Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[zahlman]

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201303/06/game-20130306-145721-d6a666cc.html

Help?

[qmech]

#1 Failboat: 68 points (4 Provinces, 14 ▼, 4 Dukes, 3 Duchies, and 9 Estates); 38 turns
          opening: Silver / Monument
          [46 cards] 4 Dukes, 3 Monuments, 1 Philosopher's Stone, 1 Rabble, 7 Coppers, 7 Silvers, 2 Potions, 5 Golds, 9 Estates, 3 Duchies, 4 Provinces

#2 zahlman: 58 points (4 Dukes, 3 Provinces, 5 Duchies, and 5 Estates); 37 turns
         opening: Silver / Militia
         [44 cards] 5 Militias, 4 Dukes, 2 Philosopher's Stones, 1 Expand, 1 Monument, 1 Rabble, 10 Coppers, 6 Silvers, 1 Potion, 5 Estates, 5 Duchies, 3 Provinces

First I'm going to analyse this based solely on the summary.

It seems unfair to characterise this as Duchy/Duke/Militia vs. Monument/BM.  Your opponent is only off 10 points in the Duchy/Dukes, and they more than cover that with Monument, as well as picking up an extra Province.

You have far less money than your opponent: no Gold to your opponent's 5!  This game is always going to run a long time, and the lack of sustained buying power will really hurt you.  The length of the game will also let Monument pick up a lot of points.

Militia isn't such a scary Attack here, as with so many Victory cards in the decks there will quite often be something to discard.  You also have a lot of copies, and I'd have expected you to have some problems with collisions.

Now I'll take a look at the log.  You buy Duchies very early.  Turns 3, 6 and 7 are Duchies, after which you have a deck of 7 Coppers, 3 Estates, 3 Duchies, 2 Militias and 2 Silvers.  You pass turns 8 and 10.  Your opponent has 7 Coppers, 3 Estates, 5 Silvers, a Gold and a Monument.  By buying Treasure your opponent keeps their options open: when you go so hard into the Duchies, you're declaring that the game will last a long time, so they can plan accordingly, picking up more Monuments and aiming to buy Provinces whilst holding you to a small Duke lead.

Late game, it's not clear what the Expand is doing for you, as you don't have any good targets: there are no Duchies left, and you only have a single Rabble that you might possible want to turn into a Province.

Philosopher's Stone is always fun.

It seems you buy some of the Militias quite late, and only have one collision, so terminal numbers are probably fine.  I'd say that the main thing is misjudging the length of the game, and leaving your economy in such a state that it's hard for you to compete later on.  I probably like Monument more than Militia here; that's probably something the simulator could weigh in on.

[ftl]

You both went for both dukes and duchies and provinces.

Militia is weaker than monument in straight BM-for-provinces, and that's exaggerated even more in a duke-duchy game, where there's plenty of green to discard and the game goes long so monument points accumulate.

[Avalanchian]

Disclaimer: I am not an expert on Duke games (or any game for that matter).

In both my experience, and based on some of the strategy articles I've seen around, a card that is surprisingly useful in Duke decks is Copper. It helps to smooth out your money and brings your money density closer to 1.0. You hit $4 several times which meant you bought more and more Militias (which, as qmech pointed out, isn't as amazing as one would like here), and your deck was really lacking in treasure. Perhaps getting a Woodcutter earlier and using the +buy to grab a few coppers would have helped sustained your buying power a bit more, even if all it meant was that those turns you did nothing on, you instead bought a Silver.

I wonder a lot of things about this game. For instance, maybe getting a Rabble on your first $5 instead of a Duchy would have left you a bit more flexible, let you find your treasure and sustain your buying power a bit longer (hooray for terminal draw) and been a more powerful attack against your opponent (Militia won't discard a monument, but Rabble will). It's a shame there's no sifter for you here as well, they really help out a Duke deck as they tend to green so early and so hard that you can just drown in the green without something like Warehouse or Cellar. Monument is especially annoying here as while you're floundering in your fields of green, Monument keeps racking up the VP chips.

[Robz888]

This is a pretty weak board. I'm not even convinced Duchy/Duke is the way to go. I mean, usually if there's no discernible engine or anything, Duke IS the way to go... but here, well, Duke has a few problems. Rabble will really hurt the Duke player. Also, the Province player can use Expand very liberally to avoid his end-game collapse. He can even grab Duchies and crunch them into Provinces with Expand.

[DG]

Militia or Monument? Simulator suggests it's pretty even for duchy/duke.

For your game you have to buy more treasure before hitting the duchies. Turn 3 is way too soon and you probably need to wait one or two more shuffles. You then need to buy out all the duchies before getting any dukes (turn 9). You only need to get dukes sooner when you need to maximize your score before the end of the game.

Smugglers are always worth considering in duchy/duke games. Rabble will do ok. I don't like the philosopher's stone since any hand that can buy a philosopher's stone can buy a duchy with a silver instead of a potion, and if you buy a stone after the duchies are gone then it's too late. Expand also comes at the expense of a duchy or duke and is probably not worth it.

[dondon151]

Just an fyi, but Cutpurse is a stronger attack in Duke games than Militia.

[eliegel34]

I'm not quite sure about this, but I kinda like Woodcutter/Potion opening into Pstones right away, and as much copper as you can find to help sustain your economy in a long game like this.  I would say this is pretty weak, but this is a real weak board.