Some interesting games of Dominion
Jul. 4th, 2010 01:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sniffnoyI've written about pretty much nothing but integer complexity for a while. Let's change that. Especially since I intend to write about it a bit more quite soon.
Played an interesting game of Dominion against Hunter today. The only card drawing[0] was Moat and Laboratory. The only attack was Thief. Hunter picked up a Thief early, I didn't bother. So though I got a few 6-draws early on, I avoided gold. Now whenever I play Dominion I basically always try to put together a fork-draw engine if one is possible, but since I couldn't afford Laboratories at first, I started getting Moats. (Actually, the only fork was Festival, but it's still easier to get Festivals and Moats than Festivals and Laboratories.) So he ended up Chapeling away his Thief, at which point, yay, gold. We were pretty even, so he ended up buying an Estate at the end in an attempt to edge me out; ultimately, I won by one point, because he had earlier Chapeled away all his Estates, whereas I had only managed to get rid of one.
...OK, that wasn't actually that interesting. Let's go back to an earlier game, then, also against Hunter, which I should have written up when it actually happened so that I actually remembered it better.
The setup was:
2: Pearl Diver
3: Great Hall, Ambassador
4: Pirate Ship
5: Duke, Market, Festival, Torturer, Tactician
6: Harem
I don't know why we left in Pirate Ship, it's pretty clearly dumb with only two players. Nobody bought one the whole game.
Now this was a long game of Dominion - usually that means a slow, boring game, but not in this case. Rather it was long because I was going for Provinces, while Hunter went Duke/Duchy.
Naturally I started by trying to put together a Torturer/Festival engine. Of course it took a while to get going, but I did get some of the cards - in particular Torturers - early and it wasn't long before Hunter had an Ambassador or two and I was the one getting all the curses. My deck was getting terribly diluted and I finally bought a few Ambassadors to fight back. I'm not sure whether it was due to buying more of them or having a better engine, but by the end of the game, I had managed to send all the curses back to Hunter.
Our decks really were kind of shitty, though; in the midgame we each probably could have really used Tacticians, but neither of us thought to buy any. But I was occasionally getting the big money and buying a Province.
Hunter wasn't getting the 8s, though, so he started going Duke/Duchy. And he could hit the 5s a lot more consistently than I could hit the 8s. Also Pearl Divers and Great Halls ran out fairly quickly, and he had a lot more Great Halls than me (8 to my 2, IIRC). So that was a lot of points for him, and with two piles gone, he could end the game if he ran out the Dukes or Duchies.
Meanwhile I continued to slowly accumulate Provinces (with the occasional Harem once things got pretty late-game and I figured they would be more useful than gold). I didn't recall him buying a single Province, which ordinarily would put me way ahead, but with so many Dukes and Duchies gone, I wasn't at all certain of that. (I guess I could have calculated how many points he had from Dukes and Duchies, but I didn't bother to. He also started buying the occasional Estate towards the end, IIRC.)
Hunter, of course, keeps pushing me to buy the remaining Duchies and end the game, which I am very wary of; sure, I don't want him to get more Duchies, but I'd rather end the game through Provinces. But when there's only one Province left, one Duchy left, and my turn rolls around, and I can't make 8... I've got to have enough Provinces by now, surely? I get a Duchy and an Estate.
Of the 7 Provinces that were bought, *all* of them were in my deck. And yet I still only won by 6 points or so. If I had stopped at "only" 6, I might not have won!
-Harry
[0]To be clear, I don't count cantrips as "card drawing".
Played an interesting game of Dominion against Hunter today. The only card drawing[0] was Moat and Laboratory. The only attack was Thief. Hunter picked up a Thief early, I didn't bother. So though I got a few 6-draws early on, I avoided gold. Now whenever I play Dominion I basically always try to put together a fork-draw engine if one is possible, but since I couldn't afford Laboratories at first, I started getting Moats. (Actually, the only fork was Festival, but it's still easier to get Festivals and Moats than Festivals and Laboratories.) So he ended up Chapeling away his Thief, at which point, yay, gold. We were pretty even, so he ended up buying an Estate at the end in an attempt to edge me out; ultimately, I won by one point, because he had earlier Chapeled away all his Estates, whereas I had only managed to get rid of one.
...OK, that wasn't actually that interesting. Let's go back to an earlier game, then, also against Hunter, which I should have written up when it actually happened so that I actually remembered it better.
The setup was:
2: Pearl Diver
3: Great Hall, Ambassador
4: Pirate Ship
5: Duke, Market, Festival, Torturer, Tactician
6: Harem
I don't know why we left in Pirate Ship, it's pretty clearly dumb with only two players. Nobody bought one the whole game.
Now this was a long game of Dominion - usually that means a slow, boring game, but not in this case. Rather it was long because I was going for Provinces, while Hunter went Duke/Duchy.
Naturally I started by trying to put together a Torturer/Festival engine. Of course it took a while to get going, but I did get some of the cards - in particular Torturers - early and it wasn't long before Hunter had an Ambassador or two and I was the one getting all the curses. My deck was getting terribly diluted and I finally bought a few Ambassadors to fight back. I'm not sure whether it was due to buying more of them or having a better engine, but by the end of the game, I had managed to send all the curses back to Hunter.
Our decks really were kind of shitty, though; in the midgame we each probably could have really used Tacticians, but neither of us thought to buy any. But I was occasionally getting the big money and buying a Province.
Hunter wasn't getting the 8s, though, so he started going Duke/Duchy. And he could hit the 5s a lot more consistently than I could hit the 8s. Also Pearl Divers and Great Halls ran out fairly quickly, and he had a lot more Great Halls than me (8 to my 2, IIRC). So that was a lot of points for him, and with two piles gone, he could end the game if he ran out the Dukes or Duchies.
Meanwhile I continued to slowly accumulate Provinces (with the occasional Harem once things got pretty late-game and I figured they would be more useful than gold). I didn't recall him buying a single Province, which ordinarily would put me way ahead, but with so many Dukes and Duchies gone, I wasn't at all certain of that. (I guess I could have calculated how many points he had from Dukes and Duchies, but I didn't bother to. He also started buying the occasional Estate towards the end, IIRC.)
Hunter, of course, keeps pushing me to buy the remaining Duchies and end the game, which I am very wary of; sure, I don't want him to get more Duchies, but I'd rather end the game through Provinces. But when there's only one Province left, one Duchy left, and my turn rolls around, and I can't make 8... I've got to have enough Provinces by now, surely? I get a Duchy and an Estate.
Of the 7 Provinces that were bought, *all* of them were in my deck. And yet I still only won by 6 points or so. If I had stopped at "only" 6, I might not have won!
-Harry
[0]To be clear, I don't count cantrips as "card drawing".
