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[Omer]

See the thing is, I really like Hoard, but I also like the house rule that you play with Platinum/Colony in all games. So my question is whether Hoard has a place in Colony games? Could buying Hoard help you reach Platinums at the same rate as buying Golds will? Assuming there aren't kingdom victory piles. Or, if the answer to the previous question is no, could buying Hoard and going for Provinces only beat a Gold>Platinum>Colony player?

[shark_bait]

The question you need to ask is whether you can drain all the provinces yourself before your opponent gets enough Colonies.  To do this you need exceptionally fast Province enablers like Vault/Embassy/Wharf or some sort of trash for benefit that can allow you to easily gain Provinces from your gained Gold.  Without extreme help though, it is extremely difficult to beat the Colony player.

[Omer]

Tnx, but what about going for Colonies yourself? (With Hoard)

[shark_bait]

To go for Colonies, you absolutely need Platinum.  To get to Platinum, you need Gold.  Anytime you buy a Hoard, it could have been a Gold.  You'll be surprised how often you hit $8 instead of $9 when you purchased a few Hoards instead of Gold.  When you have a Hoard in play, you need to buy green to get the benefit, so this just makes it so that your deck's money density never becomes great enough to go for Colony/Platinum. 

After you've gotten a Platinum or two and are in the greening stage, there might be an opportunity to purchase Hoard.  But even then, you need to consider that you need to get to your Hoard, purchase green to gain the Gold, reshuffle the deck and finally play your gained Gold.  By the time you would get to that gained Gold, there is a good chance the game would already be over.

tl:dr  - Hoard with Colonies is tough to implement well when deciding to play a generic BM strategy.

EDIT:  cleared up the tl:dr

[Omer]

Hmm maybe I'll make a house rule to the house rule- that you don't play with platinum/colony if hoard is selected. And when I get more expansions I might expand that rule to include other cards that are worthless with colonies (like Explorer, Tournament, etc.)

[jsh357]

Hmm maybe I'll make a house rule to the house rule- that you don't play with platinum/colony if hoard is selected. And when I get more expansions I might expand that rule to include other cards that are worthless with colonies (like Explorer, Tournament, etc.)

I personally don't play with Colonies all the time because the game feels more balanced at Provinces unless Prosperity cards are in play, but given my experience with random sets I suggest another variant: Avoid playing with Colonies if there are alternate victory cards in play.  Colonies tend to make them trivial, ruining some of the depth of those games.  I'm not saying never play with both, but consider it when choosing whether or not to use Colonies.

[DG]

It is perfectly possible to make hoards work in colony games just as you can make silver work in province games.

[Kuildeous]

Getting a bunch of Gold in a Colony game is still pretty good. After all, it's possible to get 4 Golds in one hand. Or 2 Golds and a Platinum.

Though, the point about Hoard delaying your Gold acquisition is a very valid one and should be considered very carefully.

What if your house rule is that only half the games are Colony? I can certainly see the appeal in having Colony games, but Colonies do add a different dimension, and if you always play with them, then you miss out on the other side. Just like always playing with Shelters would diminish other tactics (especially Baron).

But yeah, if you always play with Colony, then you'll have to accept that some kingdom cards won't be as attractive. This can be true for many kingdom cards. I remember when we first started playing, the owner of the game thought that Gardens was always out there. I'm so glad now to see how wrong he was.

[greatexpectations]

i would disagree with shark_bait, i think hoard can still be quite useful in colony games.

To go for Colonies, you absolutely need Platinum.

unless we are playing BMU here this just is not true.

To get to Platinum, you need Gold.

or +cards. or good silver density. or peddlers. or TFB.

Anytime you buy a Hoard, it could have been a Gold.  You'll be surprised how often you hit $8 instead of $9 when you purchased a few Hoards instead of Gold.

you could say the same about buying mountebank or haggler with $6. it's not about the sheer buying power, it is about the effect. with hoard you are trading the marginal loss of $1 in the earlier rounds for the marginal gain of allowing earlier greening in the late game.

