This is all about endgames and tactics, I'm going to skip the openings and middlegames - I mean, there's probably a lot of meat there, but it's both not what I want to focus on here nor what I understand the greatest in these.
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130915/log.50b20dc3e4b0c9ce0cf27eb3.1379274752025.txtWe pick this one up on my thirteenth turn. We have each used Merchant Guild to split between Vineyards and Provinces. He's managed five vineyards to my three and has a small lead. I have to maneouvre between taking the lead and being able to end the game at the right time.
Basically, we end up going back and forth a lot with this - if we would have had developed engines, it would be a lot different, but the green splits -particularly vineyards - were too critical to waste so much time. So keep in mind here, we are both accumulating lots of tokens and worthless actions, and we get it down to 2 provinces, but our decks aren't really good enough to double, and we don't want to break a lot of tokens on a province, with some weird kind of PPR considerations with very close scores - actually I only had a feel of this, having forgotten that he put #vpon in the title of the table (and not realizing there was a version of the PCE that doesn't display itself in chat...) - but regardless, the principle holds.
Turn 17 I end up trading in 4 tokens for a duchy (with only 3 vineyards, duchy is the right play for points-now). I am feeling the pressure, because duchies are getting sort of low, vineyards are gone, ruins are very low, and vagrants are pretty low too. So, not knowing the score on turn 19, I 'go for it' with a province, knowing that he has 8 tokens and can end it - this confuses him, and ends poorly.
What did this come down to? The vineyard split is what I want to point to. First turn is what I really *want* to point to, but there were definitely lots of places I could have made other choices, and I am not sure - but probably something I could have done better (certainly the last turn). And we have to give Stef a lot of credit for staying on top of this and covering up all my options at just the right time. As first player, one of your tasks is to prosecute your advantage well, and he certainly did that here, smothering my chances to come back on all sides.
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130915/log.50b20dc3e4b0c9ce0cf27eb3.1379276165379.txtTurn 13 is the first key moment I want to look at. I have an extra royal seal, an extra smugglers, fewer nobles, no oracle to his one, and extra villages. The key thing here is that I pick up the last two nobles to equalize, and I DON'T SMUGGLE LAB even though I could have. Caravans are gone, Nobles are now gone, and there were only two Labs left. Smugglers are the only gain in the kingdom, and by leaving two, there's now no way to end the game in a single turn (if I grab one, all he needs is smugglers and $2 to win the game). I pick up a strategic Great Hall instead. This gives me a little lead, it doesn't help his deck at all (actually, with the fewer villages plus the oracle, it hurts it if anything), and he can smuggle them - but I will at least potentially be able to smuggle back. Most of all, GH plays to my trump - the Royal Seal, which actually lets me buy a province if I can ever draw my deck together (and I am close).
So he double smuggles back and picks up a gold, to neutralize this advantage.
Turn 14, and plan draw-the-deck comes together. Now, he CAN indeed get a province, so this is something to be mindful of. He has two smugglers, and this is critical to know. I smuggle TWO great halls - a critical number - and a gold. Now, at first, I was thinking just one GH, because this would leave 4 and stop him from being able to pile them out (which would end the game). But then, I realized that because I knew I was buying province, he would have to use both smugglers and his buy to end the game, and of course my points protected me from this. However, getting the third would have been less good, because then two smuggles empty the pile, and buying a province would let him then tie.
The gold was nice, particularly because I had a little trick. I have a village left after drawing my deck, so I can smuggle all three things and then village to draw one - 2/3 chance I have gold the next turn, and basically I had figured the only way I was losing would be to whiff on province at the wrong moment.
Now, Stef miscalculates on the next turn (I am not sure what was up, but he knew very soon after it happened; maybe he had expected me to get GH on the third smugglers too, and with the animations not being helpful...?), getting GH down to 1 and only getting himself a 1 point lead. I only need smugglers and $2 to win (actually I make it up to 9).
So this one was also probably a good bit of first turn, along with random lucky smugglers.
Luck a good bit in both, but you also have to have skill in how you press that luck.
Oh, and good ole penultimate Lab rule.