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[AdamH]

Goons.

I'm so bad with this card. I never veto it because I know I need to get better at playing with it, but I always get completely slaughtered when it's a heavy Goons game and at the end of it I know I'm totally beat but I have no idea why.

Last night I played a bunch of games, which ended with two Goons games. I'll link to those games here and offer my commentary, but it would be great if people could tell me what I should have done and/or why my opponent's strategy was better than mine.

GAME 1:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/11/game-20121111-182743-fe7f34a1.html

Thoughts when I looked at the board: Goons is present with villages. The goal for this game is to play as many Goons as possible. All right. Villages for extra actions, Rabble for draw, Forge for trashing, so all the components are here for a draw-tons-of-cards/play-tons-of-Goons engine, and there are even lighthouses to defend myself against the attacks! This is the direction I want to go. Now, how to get there?

I opened Silver/Lighthouse instead of Silver/Silver because I wasn't losing early economy by doing that (is this true?) I thought I was slightly more likely to spike an early $6 (or maybe even $7) by doing this, and I know I'm going to want lots of Lighthouses. Good idea/Bad idea? Turns out I got a Turn 3 Goons anyways without it mattering; at this point I was pretty happy with my play.

I saw my opponent building his Village/Rabble stock up, and I knew this was the next step in building my engine. Then, Turn 6 I hit $7 thanks to a lighthouse. I though I was very lucky and picked up a Forge. "Great!" I thought, "The two best terminals I wanted are already in my deck! I can trash heavily now and focus on picking up villages and Rabbles, and then more Goons." I thought I had the game won at this point.

From there, it just becomes gradually more obvious that my opponent's deck is improving rapidly whilst mine is staying the same, at best. What happened? I feel like I got some unlucky draws, but at the same time I felt like I was far enough ahead I should have been doing better. The only thing I think I should have done differently is perhaps thought of Menagerie as a better counter to Goons than Lighthouse, but I'm not even sure of that. Help?


GAME 2:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/11/game-20121111-184827-e1e83a9a.html

Assessing the board: There's Goons and Villages, so it seems like the goal is to play Goons as much as possible. But, upon further review, even though we have Goons and Ambassador for deck-thinning, the only way to get +Actions is through Hamlet, and there is no way at all to increase hand size. It seems like the best you can hope for is to play two Goons in a turn, and then you only have $4 plus one treasure card to spend, and all of this is only if you don't get Goonsed yourself. This doesn't seem dominant to me. So what's next?

Well there's no massive engine to build, that's for sure. But I still think Ambassador is important because having double-Goons turns whilst Ambassadoring the bought junk to your opponent is probably still better than being of the receiving end. I have to fight the Ambassador war, but winning it isn't a huge priority. So the plan is to open Amb/Silver, hope to pick up a second Amb before the next reshuffle, Aim for a Goons, or maybe two depending on how well things are going. Stashes are nice because even if my deck starts to bloat, I can still get Provinces (well, unless I get Goonsed, in which case I cry. A lot.)

How did it go?

I picked up a second Ambassador one shuffle later than intended, but it didn't feel like a huge deal at the time. In retrospect, I think this was a problem. My opening Amb missed the reshuffle, and I was never able to pair an Amb with two cards that I wanted to send over. I feel like my decision was sub-optimal, but my draws punished me for it.

In the end, my opponent focused on punishing me for not Ambassadoring enough. He bought tons of Hamlets, and built the lackluster engine that I had decided not to go for. He also bought Curses a couple of times to send over to me, which I thought was a mistake, and he also bought a Fortune Teller which would only cycle me enough to play my Stashes more. I thought I had a chance still, since I'd be able to buy Provinces, and I kept up for a while, but somehow he was able to buy just as many provinces even though he only had two(?) Stashes.

I understand pretty well what happened here, but I feel like my strategy might have been better. Did this really just come down to luck, or am I missing some other things I did terribly wrong?

[Asklepios]

Goons.

I'm so bad with this card. I never veto it because I know I need to get better at playing with it, but I always get completely slaughtered when it's a heavy Goons game and at the end of it I know I'm totally beat but I have no idea why.

Last night I played a bunch of games, which ended with two Goons games. I'll link to those games here and offer my commentary, but it would be great if people could tell me what I should have done and/or why my opponent's strategy was better than mine.

GAME 1:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/11/game-20121111-182743-fe7f34a1.html

Thoughts when I looked at the board: Goons is present with villages. The goal for this game is to play as many Goons as possible. All right. Villages for extra actions, Rabble for draw, Forge for trashing, so all the components are here for a draw-tons-of-cards/play-tons-of-Goons engine, and there are even lighthouses to defend myself against the attacks! This is the direction I want to go. Now, how to get there?