When you have a Hoard in play, you need to buy green to get the benefit, so this just makes it so that your deck's money density never becomes great enough to go for Colony/Platinum. 

correct. but just having a hoard in hand doesn't mean you have to play it. the first time you have $9 in hand with a hoard you should probably get a plat and not a province. it isn't really fair to knock a card if you are playing it suboptimally.

tl:dr  - Hoard with Colonies just doesn't really work all that well.

as DG pointed out, you could say similar about bureaucrat/trader/explorer for province games. they can still be quite useful in money based strategies.

[Kirian]

A Gold gained along with a green card is, from a cash perspective, the same as buying a Copper and a Silver.

If you expect to green early, Hoard is great, but that's not going to happen in Colony games.  Exception:  Duchy/Duke can beat Colonies and Hoard works well with them.

[greatexpectations]

A Gold gained along with a green card is, from a cash perspective, the same as buying a Copper and a Silver.

If you expect to green early, Hoard is great, but that's not going to happen in Colony games.  Exception:  Duchy/Duke can beat Colonies and Hoard works well with them.

right. averaging out the gold and the green you still aren't left with much. it's why it is usually a bad move to buy an estate with a hoard early.

there is a difference between greening early and greening earlier though. having hoard doesn't need you need to rush provinces or ignore colonies. as i stated above, it is still usually the correct move to buy plat with $9/$10 and a hoard instead of buying a province. but you can still bump up colony buying a turn or two, especially if you have draw, sifting, or tfb. the hoard will also be useful if/when the game comes down to province or even duchy dancing.

really, it is a matter of strategy and play style. as a player evaluating the board, do you think that the loss of $1 early will be offset by the addition of gold to a greened deck later.

[PSGarak]

Going for a Duchy Rush can actually work, too. In a Colony game, your opponent is more likely to commit to a long-running strategy. If you have a realistic chance to end the game early, they can find themselves facing an awkward pivot.

[jsh357]

Well, or they can use their superior economy/engine to dip for Provinces instead, ruining your clever plan.

[Kahryl]

Anything that says "gain a gold" or "gain a silver" is much weaker in Colony games than in Province games.

[Insomniac]

My experience is that Hoard is fairly weak in colony games. However GOLD is not.

To buy a colony consistently you need an average money value of 11/5 = 2.2. Which is more than a silver (or a hoard) but it's less then a gold so Gold is clearly good.

That said Hoard's average return on investment is 1.5, you get 2 cards one of which is 3 and one is 0 ((3+0)/2)=1.5)

There are edgecases with watchtower where you can get gold for 2 and an AMV of 3 or with multiple hoards in play but if you have multiple hoards in play your odds of buying a colony decrease significantly without platinum.

[Lekkit]

With only Hoard on the board I try to avoid it. Add TFB's and Hoard is probably what I go for. Salvage free Golds are always fun. Bishops can churn great amounts of VP chips and Apprentice on free Golds is sick.

[dondon151]

It is perfectly possible to make hoards work in colony games just as you can make silver work in province games.

But it is a lot easier to make Silver work in Province games because 1) Silver-gaining does not necessarily mean diluting your deck with green, 2) you gain Silvers faster than you gain Golds, and 3) it's way easier to consistently hit $5 and $8 with Silver than it is to hit $8 and $11 with Hoard + Gold.

You'd probably want to delay your first Hoard buy until you're confident that you can get a Platinum.

[DG]

But it is a lot easier to make Silver work in Province games because 1) Silver-gaining does not necessarily mean diluting your deck with green, 2) you gain Silvers faster than you gain Golds, and 3) it's way easier to consistently hit $5 and $8 with Silver than it is to hit $8 and $11 with Hoard + Gold.

A well played hoard will be used to buy vp cards you do actually want, will be in play regularly when buying vp, and will be drawn consistently in hand with good coin totals. These principals don't change from province games to colony games. You just prepare a better deck for colony games.

[dondon151]

A well played hoard will be used to buy vp cards you do actually want, will be in play regularly when buying vp, and will be drawn consistently in hand with good coin totals. These principals don't change from province games to colony games. You just prepare a better deck for colony games.

