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Author Topic: Dominion Academy* 1.1: Alternative VP  (Read 3288 times)

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meandering mercury

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Dominion Academy* 1.1: Alternative VP
« on: January 14, 2013, 03:00:02 am »
+2

Welcome back to the Dominion Academy! Professor -Stef- isn't with us for this first session, but as your teaching assistant I'm here to give you an extra study session. Huh? This isn't the Dominion Academy you're looking for? Hey, there's an asterisk there. I hope you read the fine print before you signed up and paid tuition, right?

A little bit about my credentials: I'm around level 37 on the isotropic leaderboard, so I consider myself a reasonably skilled player, but I don't claim to be the best of the best by any means. Alternative VP is not my strong suit, so I'm writing this in a bit of a modified format. Instead of giving you "the answer" upfront, I'll first give you the problem and my first impressions. Then I'll have you all chime in and share your thoughts. Later on, I'll summarize the discussion and contribute my own findings.

Here's the board. This is a three-player game I played over the weekend:

cards in supply: Bureaucrat, Crossroads, Envoy, Farmland, Inn, Market, Moneylender, Potion, Village, Vineyard, Watchtower

Questions to you:

1) How do you assess this kingdom? Which strategies would be viable? What are the key cards?

2) The topic of the day is Alternative VP. How would your answer change if we swapped out the Vineyard for:

-- Duke
-- Gardens
-- Silk Road
-- Great Hall

My thoughts have changed since I first saw the board. I'll post my first impressions of the kingdom in the next post as a starting point, and I'll give you my revised answer, along with a summary of the discussion, within 48 hours.

* not sponsored or affiliated with the Official Dominion Academy
« Last Edit: January 14, 2013, 12:59:14 pm by meandering mercury »
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meandering mercury

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Re: Dominion Academy* 1.1: Alternative VP
« Reply #1 on: January 14, 2013, 03:26:24 am »
0

My first thought while skimming over this board was that it was a relatively weak kingdom.

"Power cards" -- this board doesn't really have any. It features an extremely weak attack (Bureaucrat) and a primary card draw (Envoy) that most people consider inferior to Smithy's +3 cards for the purpose of building an engine and just about comparable for big money decks. None of the other cards seem particularly relevant. Trashing is very weak (Moneylender -- I don't think Farmland really counts). Watchtower could be used as draw-to-X but it's hard to see how that will help us much.

The benchmark strategy is big money. The best pairing for straight treasure here would be Envoy, and Big Money + Envoy is expected to get to 4 provinces within 14 turns. It's hard to see an engine doing much better than that, so if any engine works, it'd have to work through Alt VP.

An Alt VP strategy that centers around Vineyards, though, seems like it might not be fast enough. You don't have a cheap way of gaining actions, your +Buy costs $5, you don't have actions that produce money, card draw doesn't seem that strong ... so my first impression on this board is that big money envoy would be the best way to play it. Open Silver/Envoy, gain treasure, and watch to see what your opponent does. If he's copying you, race to Provinces, and maybe get one more Envoy later on (but not too early). If he's trying some kinda fancy engine around Vineyards, then be cautious and build up with more treasure (unfortunately Markets are more likely to be dead draws because of Envoy) before taking the plunge to empty out the Provinces yourself.

Things get different if you use other Alt VP cards:

1) Duke (http://dominionstrategy.com/2012/02/13/intrigue-duke/). One of the most powerful Alt VPs in the game, Duke would undoubtedly change the landscape and shift it away from Provinces. You definitely should expect a mirror against a skilled opponent. The most important card here is probably Bureaucrat, which is weak in Province games but very strong in Alt VP because it gives you treasure to offset green card bloat.

Open Silver/Bureaucrat, pick up another Bureaucrat early on, and build up a bit of economy (not too much) before pouncing on the Duchies. You're in for the slog so it helps to sustain a healthy treasure base, but you must get at least 4 Duchies -- and if you get 5, then you're in great shape.

A Duke strategy should crush a treasure strategy gunning at provinces here.

2) Gardens. This seems like a bad choice, because there isn't like an Ironworks/Workshop to support you. Previous students and teachers in the Dominion Academy and other schools have outlined two basic approaches to alt VP, the rush and the slog:

http://dominionstrategy.com/2012/08/27/a-guide-to-alternate-victory-points/

Without helpers cards, the rush is simply outta the question, so we're back to the slog. But in a slog, it'll be hard to get enough points to beat Envoy/Big Money when he depletes the provinces.

