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[Tables]

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/04/game-20120204-154141-dc7d239d.html

Key cards: Highway, Salvager, Harem, Vineyards.

Eyeing up the board, it looks like an obvious BM game. There's Highways but the only +buy are Salvager (which I percieved as a total nombo) and Woodcutter, which seems a little too slow. Salvager is the only trashing, and with so little +actions, it just seems a fairly straight BM game would be best here. With that in mind, I opened Cutpurse/Silver with the intent to get to Gold quickly, then buy Harems/Provinces, grabbing some Highways if I hit $5 early (as they can't really hurt).

Well, my opponent goes for Salvager. An acceptable opening buy. I pass on them, as it severely weakens Highways and I don't want to be stuck with Silvers for $5. Things seem to be going okay. I get up to $6, grab a few Gold, then start hitting provinces. My opponent has also grabbed Highways, and seeing him Highway into Salvager, I figure I've got an easy win.

About 6 turns later, and I'm wondering why I'm not further ahead than I am. I don't seem to be doing too well on grabbing Provinces - were those Highways a bad plan? Should I have gone for a Jester instead? I grab a Woodcutter - I only have one other terminal, after all, so the +buy might actually help.

Later still and I seem to be struggling. Despite all expectations, I'm falling behind on Provinces and he's starting down Vineyards. I grab at the Duchies and Harems, but it's no good. I seem to have lost. My shuffle luck didn't seem that bad, and I pretty much just played BM with Highways and Harems, yet I got trounced by what I'd dismissed as a totally sub-par strategy. What was my core mistake? Did I green too early? Were the Highways totally the wrong move? Did I just get unlucky and not realise?

[Forge!!!]

If it seems like an obvious BM board, why didn't you go BM?

[Tables]

Would you not consider one or two terminal actions with some better-than-silver Cantrips BM? My deck had 6 actions at the end of the game - 3 Highways when I'd hit $5, as I'm pretty sure they're better than Silvers, one Cutpurse as it seemed the best $4 for the board, one Woodcutter to get a +buy when I'd already gotten some Highways, and one Salvager during the endgame which never even turned up when the Estates were out and I pretty much needed to risk on it hitting something like a Highway or Gold to win.

(Simulator shows Cutpurse+Highway beats flat cutpurse about 60/37. It looks like buying a Woodcutter over a Silver hurts more than it helps, to my surprise. Scrap that, the Woodcutter helps as well, but at that point it's not too easy to accurately sim.).

Also, I tried to simulate the game - getting my opponent's strategy in there accurately is tough, but making roughly what he did seems to give me an 85/15 win rate from second seat. So despite me not feeling like I was unlucky, I guess I was. Or I just can't simulate his strategy very well.

[WanderingWinder]

Woodcutter was too early. I'd have gone for another highway there.
Turn 8 you should buy a province, methinks.
Turn 11 I would again go Highway>silver
Turn 12 I would buy Highway
Turn 15 - at this point, it's sorta hard to say, since I can't see the board and only have a so-so feel for what was out there (wish it were a CR log...), but I probably wouldn't be buying that estate yet. Certainly if you're preferring Harem to duchy a couple turns later, going estate there over nothing is probably wrong.
And down the stretch, you seem to be grabbing lots of things that I don't understand very well, but I really need to see the score and board to accurately judge an endgame, and I don't feel like taking the amount of time to reconstruct everything.

[DG]

The salvager doesn't weaken the highways. It will slowly trash out the rubbish and mean that more highways are drawn together. The highways don't actually weaken the salvager either since you get both reduced income and reduced costs.

I'm guessing that you could have taken a jester and put some deterioration into his deck. Buying harems extends the game and you would probably have been better served by gold and emptying the provinces. A salvager of your own could have turned your assets into provinces in the end game.

[Tables]

I'm not convinced by Salvager and Highways not weakening each other. Salvager after Highway means the benefits of the Highway is completely lost, as I've reduced the cost by as much as I've lost from salvaging. And a $4 to trash a card seems totally not worth it (compared to Silver at least). Highway into Salvager means either the Highways are just cantrips, or all the Salvager is doing is trash a card, +1 buy.

I did consider Jester, and certainly should have considered it more carefully. But his deck was made up cards I either couldn't gain (e.g Highways which ran out by turn 10), didn't want (e.g. Salvager) and the rest was too small a target to bother with.