I opened Silver/Lighthouse instead of Silver/Silver because I wasn't losing early economy by doing that (is this true?) I thought I was slightly more likely to spike an early $6 (or maybe even $7) by doing this, and I know I'm going to want lots of Lighthouses. Good idea/Bad idea? Turns out I got a Turn 3 Goons anyways without it mattering; at this point I was pretty happy with my play.

I saw my opponent building his Village/Rabble stock up, and I knew this was the next step in building my engine. Then, Turn 6 I hit $7 thanks to a lighthouse. I though I was very lucky and picked up a Forge. "Great!" I thought, "The two best terminals I wanted are already in my deck! I can trash heavily now and focus on picking up villages and Rabbles, and then more Goons." I thought I had the game won at this point.

From there, it just becomes gradually more obvious that my opponent's deck is improving rapidly whilst mine is staying the same, at best. What happened? I feel like I got some unlucky draws, but at the same time I felt like I was far enough ahead I should have been doing better. The only thing I think I should have done differently is perhaps thought of Menagerie as a better counter to Goons than Lighthouse, but I'm not even sure of that. Help?

In short, Menagerie happened.

As you observed, you needed +draw to go with the +action and the goons. Goons is an excellent card but to really click you want to play lots of them.

Each time you draw Lighthouse you're drawing a dead end card, so thats one less card to draw with. Relying on Village + Rabble to draw was always going to be a slow drawing strategy, as thats two parts out of three of your engine just to get the Goons drawn, and some of the actions needed for the Goons used up on the Rabble playing. Thats not to say villages and rabble didn't have a role to play, but overall I would have said that the $4 slots you spent on Walled Village should mostly have been on Menageries. Menagerie kickstarts the drawing without using up an action.

Also, as you observe, Menagerie is a better counter to Goons than Lighthouse.

SITUATION:
Your previous turn: Play a lighthouse.
Your next turn: Attacked by Goons, benefit from lighthouse.
Result: -1 card over those two turns, for the benefit of +$1 both turn.

SITUATION:
You previous turn: Not playing a lighthouse.
Your next turn: Attacked by Goons, discard 2 cards. Play menagerie, +3 cards.
Result: -0 cards over those two turns, and 2 cards cycled for better ones, probably.

Menagerie is one of the top $3/4 cards in the game. Walled Village isn't.

Lighthouse is a solid defensive card, one of the best, but comes at cost of lowering your mid and late tempo (though as you said, it has minimal slowing effect on early game tempo). Menagerie would have provided the same defence without slowing your mid-game tempo, though in first or second turn the lighthouse is a better option, for its better early pace and for its later synergy with Menagerie. Just one though, IMHO.

GAME 2:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/11/game-20121111-184827-e1e83a9a.html

Assessing the board: There's Goons and Villages, so it seems like the goal is to play Goons as much as possible. But, upon further review, even though we have Goons and Ambassador for deck-thinning, the only way to get +Actions is through Hamlet, and there is no way at all to increase hand size. It seems like the best you can hope for is to play two Goons in a turn, and then you only have $4 plus one treasure card to spend, and all of this is only if you don't get Goonsed yourself. This doesn't seem dominant to me. So what's next?

Well there's no massive engine to build, that's for sure. But I still think Ambassador is important because having double-Goons turns whilst Ambassadoring the bought junk to your opponent is probably still better than being of the receiving end. I have to fight the Ambassador war, but winning it isn't a huge priority. So the plan is to open Amb/Silver, hope to pick up a second Amb before the next reshuffle, Aim for a Goons, or maybe two depending on how well things are going. Stashes are nice because even if my deck starts to bloat, I can still get Provinces (well, unless I get Goonsed, in which case I cry. A lot.)

How did it go?

I picked up a second Ambassador one shuffle later than intended, but it didn't feel like a huge deal at the time. In retrospect, I think this was a problem. My opening Amb missed the reshuffle, and I was never able to pair an Amb with two cards that I wanted to send over. I feel like my decision was sub-optimal, but my draws punished me for it.

In the end, my opponent focused on punishing me for not Ambassadoring enough. He bought tons of Hamlets, and built the lackluster engine that I had decided not to go for. He also bought Curses a couple of times to send over to me, which I thought was a mistake, and he also bought a Fortune Teller which would only cycle me enough to play my Stashes more. I thought I had a chance still, since I'd be able to buy Provinces, and I kept up for a while, but somehow he was able to buy just as many provinces even though he only had two(?) Stashes.

