Action, Buy, Cleanup - Dominion Strategy and Chat Thread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Action, Buy, Cleanup - Dominion Strategy and Chat Thread

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

sector_corrector posted:

Playing the modified Big Money bot in Dominion.NET indicates that's not the case. Each Castle effect is fairly powerful, especially if you have a number of enabling cards on the board. Altogether a set will net you a decent amount of victory points, too. I would probably avoid in a Colony board, but rushing castles with money and enabling cards mixed in seems to be a good strategy overall.

I'm not so sure a castle rush works well. The problem is that the 6-cost and 7-cost castles are so good that they can be slotted into a standard province strategy with very few problems. Rushing castles usually leaves me with a weaker economy when the higher cost castles come up, and then the AI steals them all. I generally prefer avoiding castles until the second or third shuffle to avoid this.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2017 06:11

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 21, 2024 18:45

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

Guy A. Person posted:

* the other time we did this was when a friend opened 5/2 with Mountebank in play and Plats/Colonies. It got to a point where he was alternating buying Platinums and Colonies while me and the other guy were trying to scrape our way up to 5, and at the rate we were going he would have needed another 10+ turns to buy out all the Colonies by himself, unless the two of us managed to 3 pile something. Since then we have a house rule where we don't allow 5/2 openings with Mountebank, although tbf with some of the opening changing cards like Baker, the debt cards, and some events this might not strictly be necessary anymore

Why don't you just have mirrored openings, like the tournaments do? Sure, having three players open Mountebank is kind of silly, but it allows for more three pile potential.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2017 19:45

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

Dancer posted:

Alternate idea, wouldn't starting turn 3 with nothing but 3 silver be better on many kingdoms (assuming 4 copper t1)?
T1 feodum
T2 donate (pay off 3)
T3 you have 6 money, pay off 5.
T4 buy a gold, now you have a 4 card deck
T5 buy whatever action you want (you would presumably also do this in your play). Now your draw is more consistent, and the average treasure in your deck is stronger. At first I was going to add a caveat that your play can get a possible platinum one turn earlier, but I just misjudged so I think this turn is earliest with both approaches.

I think your idea would be better in most kingdoms. But if you suspect the game will go to twenty turns (probably due to a nasty attack card being present) , I think six silvers at turn 4 will beat 3 silvers on turn 3.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2017 20:40

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

sector_corrector posted:

Huh, just realized that on-trash benefits work when you hit a supply pile with a Lurker. You can trash Catacombs to pick up later while gaining free villages that enable them to draw your entire deck.

Sadly, it does not trigger Market Square's effect since that requires the trashed card to be your trashed card. Market Square is just too tempting of a card, and I almost always end up buy it, even when it is a bad idea.

Does anyone else have a card you can't help buying, even when it appears to be a bad idea.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2017 19:11

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

sector_corrector posted:

What's the Big Money baseline for turns for a Colony game? I usually play against the Big Money bot in .NET so that it's challenging, but this time it got distracted by a few early buys of useless Missions. I wound up getting 6 Colonies and a Duchy in my 19th turn to end the game, and it seemed like a good deck.

I used two Altars to drain Cities and Hamlets early, and used Horse Traders with Libraries to generate money and redraw my discards. 2 Golds, 3 Silvers for hard money and 2 Gears to enable the deck early.

Based upon this simulator, basic big money appears to get 4 colonies by turn 19-20:
http://rspeer.github.io/dominiate/play.html#BigMoney/BigSmithy

This version of basic big money plays as follows:
Buy cards using this priority:
I) "Colony" if my.getTotalMoney() > 32
II) "Province" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 6
III) "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 5
IV) "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
V) "Platinum"
VI) "Province" if state.countInSupply("Colony") <= 7
VII) "Gold"
VIII) "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 6
IX) "Silver"
X) "Copper" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2

# ¿ Feb 3, 2017 21:35

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

sector_corrector posted:

I often open with a Shantytown / Silver because it's a great way to get an early massive hand. Shantytown gets less powerful as the game progresses, so I think your idea is a really good one in those situations. Use CoTR to play actions before you play Shantytown, and make it work as a Lab. I think it's a good use of both cards, but I don't think I'd base a deck around it.

If your opponent got a 5/2 opening without a powerful 5-cost attack, would you still start Shantytown/Silver on a 4/3 opening? Obviously Shantytown/Silver won't stand up to an Mountebank opening, but what about Shantytown/Silver VS Hagger/2 or Counterfeit/2?

# ¿ Feb 15, 2017 06:08

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

deadwing posted:

That good, good dog is going to be hilarious in combo decks that require you to discard cards

He's an old dog. Not very good defending against attacks, but great at playing fetch (discard combos).

# ¿ Oct 24, 2017 19:14

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

Acting Troupe is the most thematic preview yet. They bring villagers to the show, and after the show they leave to get trashed.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2018 17:50

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 21, 2024 18:45

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

Coven is the reverse of those cards. Unlike a normal curser that slows down your opponents immediately, Coven doesn't slow down their deck at all in the early game, until Oops All The Curses.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2020 20:11

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Action, Buy, Cleanup - Dominion Strategy and Chat Thread