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[Davio]

A "problem" I sometimes run into in certain games is that I tend to get "too lucky" in a couple of early and mid game turns when there is a good $5.

For example, in Lab games I might get an early $6 and think "Well, I want at least one Gold, so I might as well grab it now" and then I hit $8 and think "a Province is nothing to sneeze at" so I grab it and a couple of turns later my opponent, who has hit exactly $5 for a couple of turns, steamrolls to victory with his Lab train.

Those $6 and $8 turns of mine of course mean I also have some mediocre $3 and $4 turns in which I buy the obligatory Silver.

I just find it hard to deal with those games. Should I "sacrifice" those $8 turns for Labs? I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth of course!
And when I'm finally getting around to grabbing a couple of Labs, it's already time for the end game so I need to grab Duchies. At this point my opponent, whose deck is better with his Labs can grab an easy win.

I'm sure a lot of you have similar games in which you think: "If I ever hit $X I'm grabbing that card" and then never hitting $X. Do you still grab those cards with higher $'s or do you gladly skip them? It's just hard to pass up Gold or a Province, especially when you know your next turns are going to be bad...

[Toskk]

Honestly, I think the problem is the "some mediocre $3 and $4 turns" rather than the buying Gold over Lab with $6, or Province over Lab with $8. It's pretty easy mathematically to determine the relative value of Lab vs. Gold if you have nothing but Labs (or other non-terminals) in the deck.. and invariably your first Gold is going to be stronger than a Lab (for reference, it would take buying (only) 16 Silvers before the treasure value of Laboratory exceeds that of a Gold). However it only takes 4 Silvers before the relative treasure value of Laboratory exceeds that of Silver (fewer if you purchase more Labs). So getting only $3 and $6 turns is probably ultimately going to lose to a player getting mostly $5 turns (when there are good cost 5 cards to buy), despite the Gold still being the 'right' purchase.. after all, there's a lot of luck involved in Dominion.

[Fabian]

Obviously "it depends", but I would say that in general, no, you shouldn't sacrifice that Province for a Lab. Adjusting your strategy to the hands you get is a pretty big part of becoming a better player, in my experience. Sometimes you get early game draws that push you toward big money (Silver+4Copper followed by 3Copper+2Estate on turns 3 and 4 rather than that $5/$4 split for Laboratory and Caravan, or whatever, then turn 5 is Estate+3Copper+Gold, turn 6 Silver+4Copper, sweet!), and a "lucky" BM deck is often pretty strong (on Province boards). It surprised me when you mentioned the Lab deck crushing you in the endgame; I'd quite have liked your side of it with the information available!

Like in the game we played earlier today where I was planning on picking up a Library on $5 but never got around to it, I feel it would be a pretty big mistake to pass up a Gold/Bank/Platinum for it. Of course, sometimes that $5 card is incredibly strong (hello Witch) and there's not much question about it, but most Library/Laboratory type situations, I'm grabbing that Gold probably.

More often than not on engine'y boards, it's like, the best option would be engine card #1 and engine card #2, but when you get the $6/$3 split, Gold/Silver might be better than engine card #1 and Silver (or engine card #3), so in a sense you've been unlucky in that you can't pursue the strongest strategy, but not adjusting to the more BMesque approach and still going for the (worse) engine will cost you.

[tlloyd]

I have this problem on a fairly regular basis. I tend to prefer engine strategies, so I usually take, for example, a Wharf over a Gold with $6. Only when I've got my deck under control do I start to ramp up the buying power. Now, I lose plenty often, so that might be the moral of the story. The one piece of advice I can offer: if there is a decent +buy card available, try to get one early. That way when you pull $8 early on you can buy Fishing Village/Wharf rather than deciding between Gold and Province. There's nothing more frustrating than building some massive deck that produces a lot of coin each turn, only to realize that you are limited to a single buy, and if you stop to pick up a Pawn with your $16 turn, you're going to fall too far behind on the Provinces.