Woodcutter was too early. I'd have gone for another highway there.
Turn 8 you should buy a province, methinks.
Turn 11 I would again go Highway>silver
Turn 12 I would buy Highway
Turn 15 - at this point, it's sorta hard to say, since I can't see the board and only have a so-so feel for what was out there (wish it were a CR log...), but I probably wouldn't be buying that estate yet. Certainly if you're preferring Harem to duchy a couple turns later, going estate there over nothing is probably wrong.
And down the stretch, you seem to be grabbing lots of things that I don't understand very well, but I really need to see the score and board to accurately judge an endgame, and I don't feel like taking the amount of time to reconstruct everything.

Woodcutter probably was too early. I'm not sure why I bought it when I did. Probably had a brain fart and though, I have $4 to spend, might as well get one.
Turn 8 I didn't have any Golds, and I think only 2 Silver and a Woodcutter were in my deck, plus Highways. Perhaps Province here would have been better, but I don't think it would have been by much if it was.
Turn 11/12 as I mentioned, Highways were all gone. I probably would have otherwise. Sorry it's not a CR log, this game happened only an hour ago .
In the greening... yeah, that's where things started to become a bit of a blur. I think I took the Estate because I thought it gave me a 1 VP edge, and without point tracker, I thought we were otherwise very close. It also looked like the game was going to end very soon, and I wasn't expecting or ready for a drawn out endgame. I probably played it all wrong though - I was just trying to amass as many VPs as I could, not expecting my deck to stall quite as much as it did.

[HiveMindEmulator]

If you draw highway with salvager, can't you just salvage the highway and buy a province or gold?

[dondon151]

With an alternate source of VP in the kingdom, if you were planning on going straight for the Provinces, an earlier Salvager would have helped you accelerate the game and pressure the opponent.

[ehunt]

I Highway into Salvager means either the Highways are just cantrips, or all the Salvager is doing is trash a card, +1 buy.

Trash a card, + 1buy after a highway chain is just great! I go highway trade route all the time; how's this different? It's marginally better than trade route if the highway chain is short (e.g. early game) and marginally worse if it's long (e.g. late game).

[Voltgloss]

1) Highway synergizes with +buy
2) Vineyards synergizes with +buy
3) Vineyards synergizes with spammable cantrips

This board adds 1, 2, and 3 together into a Highway/Vineyards/+buy engine.  Seems like a reasonable strategy against Big Money to me.

As for your play, I would have gone for Gold over Harem early (i.e., turn 10), and bought a Province at turn 8.  A long game favors the Vineyards player (his turn 7 signals he's going for this strategy, where he buys Highway over Gold), so you'd have been better poised to keep the game short, which means going for Provinces asap. 

For example, if you had done the following:

- turn 7, buy Highway instead of Woodcutter
- turn 8, buy Province instead of Gold
- turn 10, you'd have a Highway and Province in hand instead of a Woodcutter (clashing with your Cutpurse) and Gold.  Play the Highway and you draw another Copper, so after your Cutpurse you'd have $5 and everything costing -$1, allowing you to buy that Harem anyway... but I'd buy a Gold instead.

At this point, you'd have a Highway instead of your Woodcutter, and a Province instead of your Harem.  Hard to say exactly how things would have shaken out from here, but if the rest of the game played out similarly (except you not buying an Estate on turn 15, as you wouldn't have a Woodcutter) you could have ended the game on turn 18 with a Province buy.  That would win you the game, as you'd have had 39 VP vs. 36 VP for your opponent, as he only had 2 Vineyards by that time worth 3 VP each (10 actions).  {As the actual game ran much longer, he was able to not only nab two more Vineyards, but also bulk his four Vineyards up to 5 VP each.}

[Empathy]

Key cards: Highway, Salvager, Harem, Vineyards.

Remove Harem, it's completely irrelevant and probably made you lose the game. Then look at your list of key cards again. Guess what, they made your opponent win the game.

1) Highway synergizes with +buy
2) Vineyards synergizes with +buy
3) Vineyards synergizes with spammable cantrips

This board adds 1, 2, and 3 together into a Highway/Vineyards/+buy engine.  Seems like a reasonable strategy against Big Money to me.

As for your play, I would have gone for Gold over Harem early (i.e., turn 10), and bought a Province at turn 8.  A long game favors the Vineyards player (his turn 7 signals he's going for this strategy, where he buys Highway over Gold), so you'd have been better poised to keep the game short, which means going for Provinces asap. 

For example, if you had done the following:

- turn 7, buy Highway instead of Woodcutter
- turn 8, buy Province instead of Gold
- turn 10, you'd have a Highway and Province in hand instead of a Woodcutter (clashing with your Cutpurse) and Gold.  Play the Highway and you draw another Copper, so after your Cutpurse you'd have $5 and everything costing -$1, allowing you to buy that Harem anyway... but I'd buy a Gold instead.

