though Festival / Moat seems decent.  On 4/3, I would probably go Militia / Silver and aim to pick up a Council Room and Festival or Village on turns 3 + 4.  From that point on, aim to keep your villages and terminals (all Council Rooms after the first buy) at approximately even ratios.  Favor double Village over Festival.  Once you're consistently drawing your deck, you can starting greening and/or increasing purchasing power (Festival is probably better than Gold for this).

[Awaclus]

I think the best way to play is to open Militia and then focus on playing that one Militia as often as possible, because the AI is playing big money and Militia does serious damage against BM strategies. You don't want Festivals until you're already overdrawing your deck; your early game $5s should be Council Rooms and you should get your +actions from Villages, the reason for this being that Festival doesn't draw any cards so it's easier to draw your deck consistently with Village which is important because there is no trashing. Depending on how your shuffles play out, you might want to get two Villages over one Council Room if you have $6 or $7 with two buys, or you might want the Council Room. Picking up a couple of Moats on spare $2s is probably good when you have more (or roughly as many) Villages than you need because they can compensate for any Festivals you're getting later, but if you're short on +actions at that particular moment, it's not that great because the AI doesn't attack you anyway.

You don't want any Libraries because it doesn't do anything when you already have 7 cards in your hand, which is all the time.

I think you should build up to double Province turns. That should be pretty easy since you already have a bunch of money from the Coppers that you can't trash anyway and the Militia that you absolutely want, and there's Festival so it's easier to increase your payload without ruining your deck. Pay attention to how many dollars your deck is capable of producing — you want that number to be exactly $16, so pick up a Gold if you're $3 short but pick up a Festival if you're just $2 short.

[ososnilknarf]

Thanks guys! This helped immensely. I can now consistently beat the AI on this kingdom using your advice.
Basically going for militia first, then council room, and building up villages and council rooms, with one or two festivals, and building my total coin count to 16.
One of the things that was throwing my game off before was getting nervous when the AI was getting a province really early. I think I was allowing myself to panic and start greening too soon.
Now, when I just wait and build up that engine until I'm drawing the whole deck with 16 coin, even if the AI picks up one or two provinces before me, I still nail a couple of good double province turns and get a handy win.

Thanks! Learned a lot from this.

[Awaclus]

One of the things that was throwing my game off before was getting nervous when the AI was getting a province really early. I think I was allowing myself to panic and start greening too soon.

Yeah, you don't usually want to worry about this too much, especially when you have Attacks. Engines are naturally a slower strategy than big money, so being a few Provinces behind while you're still building is par for the course, and many times (for example, if there's alt VP) you want to avoid buying Provinces just to make it more difficult for the big money player to end the game before you're ready.

[Drab Emordnilap]

One of the things not to forget as the engine player is that extra half-stack of Provinces, that cost $10 and 2 Buys each.