[Davio]

I think I also need to pay better attention to where my money is in my shuffle.

Sometimes there is a critical $5 I really want like the mentioned Wharf. So let's assume for this example I opened Silver/Horse Traders and I have $6 (S, 4C) on turn 3 and buy a Wharf. But then I get $5 on turn 5 with Horse Traders and have to buy a Silver or Wharf, so I've effectively wasted a turn not getting a Gold.

So sometimes my fear of not being able to get that $5 later or my haste in getting it ends up biting me in the ass. I guess it's all part of the game we love, I just wanted to get some comments in on this topic.

[DG]

Comparing the benefits of one card compared to another seems like part of the game whether the cards have the same cost or not. The more accurately you can gauge the value of a card to your deck (irrespective of the printed cost) the better player you are.

[AdamH]

I remember something similar to this topic coming up in the discussion of http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1513.msg24536#msg24536 <-- this article. I'm a little bit surprised to see you say that you lose a lot of those games, because the trend of that discussion preferred playing a more BM-centered strategy when presented with this case.

...and now to attempt to add something novel to the topic...

Since then I've thought about this a touch more, and I wonder if there's a good baseline for a "Lucky BM" strategy, where you manage to grab an early gold or three, maybe an early province. Given the first two or three shuffles have gone fairly well for you, on what turn can your expect to have bought your fifth province? Answering a question like this would certainly help to give a more definitive answer to a lot of questions posed here (at least for me, since I really like numbers  ).

...of course, I haven't really defined anything here, and I'm not sure how to apply the simulators I've seen to solve the problem. It begs a few questions:

1. "Given the first two or three shuffles have gone fairly well..." needs a better definition. Maybe after an opening of silver silver, you manage to buy gold/silver on turns 3/4 with exactly $6/$3 (or maybe even $6/$4). Maybe this might be a decent starting point. Maybe we want another lucky shuffle where we hit exactly $6 two more times before we reshuffle... What are the odds of that happening, even?

Perhaps a separate simulation would be in order for the circumstance where we see early gold/early province? Or maybe this can be reduced to a specific case of the turn 3/4 gold/province?

2. What's a good baseline for having enough VPs fast enough to win? I suggested 5 provinces, but perhaps 4 provinces/2-3 duchies would be enough as well?

...just sharing my thoughts...

[Ozle]

Comparing the benefits of one card compared to another seems like part of the game whether the cards have the same cost or not. The more accurately you can gauge the value of a card to your deck (irrespective of the printed cost) the better player you are.

Dont quite agree with this early on, because of the opportunity cost. Sure that lab may be a better buy for deck overall, but you may have to wait a while to get to 6 sgain, so ight be better to get the gold now and the lab soon

[RisingJaguar]

Comparing the benefits of one card compared to another seems like part of the game whether the cards have the same cost or not. The more accurately you can gauge the value of a card to your deck (irrespective of the printed cost) the better player you are.

Dont quite agree with this early on, because of the opportunity cost. Sure that lab may be a better buy for deck overall, but you may have to wait a while to get to 6 sgain, so ight be better to get the gold now and the lab soon

I don't think that's what he meant.  He's saying between the choice of two (or n) different purchases, the actual cost of it should not have any bearing.  That's not to say I should buy a Lab with my $6, it's that you should be comparing Gold to Lab not $6 Gold to $5 Lab.

[GendoIkari]

Comparing the benefits of one card compared to another seems like part of the game whether the cards have the same cost or not. The more accurately you can gauge the value of a card to your deck (irrespective of the printed cost) the better player you are.

Dont quite agree with this early on, because of the opportunity cost. Sure that lab may be a better buy for deck overall, but you may have to wait a while to get to 6 sgain, so ight be better to get the gold now and the lab soon

I don't think that's what he meant.  He's saying between the choice of two (or n) different purchases, the actual cost of it should not have any bearing.  That's not to say I should buy a Lab with my $6, it's that you should be comparing Gold to Lab not $6 Gold to $5 Lab.

