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[modestguineapig]

Hi all,

My husband and I are very new to Dominion and have played against each other (in person and online).  I read on the sticky note that winning logs are "frowned upon" BUT [please hold your rotten tomatoes] I am posting this log to see what I could have done to beat the Big Money strategy.  I did beat my husband, but I want to be better than that.     I read on the dominionstrategy blog that Big Money usually has 4 provinces by 17 turns. 

By my 17th turn I only had 2 (and one Duchy).  So, I feel like I wouldn't have beat Big Money (hoping I'm making sense here). 

My strategy with this set of cards (we only play with the base set so far) was create a deck with Labs and Council Rooms, with some Throne Rooms thrown in.  I also bought some Militia when I was holding $4 instead of a Silver.  I figured it was the same amount of $ to gain, but the Militia would have the added benefit of attacking my husband.  Not sure if that's the best strategy? 

Log: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/14/game-20120614-093746-c7de7762.html

Thanks for any insight.

[Morgrim7]

Welcome to the Forum!!!!!
1) You opened Throne Room/Silver. What were you hoping to Throne Room? A much better opening would have been Militia/Silver.
2) After that, you preceded to set up a Lab/Militia chain. Not bad. I do not understand why you bought Bureaucrat, however.
3) On turn 15, I would have bought Lab over CR.
Only enough time for a quick review, maybe will post some more later.
Edit: If your strategy was Labs/CR/TR, why did you only pick up one CR? I would have done a Lab chain with Militias and TR like you did (except for the Bureaucrat and CR).

[HiveMindEmulator]

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

First off, Big Money only gets 4 provinces in 17 turns if there are no attacks. Against Militia, it's going to be slower, so I wouldn't say you'd have lost to Big Money this game.

Regarding your play, the main mistake was buying Throne Room turn 1. You have nothing to play it with at that point! You never play it until turn 8 -- after the THIRD shuffle. You should open Militia instead, which is useful on it's own.

[Rabid]

There might be a complicated engine available here.
Using Throne room on lab for actions, council room for big draw, then finish with militia.

But I think the correct strategy here is open Silver / Militia.
On $6 buy gold
On $5 buy Lab
On $4 buy Militia (Max 2)
On $3 buy Silver

[modestguineapig]

 

2) After that, you preceded to set up a Lab/Militia chain. Not bad. I do not understand why you bought Bureaucrat, however.
3) On turn 15, I would have bought Lab over CR.
Only enough time for a quick review, maybe will post some more later.
Edit: If your strategy was Labs/CR/TR, why did you only pick up one CR? I would have done a Lab chain with Militias and TR like you did (except for the Bureaucrat and CR).

Thanks for the input!  I think you may of misread the log though--I didn't buy Bureaucrat.  So do you think that Militia is a better buy over Silver (in general) when you have $4? 

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

First off, Big Money only gets 4 provinces in 17 turns if there are no attacks. Against Militia, it's going to be slower, so I wouldn't say you'd have lost to Big Money this game.

Regarding your play, the main mistake was buying Throne Room turn 1. You have nothing to play it with at that point! You never play it until turn 8 -- after the THIRD shuffle. You should open Militia instead, which is useful on it's own.

 

Ahh, thanks for clarifying that about Big Money!  Yeah, buying TR first was foolish.  I'm not sure if this is answerable (too many factors), but how many TR's do you think provide the most benefit?  Or what's a good action card-to-TR ratio?  I felt like this game I got skunked with having just a TR (or 2) in my hand and no Action cards.  Thanks!

[RisingJaguar]

Might as well tough both sides, your husband does go for too many terminals.  Terminals are generally actions that do not provide a +action, thus they end the actions you can play for that turn (assuming no +action).  So if you do grab too many terminals, they often collide, making one of them useless.  In practice, that means those woodcutters are your 3rd and 4th terminals. His deck would have been much more competitive if they were silver (essentially compare all purchases < 6 to silver).

Also, I would not limit yourself to base for too long.  I mean you already understand the concept of BM, implementing it isn't too hard.  Enjoy all of dominion and just play with all its possibilities. 

[modestguineapig]

  In practice, that means those woodcutters are your 3rd and 4th terminals.

What does this sentence mean?  3rd and 4th terminals?  The 3rd choice for a buy? Thanks!

[RisingJaguar]

  In practice, that means those woodcutters are your 3rd and 4th terminals.

What does this sentence mean?  3rd and 4th terminals?  The 3rd choice for a buy? Thanks!

In practice was a horrible choice of words.  Should be "in this game"

So in this game, all the actions are terminals except laboratory, spy and depends how you want to classify throne room.  That's because these cards provide +actions and allow you to keep playing more actions.  You can play 10 laboratory but not 10 council rooms by itself.  What does this mean? It means that you will only be able to play 1 a turn and that any extra will be a waste.  If you look at his Turn 7's hand (which you can see from end of Turn 6), you will see he has bureaucrat and moneylender.  He can only play one, so the other terminal is sort of a waste, whereas a silver would have got him $2 dollars to get at least another silver. 

So what I meant was that any time its a simple game without any flashy engines, you have to look at actions like this.   Would a silver have been better than a terminal? 

[greatexpectations]

you can find a definition for a terminal action and many other phrases we use here in the Dominion Glossary. basically, a terminal action is an action type kingdom card which does not give you another action.  they typically give a stronger benefit because they don't provide that extra action.  compare the +3 cards of Smithy with the +2 cards of Laboratory.

[qmech]

So do you think that Militia is a better buy over Silver (in general) when you have $4? 

The first Militia is often better than Silver (and here that would have been the case).  The second Militia might also be better than Silver.  But if you keep buying Militia instead of Silver then eventually you're going to reach a point where you're likely to draw multiple Militia each turn.  When you do that, because you can't play both of them, one of the Militia is a dead card: as bad as a Curse or Estate (only not affecting your points).  If the second Militia in your hand was a Silver instead then you'd get an extra $2 to spend that turn.  So the relative worth of an extra Silver or Militia changes depending on the content of your deck.  Getting the balance between Treasure and Action cards right is one of the main skills involved in playing Dominion better.

[verikt]

At the end of the game, your husband had 6 dead actions with no way to play more than one at a time if they collide. You had 3. That's not counting all the useless (for buying stuff) green cards. The only +action you had here was to throne room a laboratory. You had 3 labs and 2 throne rooms which gave you a decent chance of that happening. He had 2 labs and one throne which makes it much less likely. You probably should have bought moneylender way before second militia. Besides for the money it gives, every space that copper takes up in your hand is one less space in those 5 cards for anything decent.