I understand pretty well what happened here, but I feel like my strategy might have been better. Did this really just come down to luck, or am I missing some other things I did terribly wrong?

Tough game.

You did have some bad luck, as your opponent hit Ambassador + 2 estates early on, and then drawing Hamlet the first time he drew both Ambassadors. Broadly though, I'd say that in a game with any +action, the deck with 2 ambassadors to 1 ambassador early on is the deck with the advantage. Unless there's very good reasons otherwise, I try never to let my opponent have more Ambassadors than me in the early game.

Then there was the rejection of Hamlet... to me, there's nothing lacklustre about that card in a goons deck! Sure, you're not going to be playing masses of goons in a single turn, but its a card that can be a worker's village or a village or just a buy, as and when needed, and when each goons activation is earning points, thats too tempting to turn down. At worst, its a cantrip. Its also a safe buy WITH goons.

[AdamH]

In short, Menagerie happened.

[...]

Lighthouse is a solid defensive card, one of the best, but comes at cost of lowering your mid and late tempo (though as you said, it has minimal slowing effect on early game tempo). Menagerie would have provided the same defence without slowing your mid-game tempo, though in first or second turn the lighthouse is a better option, for its better early pace and for its later synergy with Menagerie. Just one though, IMHO.

So would you say that I played everything else well, except for Menagerie? Opening one lighthouse and then buying Menage instead of WV/Lighthouse makes sense and seems solid. It also looks like my opponent makes great use of this without even buying a Lighthouse, which compensates for the early tempo lead I got.

What about the rest of the plays? Were the early Goons and Forge buys appropriate?

[...]

Then there was the rejection of Hamlet... to me, there's nothing lacklustre about that card in a goons deck! Sure, you're not going to be playing masses of goons in a single turn, but its a card that can be a worker's village or a village or just a buy, as and when needed, and when each goons activation is earning points, thats too tempting to turn down. At worst, its a cantrip. Its also a safe buy WITH goons.

"Rejection of Hamlet." OK so I guess it certainly looks that way given that he ended up with all ten of them in his deck. Here was my thinking: Hamlets would be great buys when I need them to play multiple terminals -- I thought I would buy my first Hamlet after I had a couple of Goons, or something to do with $4 and a Goons in play (picking up two Hamlets). I felt like I never got to that point, so I never bought any.

I thought buying early Hamlets wouldn't be as good as buying Silver, so I ended up buying a whole bunch of Silvers. I thought my opponent was buying so many because he wanted "virtual cards" in his deck so he could cycle more and play his Ambassadors more. My vision didn't involve that heavy of Ambassadoring, and I thought I could win by playing more of a Money/light Goons strategy. Would you say this was ill-advised?

[zahlman]

I thought buying early Hamlets wouldn't be as good as buying Silver, so I ended up buying a whole bunch of Silvers. I thought my opponent was buying so many because he wanted "virtual cards" in his deck so he could cycle more and play his Ambassadors more. My vision didn't involve that heavy of Ambassadoring, and I thought I could win by playing more of a Money/light Goons strategy. Would you say this was ill-advised?

You can't really expect light Goons to hold out vs heavy Goons in general, and Silver gets in the way of draw engines. Trying to "catch up" with Ambassadors later is also usually pretty futile. There isn't really any draw here, but there is Golem, which shines in such an environment. You ended up with 12 Actions, none of which had any +Action... that's pretty awful. Especially note that you don't have to gain Duchesses (you actually BOUGHT one of them, without the villages?!?), and they're really a liability here; you wouldn't even really want to hit them with Golem if you had things running smoothly.

I would not try to compete with him on Ambassador once he opens Amb/Amb, especially since you see him not returning 2 cards. Get a Potion (turn 6), and get Hamlets with early Goons +Buys, because you're going to need them. On turn 9, stack both Stashes so that you can maximize your chance of getting Goons... that's the goal, after all, right? If I'm thinking clearly, this also ever so slightly increases the probability of drawing your Amb with two Coppers, btw. Turn 13, meanwhile, you totally waste the 4th Stash that you'd put in the first hand. (An argument can probably even be made for letting go of Silver+Copper vs. the Goons, Amb'ing the Estate, and buying Hamlet instead of another Stash...) Turn 16, same problem with Stashes, and why are you greening, especially against someone who clearly intends to Ambassador Curses to you (despite probably already having lots of other junk that could be sent)?