That's exactly my point. You can't autoplay Hoard in a Colony game like you would a Silver-gaining strategy in a Province game (obviously depends on the strategy). Furthermore, straight Hoard is much weaker. A much more efficient way of using Hoard, and a great way to get it to work well in Colony games, is to just use it as a source of free money in an engine.

Of course a "well played Hoard" will do well in a Colony game. That's like a John Madden statement.

[Davio]

My experience is that Hoard is fairly weak in colony games. However GOLD is not.

To buy a colony consistently you need an average money value of 11/5 = 2.2. Which is more than a silver (or a hoard) but it's less then a gold so Gold is clearly good.

That said Hoard's average return on investment is 1.5, you get 2 cards one of which is 3 and one is 0 ((3+0)/2)=1.5)

There are edgecases with watchtower where you can get gold for 2 and an AMV of 3 or with multiple hoards in play but if you have multiple hoards in play your odds of buying a colony decrease significantly without platinum.

I wouldn't say Gold is clearly good.
I mean, it's good, just not an auto-buy in every Colony game.
Platinum is in its own league when compared to Gold.

I don't know if the following holds any mathematical basis, but it's my gut feeling.
There is a lot of randomness in Dominion and what this basically means is that you don't draw your average money output exactly every hand. If your average money output is 11 for a certain shuffle, you may draw 13 one turn and 9 the next, you won't draw 11 every turn. Of course, you might draw a perfect 11 every hand for the entire shuffle, it's just not very likely.

Now if you get a lot of Golds in a Colony game, your average goes up. Let's say you have 6 Golds, 4 Silvers, 7 Coppers and 3 Estates, so you're average per hand is 8.25, you're still miles away from a Colony average. Okay, so in order to buy a Colony you need some "lucky" cluttering of your Treasures. Now we'll introduce 2 Platinums instead of those 6 Golds. Your average money per hand has now dropped to 7.8, oh no! But it's important to note it's a lot more easier to reach a Colony with 1 or 2 Platinums in hand.

The gist of it is that when you get a lot of Gold, the amount of actual money you get per hand is much closer to your average, this is obvious since you have more cards. When you have just a few Platinums, your average may be lower, but your excesses may be higher. 2 Platinums in hand all but guarantees a Colony and 1 in hand goes a long way towards that goal.

Another important factor is cycling speed. With a lot of Golds, it takes a lot of time to cycle towards your target buying power. It's better to let the same Platinum(s) cycle through more often than a lot of Golds to cycle once. Good cycling allows you to get "lucky" a lot more often and buy that Colony. Obviously you will choke harder with a smaller deck, but after you've grabbed a couple of Colonies and taken a solid lead, you can just drop down to Provinces to get you over the hill or end the game.

[ipofanes]

This was what Davio communicated in a post-match discussion with me, where I got 10 golds and he got 1 and he swept the floor with me.

However, I am not sure about this. Some lines of simulating codes in R follow.

Let's take two more or less typical Big Money decks, both with 4 coppers and 2 silvers. One deck has hoarded a boatload of 8 golds, the other one has worked towards 4 golds and 1 platin.

Code: [Select]

values.au <- c(rep(1, 4), rep(2, 2), rep(3, 8))
values.pt <- c(rep(1, 4), rep(2, 2), rep(3, 4), rep(5, 1))

Lets simulate hands of five with both of these and tally the sums:

Code: [Select]

table(replicate(9999, sum(sample(values.au, 5, replace=F))))


   6    7    8    9   10   11   12   13   14   15
   8   68  309  755 1696 2257 2239 1664  696  307

Code: [Select]

table(replicate(9999, sum(sample(values.pt, 5, replace=F))))


   6    7    8    9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17
  51  188  666 1087 1724 1538 1687 1252 1123  467  193   23


Obviously, the gold deck hits $11 more consistently than the platinum deck, although the average values are very close.
This simulation doesn't say too much about snowballing (the platinum deck will manage to draw more platinums freshly bought) and dilution (the platinum deck will be hit by colonies faster) but the platinum > gold argument seems to need a more solid foundation than a gut feeling.