At this point, you'd have a Highway instead of your Woodcutter, and a Province instead of your Harem.  Hard to say exactly how things would have shaken out from here, but if the rest of the game played out similarly (except you not buying an Estate on turn 15, as you wouldn't have a Woodcutter) you could have ended the game on turn 18 with a Province buy.  That would win you the game, as you'd have had 39 VP vs. 36 VP for your opponent, as he only had 2 Vineyards by that time worth 3 VP each (10 actions).  {As the actual game ran much longer, he was able to not only nab two more Vineyards, but also bulk his four Vineyards up to 5 VP each.}

^This

Plus a BM variant that takes 27 turns without any significant attack was probably misplayed.

Gold over harem any day if you want the game to go faster (which is a good way to counter vineyard).

Get more salvagers and aggressively trash provinces to them.

[WanderingWinder]

Key cards: Highway, Salvager, Harem, Vineyards.

Remove Harem, it's completely irrelevant and probably made you lose the game.

False.

[Empathy]

Key cards: Highway, Salvager, Harem, Vineyards.

Remove Harem, it's completely irrelevant and probably made you lose the game.

False.

I am surprised. Do you mean in general, or on this board? I definitely don't see how you can defend Harem in this matchup.

[Tahtweasel]

I'd just like to quickly point out that Highway/Salvager is not so weak. Highways love trashing and +buy, both of which are provided by Salvager.

The "smart" analysis says that Salvager's coin income decreases from each Highway played, so Highway weakens Salvager. But the most likely target for Salvager in a Highway deck is Copper.

[WanderingWinder]

Key cards: Highway, Salvager, Harem, Vineyards.

Remove Harem, it's completely irrelevant and probably made you lose the game.

False.

I am surprised. Do you mean in general, or on this board? I definitely don't see how you can defend Harem in this matchup.

Well, both. But I really mean in this board. It may not be a super-key card, but there is absolutely no way it's irrelevant. and it definitely didn't lose him the game. I don't see how you can say it's irrelevant here, and as it generally isn't... why do you think it's totally irrelevant here? I'll give you that it might be ever-so-slightly less relevant here than normal, but... not by much.

[Empathy]

Key cards: Highway, Salvager, Harem, Vineyards.

Remove Harem, it's completely irrelevant and probably made you lose the game.

False.

I am surprised. Do you mean in general, or on this board? I definitely don't see how you can defend Harem in this matchup.

Well, both. But I really mean in this board. It may not be a super-key card, but there is absolutely no way it's irrelevant. and it definitely didn't lose him the game. I don't see how you can say it's irrelevant here, and as it generally isn't... why do you think it's totally irrelevant here? I'll give you that it might be ever-so-slightly less relevant here than normal, but... not by much.

My two reasons to disregard Harem on this match up are:

• Compared to gold, it slows down your game. Granted, in terms of overall points, its beneficial, but in this particular match up, vineyards makes any slow BM lose, regardless of those few extra Harem points.
• Harem/salvager is the real nombo here. Gold is a much better salvager target. (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/05/game-20120205-084201-a5ab3153.html)

Granted, the OP did not go for salvager-BM. The point I'm trying to illustrate with the above solo-game is that 27 turns is waaay too long. Salvager/gold takes a lot less time to close down the game, and makes more points by then.

Now sure, if we play for longer, Harem is a better deal. There is probably a simulation out there proving that harem-BM beats straight BM. It might even beat salvager-BM (not certain though). But salvager BM does not take 27 turns to finish the deal.

[Tables]

It looks like I made a number of strategic and tactical errors - most notably assuming what I saw as a sub-par opening would mean a weak and easy opponent. Which is always a bad assumption to make 

In short I guess I need to take away these things:
1) If an opponent does something strange, assume they've probably seen something, not that they're bad. Look for whatever it is they've probably seen.
2) BM decks need to end the game quickly. Don't get bogged down in a Duchy/Harem rush if your opponent is getting VPs elsewhere.

[GendoIkari]

It looks like I made a number of strategic and tactical errors - most notably assuming what I saw as a sub-par opening would mean a weak and easy opponent. Which is always a bad assumption to make 

Indeed; I posted a few days ago about how I lost to someone who bought a Curse on turn 1!!

Then again, sometimes a weak-looking strategy just means an opponent who doesn't quite know what he's doing in Dominion yet:

Code: [Select]

--- curly's turn 1 ---
curly plays 4 Coppers.
curly buys a Village.
(curly draws: 3 Coppers and 2 Estates.)
   