[DG]

The first game has a fair bit of subtlety since the two attack cards come up against some strong defenses, you probably still need them both and a bit of everything else for a winning deck, you still need coins for expensive cards, sequencing the buys can be difficult, you need to react to the pace of your opponent's deck, and there's potentially a tricky endgame. Closing the game out with goons scoring would be ideal but perhaps there is time first to draw big hands with a rabble and forge out the starting cards. For the game as played, I think your opponent had a better sequence of draws and then buys.

In the second game you really missed the impact of the golem. It solves a lot of problems with deck quality, hand size, and playing multiple actions.

[AdamH]

Both of you have mentioned a draw engine in game 2 (at least I think you have). I understand that Golem can really help out a deck like this, and that not losing the Ambassador war was more important than I'd thought (I didn't even do that very well). I see now that in theory, a Golem that hits two Hamlets could theoretically increase hand size by one card, and give an extra action -- Golem, when it hits a cantrip and a "payload" action (Bridge, Goons, etc.) can effectively turn that action into a cantrip "payload" action, which is super-awesome. However, I see no other way to increase hand size, and I'm having trouble grasping the concept of creating a reliable engine out of this. Would you say that involves really winning the Amb war so that your deck is super-lean, then having a bunch of Golems and Hamlets in order to play lots of Goons? Also, are you telling me that this deck could beat a light-Goons deck on this board that doesn't lose the Ambassador war? If this is what you're saying, then I'll try to wrap my head around it, but I don't think I'm correct here.

Also, for reference, what my endgame strategy turned into in Game 2 (after the point where I'd really lost the game) was an attempt to get Provinces (with Stash turns) to keep a small lead and 3-pile to end the game at that time. That's why I started greening so soon and bought/gained Duchesses and extra Ambassadors. Obviously it didn't work out, but I did actively change my plan to that around turn 20 or so. I actually was ahead on points for a few turns, but my opponent was able to Ambassador down and play Goons so much that he ran away with a point lead at that point, which is when I resigned that game.

[dondon151]

However, I see no other way to increase hand size, and I'm having trouble grasping the concept of creating a reliable engine out of this. Would you say that involves really winning the Amb war so that your deck is super-lean, then having a bunch of Golems and Hamlets in order to play lots of Goons?

I think what you need to do is to try it. Unfortunately Golem has the problem of variance (where you just have to close your eyes and play it), but consider what it does for you here:

- If it hits 2x Hamlet, and you discard for +actions for both, then you've gained a net +2 actions while losing 1 card in your hand.
- If it hits Hamlet + Goons, you've played the Goons with Hamlet's innate action and it's basically a cantrip. You can decide to discard for a net +1 action.
- If it hits 2x Goons, well, you've played 2 Goons for the cost of 1 Action.

One way to look at it is a Lab that finds only Actions. That's a handsize increasing card! But it also basically gives you a free action whenever you play it as well. So while it's not the most reliable, it's the best way to get your triple and quadruple Goons turns that will win you the game. Additionally, because it digs for Actions, it's not as susceptible to Copper bloat. The only problem with playing a Golem engine in a not-so-trim deck is that it becomes difficult to find your other Golems.

[Morgrim7]

i feel ya with the goons.

[-Stef-]

This meme is just brilliant. A minion meme could read 'get ALL the minions' and Ill Gotten Gains 'get ALL the IGG'. Like minion and IGG, Goons totally warp games around, but the text doesn't involve Goons itself. Goons games are more complex, or in other words: Goons is a better designed card. (ok that's my opnion )

Provided some kind of extra actions and cards are available (no matter how crappy), Goons do determine how the game ends: with someone playing a lot of goons and scoring an incredible amount of points. The player playing most Goons always wins. However, Goons say nothing about how the game starts. You will have to find the most effective way to build a deck with the other 9 cards in the kingdom.

• If no +actions are available, goons is still a good card but no longer complex. Just add a few to a big money deck, and be happy with the extra points you score on playing them. Provinces actually will matter now. The other statements apply to games with +actions
• Getting a goons quickly is often important. The discard attack can really hurt your opponents development, and the +buy could very well mean you can load up on 2 components/turn in stead of one. Scoring points off an early Goons is irrelevant, because the game won't be determined on a few points (or a couple of dozen even).
• Buying Goons is rarely ever about winning the goons split. Usually it's about 'who is capable of playing most' in stead of 'who owns most'.
• Playing a lot of Goons requires cleaning your deck. Any form of destruction is usually great in a Goons game.
• It's not worth loading up on junk just to score points, until you are a hair away from game ending. If you build the engine right, the amount of points you can score goes up exponentially. Investing in next turn is always better.