[Davio]

Well, it's not so simple that your math is going to prove or disprove anything.

You have to look at a Dominion game as a whole.
Often, a game won't be pure big money, but you'll use action cards.
A smaller deck sees those action cards more often and gets more use out of them.

Then there's the case of timing. Decks aren't born with Gold or Platinum.
It takes time to amass so many Golds and in that time the Platinum player will be able to buy a few Colonies.
So by the time the Gold player has caught up with the Platinum player, the Plat player will already have established a significant lead.

This topic is about Hoard; if you're going to compare the decks you have to include the Hoards and the VP cards bought with the Hoards in your calculation.

[ipofanes]

This topic is about Hoard; if you're going to compare the decks you have to include the Hoards and the VP cards bought with the Hoards in your calculation.

You were quoting and debating:

My experience is that Hoard is fairly weak in colony games. However GOLD is not.

This was explicitly not about Hoard.

[Insomniac]

My experience is that Hoard is fairly weak in colony games. However GOLD is not.

This was explicitly not about Hoard.

It has hoard in it, and hoard generates golds, that comment lead into the rest of my analysis.

My experience is that Hoard is fairly weak in colony games. However GOLD is not.

To buy a colony consistently you need an average money value of 11/5 = 2.2. Which is more than a silver (or a hoard) but it's less then a gold so Gold is clearly good.

That said Hoard's average return on investment is 1.5, you get 2 cards one of which is 3 and one is 0 ((3+0)/2)=1.5)

There are edgecases with watchtower where you can get gold for 2 and an AMV of 3 or with multiple hoards in play but if you have multiple hoards in play your odds of buying a colony decrease significantly without platinum.

I wouldn't say Gold is clearly good.
I mean, it's good, just not an auto-buy in every Colony game.
Platinum is in its own league when compared to Gold.

I don't know if the following holds any mathematical basis, but it's my gut feeling.
There is a lot of randomness in Dominion and what this basically means is that you don't draw your average money output exactly every hand. If your average money output is 11 for a certain shuffle, you may draw 13 one turn and 9 the next, you won't draw 11 every turn. Of course, you might draw a perfect 11 every hand for the entire shuffle, it's just not very likely.

Now if you get a lot of Golds in a Colony game, your average goes up. Let's say you have 6 Golds, 4 Silvers, 7 Coppers and 3 Estates, so you're average per hand is 8.25, you're still miles away from a Colony average. Okay, so in order to buy a Colony you need some "lucky" cluttering of your Treasures. Now we'll introduce 2 Platinums instead of those 6 Golds. Your average money per hand has now dropped to 7.8, oh no! But it's important to note it's a lot more easier to reach a Colony with 1 or 2 Platinums in hand.

The gist of it is that when you get a lot of Gold, the amount of actual money you get per hand is much closer to your average, this is obvious since you have more cards. When you have just a few Platinums, your average may be lower, but your excesses may be higher. 2 Platinums in hand all but guarantees a Colony and 1 in hand goes a long way towards that goal.

Another important factor is cycling speed. With a lot of Golds, it takes a lot of time to cycle towards your target buying power. It's better to let the same Platinum(s) cycle through more often than a lot of Golds to cycle once. Good cycling allows you to get "lucky" a lot more often and buy that Colony. Obviously you will choke harder with a smaller deck, but after you've grabbed a couple of Colonies and taken a solid lead, you can just drop down to Provinces to get you over the hill or end the game.

Absolutely. The idea is with an ACV (Average card value) of 2.2 you should be able to generate a Colony in most hands. But we know that you will in some number of hands draw 12+ which means that the ACV of the cards remaining in your deck goes down and thus so does your colony potential. And absolutely you should get platinum when possible I was just commenting that Gold itself is not bad and I don't tend to pass on gold just because its a colony game unless I'm already gold bloated and aren't doing something with those golds.

In short, I agree with your analysis, my own comment was simply the mathematical look at things.

[Davio]

Okay, in short:
- Gold + Colony is good.
- Hoard + Colony (and buying extra VP cards because of Hoard) is bad.