If you DO face an opponent going for Gardens on this board, then your best strategy is probably to let them. Let them take 4-5 of the Gardens, and then try to get a few of them, maybe two, as a spoiler for them without hurting yourself too much. But focus on the provinces, because that's where it will really come from:

Original Gardens article: http://dominionstrategy.com/2010/12/16/dominion-gardens/

3) Silk Road. I hardly feel qualified to write about Silk Road because I read WW's article about it, tried it out multiple times, and always find myself losing with them. Still, the same basic principles of Gardens applies here. Silk Road definitely has more potency in a slog, so the opposing player should try to get a couple of them, maybe 3, because otherwise if the Silk Road player grabs them all up and then eats a bunch of estates and duchies and maybe some Farmlands, it's over for the other player even if they get all the Provinces. Still, it seems like Silk Roads would probably be a supplement to Provinces here and not an end to itself. If you do decide to do Silk Roads, Bureaucrat will again be useful, in both generating income for you and also in slowing the opposite player a tiny bit.

4) Great Hall. This isn't really considered Alt VP, so I would have written this off entirely -- if at some point while doing Big Money I get $3 after I already have a province or two, grab a GH as a tiebreaker.

In summary, I would have expected this board to be Big Money Envoy with all the Alt VP cards except for Duke, in which case it becomes a cookbook Duke contest with Bureaucrat being the only important card in play. I'm curious to see if the more experienced players read this board any differently.
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DStu

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Re: Dominion Academy* 1.1: Alternative VP
« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2013, 03:53:38 am »
+1

At least in 2p, I would also maybe try Bureaucrat with Gardens and SR, especially SR because of the Farmlands.

Alternatively, both Gardens and SR gives an engine enough time to beat the BM+Envoy.  There is no attack one wants to use here, but there is the buy, and XR and Inn for some chances to restart the engine even after it bought some green, and again Farmlands for even more points. A bit of trashing by the Moneylender, so you just have to deal with the estates, and here XR helps. Watchtower to top-deck new-bought engine pieces and make it mrore reliable.

This ain't over till it's over, so much time for the engine.


For with Vineyards.  Same of course applies here, now do we get enough points?  Of course Market is expensive, but it's also spammable.  There are Village, XR as cheap (almost) spamable actions.  I think it's a hard call, some gainer or another cheap nonterminal would really be nice.  For the money, you don't neeed that much for Vineyards, one or two of your buys are already for the Vineyards, Market gives you some, Moneylender gives you some at least for some time (and maybe even rebuy Copper when it's gone depending on how stable the engine is?)
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dondon151

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Re: Dominion Academy* 1.1: Alternative VP
« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2013, 10:37:47 am »
+4

An Alt VP strategy that centers around Vineyards, though, seems like it might not be fast enough. You don't have a cheap way of gaining actions, your +Buy costs $5, you don't have actions that produce money, card draw doesn't seem that strong ... so my first impression on this board is that big money envoy would be the best way to play it. Open Silver/Envoy, gain treasure, and watch to see what your opponent does. If he's copying you, race to Provinces, and maybe get one more Envoy later on (but not too early). If he's trying some kinda fancy engine around Vineyards, then be cautious and build up with more treasure (unfortunately Markets are more likely to be dead draws because of Envoy) before taking the plunge to empty out the Provinces yourself.

So I disagree with this. I'm probably not playing Envoy-BM optimally on this board, but it seems to have a huge longevity problem because as your deck gets more and more green, it gets easier to pick out treasures on your Envoy draws and reduce the amount of coin that your hands produce. It's taking me much longer than 20 turns on average to get to 8 Provinces, and this prioritizes Silver over Duchy every time.

With ~20 turns to work with, Vineyards definitely win out big. Here's a sample log that's probably not played completely optimally but gets 103 points in 19 turns: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201301/14/game-20130114-071302-759cbcb8.html

Some things that really make the engine work:
1) Village-Envoy is not the best kind of drawing engine, but if you get a high enough density of those cards, Envoy's discard really doesn't hurt that much.
2) Crossroads provides +actions on first play, but more importantly, it allows the engine to sustain large amounts of green. In the solitaire, I keep my Estates and actually load up on Farmlands, trashing Silver -> Markets most of the time.
3) Bureaucrat is pretty key. Starting turn 12 I play a Bureaucrat virtually every turn. The free Silvers provide some economy but also provide Farmland fodder, since there are 2 decent Actions for the engine at $5. There is really no way that Envoy-BM can sustain the repeated attack of Bureaucrat, particularly in the endgame.
4) Market is +buy. Yeah, $5 is "expensive," but it's really not all that expensive, and you have a lot of time to build up anyway.

With this in mind, I'm pretty convinced that SR, and to a lesser extent, Gardens, is strong as well. Against Envoy-BM that goes for Provinces with some SR or Gardens on the side, this should play out more or less the same. I'm not actually sure which one is stronger. SR has the advantage of remodeling Silver -> Duchy on Farmland buys. Gardens can reach 6 VP apiece easily - I had 59 cards in the solitaire game after 19 turns.