Exceptions to 2) can occur if there's some kind of hand-replenish-er, like watchtower, menagerie, library, jack of all trades. Also maybe you already have another early source of +buy. Another kind of exception is when doing something else soon is just more important (like ambassador).
Exceptions to 3) are very rare. Can occur if there are at least 2 villages in the kingdom, and some very good draw, and no other +buy or the game will just be over in notime.
Exceptions to 4) are basicly nonexistent.
Exceptions to 5) You started out in the illusion of getting a goons megaturn, but piles are running low, and both players receive so much junk it's not going to work anyway. Think mountebank, ambassador, swindler or something alike. Or maybe a three cheap piles both players really like.


About the two games you posted here:

Game 1 is really fascinating, because a lot is messed up. The early goons is not so important because of Menagerie, as explained by dondon already. However, a card that has been completely missed in the analysis so far is Develop. And I think it is very very important here. Cleaning up is important for goons but also for menagerie, and it allows you to load up on cards rather quickly. I tried that idea in 10 turns of single play. It gets you up & running while the opponent still dreams about 2 Villages into 2 Rabbles into a Forge.

Game 2 features Goons but also Ambassadors. Ambassador makes it very dangerous to play any non-ambassador plan, and here I would definitely open double amb. Only after I put a zillion coppers into my opponents deck I might consider doing something else. At that point you're so much in control of the game against someone with a fat deck, that anything is possible. Going for the golems sounds like the strongest plan, and if my opponent tries that with a fat deck I might even start sending lame actions over just to block. Anyway: amb first, think later.

[AdamH]

One way to look at it is a Lab that finds only Actions.

Right. This makes sense to me. +1 for you.

Playing a lot of Goons requires cleaning your deck. Any form of destruction is usually great in a Goons game.

This sounds really good, yes, but this is definitely more complicated than it seems. I posted this a while ago:

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4901.msg115541#msg115541

The relevant portion is about Loan in a City/Goons game, where Loan slows you down. I think I'm usually decent at understanding how to trash when building an engine, but when it comes to Goons my instincts are turned upside down. Given this, would you say that my early Forge buy is still appropriate?

10 turns of single play

What?! How did you stack the deck on Isotropic?! Wait, Develop top-decks your new cards. OK, well those draws must have been really lucky, right? Ummm... you mean they were almost guaranteed? *brain explodes*

Seriously, efficient engine building is something I know is weak in my game, but it's like I have trouble riding a bike with the training wheels off and you just did this

Anyway: amb first, think later.

The more I talk about it, the more the second game seems like an Amb game more than anything else. I'm supposed to be good with Amb, but this game, not so much. Oh well.

[dondon151]

Exceptions to 4) are basicly nonexistent.

On a slow, weak Goons board without trashing, Inn is a good way to lump Goons together. I suppose that it's not technically an exception because it assumes that there aren't any trashers in the kingdom in the first place.

-Stef- makes a good point about going Develop vs. Forge. A big problem with using Forge is that your Rabbles tend to be completely useless after your big trashing turn, and you also tend to kill your economy really fast.

[zahlman]

Game 2 features Goons but also Ambassadors. Ambassador makes it very dangerous to play any non-ambassador plan, and here I would definitely open double amb. Only after I put a zillion coppers into my opponents deck I might consider doing something else. At that point you're so much in control of the game against someone with a fat deck, that anything is possible. Going for the golems sounds like the strongest plan, and if my opponent tries that with a fat deck I might even start sending lame actions over just to block. Anyway: amb first, think later.

But with double-amb, isn't it hard to get to $6? Sometimes it seems hard to get to $3 x.x Plus it's more terminals to worry about, and sometimes you really don't want to Golem into Ambassador.

BTW: would you still go for the Ambassadors (or any other terminals) without Villages on board? Suppose we had Goons, Golem, and no other cards of note (especially no Villages or TR/KC): how many of each would you aim for? I guess 2 Goons and as many Golems as possible, to get double-Goons turns as often as possible? Or does it hurt your economy too much when you draw two Golems? Or would you want more Goons, in case of drawing one of each?

[dondon151]

But with double-amb, isn't it hard to get to $6? Sometimes it seems hard to get to $3 x.x Plus it's more terminals to worry about, and sometimes you really don't want to Golem into Ambassador.

It's easy enough to get to $6 when your deck has a high concentration of $ and your opponent's deck does not. It'll take awhile, but once you get started, you should be rolling.

[DG]

I'm guessing this is the sort of goons/ambassador game that you might have been wanting to play in kingdom 2 http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/17/game-20120717-164926-c6e459e4.html. Big goons decks can beat ambassadors but hopefully you'll be able to see how the other kingdom cards make the difference.