--- curly's turn 2 ---
curly plays 3 Coppers.
curly buys a Village.
(curly reshuffles.)
(curly draws: 5 Coppers.)
   
--- curly's turn 3 ---
curly plays 5 Coppers.
curly buys a Village.
(curly draws: 2 Coppers and 3 Estates.)
   
--- curly's turn 4 ---
curly plays 2 Coppers.
curly buys a Fool's Gold.
(curly reshuffles.)
(curly draws: a Copper, 3 Villages, and an Estate.)

--- curly's turn 5 ---
curly plays a Village.
... drawing 1 card and getting +2 actions.
curly plays a Village.
... drawing 1 card and getting +2 actions.
curly plays a Village.
... drawing 1 card and getting +2 actions.
curly plays 4 Coppers.
curly buys a Village.
(curly draws: 2 Coppers, a Fool's Gold, and 2 Estates.)
 
--- curly's turn 6 ---
curly plays a Fool's Gold.
... getting +$1.
curly plays 2 Coppers.
curly buys a Village.
(curly reshuffles.)
(curly draws: 2 Coppers, 2 Villages, and an Estate.)
   
--- curly's turn 7 ---
curly plays a Village.
... drawing 1 card and getting +2 actions.
curly plays a Village.
... drawing 1 card and getting +2 actions.
curly plays a Village.
... drawing 1 card and getting +2 actions.
curly plays 4 Coppers.
curly buys a Potion.
(curly draws: 3 Coppers and 2 Estates.)

--- curly's turn 8 ---
curly plays 3 Coppers.
curly buys a Village.
(curly reshuffles.)
(curly draws: 2 Coppers, 2 Villages, and a Fool's Gold.)

--- curly's turn 9 ---
curly plays a Village.
... drawing 1 card and getting +2 actions.
curly plays a Village.
... drawing 1 card and getting +2 actions.
curly plays a Fool's Gold.
... getting +$1.
curly plays 3 Coppers.
curly buys a Village.
(curly draws: a Village, 2 Coppers, a Potion, and an Estate.)

--- curly's turn 10 ---
curly plays a Village.
... drawing 1 card and getting +2 actions.
curly plays 3 Coppers and a Potion.
curly buys a Village.
(curly draws: a Copper, 3 Villages, and an Estate.)
The Potion card he passed up there in turn 10 was a Scrying Pool. This is how I chose to capitalize:

Code: [Select]

   GendoIkari plays a Bazaar.
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +2 actions and +$1.
   GendoIkari plays a King's Court.
   ... and plays a Governor.
   ... ... getting +1 action.
   ... ... drawing 3 cards.
   ... ... curly draws 1 card.
   ... and plays the Governor again.
   ... ... getting +1 action.
   ... ... GendoIkari trashes a Gold.
   ... ... GendoIkari gains a Province.
   ... ... curly trashes nothing.
   ... and plays the Governor a third time.
   ... ... getting +1 action.
   ... ... GendoIkari trashes a Gold.
   ... ... GendoIkari gains a Province.
   ... ... curly trashes nothing.
   GendoIkari plays a Bazaar.
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +2 actions and +$1.
   GendoIkari plays a King's Court.
   ... and plays a Governor.
   ... ... getting +1 action.
   ... ... GendoIkari trashes a Gold.
   ... ... GendoIkari gains a Province.
   ... ... curly trashes nothing.
   ... and plays the Governor again.
   ... ... getting +1 action.
   ... ... GendoIkari trashes a Gold.
   ... ... GendoIkari gains a Province.
   ... ... curly trashes nothing.
   ... and plays the Governor a third time.
   ... ... getting +1 action.
   ... ... (GendoIkari reshuffles.)
   ... ... drawing 3 cards.
   ... ... curly draws 1 card.
   GendoIkari plays a Governor.
   ... getting +1 action.
   ... gaining a Gold.
   ... curly gains a Silver.
   GendoIkari plays 3 Silvers.
   GendoIkari buys a Province.

[Tables]

Curly's strat looks really good. I'm drooling just thinking about what I could do with all those extra actions! Play... oh, some Great Halls, Pearl Divers (lots of them, could be loads of good buried cards!), and then finish off with probably buying even more villages.

[GendoIkari]

Curly's strat looks really good. I'm drooling just thinking about what I could do with all those extra actions! Play... oh, some Great Halls, Pearl Divers (lots of them, could be loads of good buried cards!), and then finish off with probably buying even more villages.

To be fair, there WAS a really powerful terminal on the board that you would want to play a lot of........ King's Court.