Against a Bureaucrat supported rush/slog, this will play out a little differently. Contest a couple of SR or Gardens early on, but play similarly and go for 8 Provinces, which should be very feasible. Opponent Bureaucrat attacks may hurt, but your attacks hurt far more because you're hitting them basically every turn and the opponent will be able to afford Duchies seldom. In any case, engine is super flexible and should be able to adapt quickly and maintain total control of the game.

Even against Duke, you may want to go engine. Engine probably cannot contest Duchies very well (since it needs to build up first), but it may be able to grab a couple. What it does better at is preventing the opponent from buying Dukes, since they'll be under Bureaucrat attack every turn and the engine can deny them very easily.

As for the Great Hall scenario, executing the engine is a little trickier, since the engine will probably have to rely on Duchies and Farmland for most of the VP. However, Great Hall synergizes with Crossroads (however, it might anti-synergize with Envoy a little bit), and the more extra VP there is in the kingdom, the easier it is for engine to work its magic. Plus, Bureaucrat attack.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2013, 10:51:16 am by dondon151 »
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shark_bait

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Re: Dominion Academy* 1.1: Alternative VP
« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2013, 11:57:50 am »
+1

I'd go for Crossroads, Moneylender, Market, Village, Envoy, and Vineyard.  Envoy is great because if they leave green you can just draw an extra card fro Crossroads.  You could even throw in a Watchtower to top deck engine components once your are running smoothly.  I'd expect this strategy to crush any money based strategy.
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dondon151

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Re: Dominion Academy* 1.1: Alternative VP
« Reply #5 on: January 14, 2013, 12:03:06 pm »
0

Yes, I didn't even consider the Watchtower. At a certain point you can buy Village and Envoy every turn.
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meandering mercury

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Re: Dominion Academy* 1.1: Alternative VP
« Reply #6 on: January 14, 2013, 12:57:33 pm »
0

You guys are right -- an engine crushes any sort of Treasure based strategy. What honestly surprised me about this board, and the reason why I posted it (maybe it's obvious to player 5 levels above me?), is how it does it. Like DStu, I thought that it was a bit of a tough call and may have been on the fence about whether or not to go with Vineyards.

Certainly, if a modified board like the one below had appeared (maybe I should have OP'd with this board instead of the one I actually played):

cards in supply: Bureaucrat, Crossroads, Envoy, Gardens, Inn, Jack of All Trades, Market, Moneylender, Village, Watchtower

(substitute Vineyard -> Gardens, Farmland -> Jack of All Trades)

I would have said, to heck with an engine, I'll play this as Jack/Jack, no questions asked. If some crazy person tries to build an engine and go for Gardens, I'll just swallow a couple of them as a spoiler and keep on rolling with the Provinces because Jack is very resilient to added victory cards. (Would ANY of you have played this as engine? If so, please teach me because it is still so counter-intuitive.)

For that matter, if you had substituted Vineyard -> Great Hall in the original board, I would have said, Big Money/Envoy all the way. BM/Envoy will race past you to 4 provinces, and there's not enough added points in Farmland and Great Hall, and not enough power cards like Grand Market in order to beat the point deficit.

At this point, though, and as dondon pointed out, there's a very strong "victory engine" here that would beat Big Money/Envoy even without the power of Vineyards, and even if a strong BM option like Jack were to be available. The key components are

1) Moneylender for weak copper trashing, so that your deck is mostly actions + victory + a few silvers
2) Crossroads-Envoy -- as shark_bait says, if they keep green with Envoy it still helps you, and the first +3 Actions from XR helps a ton
3) Bureaucrat as a mild attack to slow down the opponents and to generate cash of your own

Individually these are all fairly weak cards, but together they are unstoppable.

This was my first attempt playing this board solitaire, though I had the experience of playing the actual game before once. By turn 17 I was able to get double Provinces without even trying for it, because I played this for Vineyards. If this had been a Gardens board with Jack on the opposite side, then by turn 17 I would have expected the Jack player to have 5 Provinces + 3 Gardens in the absolute, best case scenario considering that he will be Bureaucrated most turns and it takes 14 turns to get to 4 Provinces anyway. Meanwhile, the victory engine player could easily have scooped up 5 Gardens/3 Provinces and win by a reasonable margin. If something goes wrong, there's still plenty of endgame control with Duchies.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201301/12/game-20130112-184617-65d03233.html

With the addition of Watchtower to topdeck Village/Envoy, a crossroads-based victory engine deck will -- unlike most engines -- be even more resilient to greening than BM/Jack, and in some respects its drawing power will only become stronger.

When I think of Alt VP of the Silk Roads/Gardens variety, I typically think of either slogs or rushes. This board presents a third alternative, a victory engine, that I would never have thought about if someone hadn't pointed me out. In the context of Vineyards it was easy enough to try it out and find it, but I never would have expected it to still translate off into Gardens or SR so well.
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