But it sounds like what Ozzie is saying makes sense. You might need both a Gold and  Lab eventually. The fact that Gold costs $6 means that you have a smaller chance of buying it next turn than the chance of you buying Lab next turn. While X might be slightly better for your deck than Y, if you think you will need both, and can afford the more expensive one, you often might want that first, because you don't know when you will be able to afford it again.

[Ozle]

Comparing the benefits of one card compared to another seems like part of the game whether the cards have the same cost or not. The more accurately you can gauge the value of a card to your deck (irrespective of the printed cost) the better player you are.

Dont quite agree with this early on, because of the opportunity cost. Sure that lab may be a better buy for deck overall, but you may have to wait a while to get to 6 sgain, so ight be better to get the gold now and the lab soon

I don't think that's what he meant.  He's saying between the choice of two (or n) different purchases, the actual cost of it should not have any bearing.  That's not to say I should buy a Lab with my $6, it's that you should be comparing Gold to Lab not $6 Gold to $5 Lab.

But it sounds like what Ozzie is saying makes sense. You might need both a Gold and  Lab eventually. The fact that Gold costs $6 means that you have a smaller chance of buying it next turn than the chance of you buying Lab next turn. While X might be slightly better for your deck than Y, if you think you will need both, and can afford the more expensive one, you often might want that first, because you don't know when you will be able to afford it again.

Yep, exactly what I meant.

I probably should put a better example than Gold and Lab in though, as they are similar costed.

[RisingJaguar]

...

Oh, I see what you mean.  I agree with the concept, but there's not many times early on though that you will want a $5 over a $6, or a $4 over a $5 yet grab the higher cost because you expect to get the lower cost again.  It just doesn't occur that often because if the lower card is better the 1st time, its likely better the second time as well.  Then you also have to assume the risk of getting that superior $5 with the remaining cards in the deck. 

By the way, Lab isn't the best example.  It's a good card, but not a card you skip gold for all that often. 

[WanderingWinder]

...

Oh, I see what you mean.  I agree with the concept, but there's not many times early on though that you will want a $5 over a $6, or a $4 over a $5 yet grab the higher cost because you expect to get the lower cost again.  It just doesn't occur that often because if the lower card is better the 1st time, its likely better the second time as well.  Then you also have to assume the risk of getting that superior $5 with the remaining cards in the deck. 

By the way, Lab isn't the best example.  It's a good card, but not a card you skip gold for all that often. 

The big exception is when the cheaper card is a terminal, particularly a terminal drawer. Envoy over Venture? Well, I don't want many envoys, now do I. On the 5/6, Embassy, Vault, Wharf, Ghost Ship, and to a lesser extent Rabble, Torturer... all make you make this decision. Of course, playing the engines, these are going to be better, generally, than gold, for almost all the game. Big money, not so much.

[Asklepios]

I'd agree, Lab isn't a good example, as gold is almost always better than lab, unless you have a particular engine in mind. I solidly lost a game recently where my opponent was buying Labs on anything up to $10, just because he was setting up an awesome multi-Bishop chain.

A better example might be Hunting Party. In a Hunting Party deck often all you need is one gold, and then you can get province every turn with good consistency. In that game, an extra hunting party does a lot more than an extra gold, as it keeps you drawing and is more likely to get you to $8.

Likewise, if I were going for a game of two drawers + big money, I'd take the second wharf or second embassy before taking the gold.

As for Provinces though, I think its very hard to pass up the province when you get the chance. Sure, it might weaken your deck and slow you by 1-2 turns to take the province now, but what are you trying to get the pace advantage for anyway? To win the province race!

Just about the only time I pass up Provinces in a Province game is when I have an engine that I know will buy three or more Provinces at once later on, such as playing for Bridges or super-Highway decks, or Fishing Village / Wharf...