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GeekNights 090922 - Dominion
Tonight on GeekNights we review Dominion. We do a geekbyte on Scribblenauts, and console prices are dropping.
Comments
2) "Pause."
3) *Flips up visor* "..thank god."
4) [Cut to Alien Commander] "YEAHH!"
YEAAH!!!
1. You need to buy Villages aggressively if they ever are out. The 2+ actions allows for broken decks if anyone gets hold of more then 4 of them. (sometimes just 4 is enough to start very brutal combos. I see villages as a card that may have to be removed in 3 player games as at least 1 person can get hold of 4 of them which leads to a tipping point of very rapid province generating decks.)
2. Bureaucrat is incredibly powerful if Thieves or Villages are not in play. Without Thieves to steal treasure or Villages to allow for faster card combos Bureaucrat seems to be near unbeatable. All you need is 3 with perhaps a card or 2 to draw into more cards (ideally Adventurer) and just spend the rest of your time buying silver/gold and provinces when you get the hand. You get up and running quickly and can keep purchasing constantly.
3. Moat is a useless waste of paper unless all your opponents are running aggressive attack games.
4. Buying a single Workshop in your first two hands (if the kingdom is out) seems to be the best way to start up. Workshops generate ridiculous card advantage and anyone who hasn't bought one in the first two hands falls drastically behind as the game progresses.
Overall this is a brilliantly built game and my friends and I have found many wildly varying successful strategies. We have been playing that the people who come in 4th and 3rd choose 2 and 1 kingdom to swap out respectively. (I always put in witches as I love to grief) I have the expansion but have yet to bring in the cards yet. We keep on playing with new people and I don't want to overwhelm them by introducing new sets of cards every game.
Also, I disagree with the analysis on the podcast about going province heavy as the only way to win though. I have found several tactics that rely upon draining two kingdoms and all the Duchy that can be out race people that have a province oriented strategy. Though it does take some meta gaming as you usually have to build your own strategy around buying kingdoms that the other players are also buying to end the game quick enough that they cant get started up.
Final note. Story of epic win.
My friend (James) and I have a long rivalry with card games that started with Magic. (so much money lost to that game). We often imitate Kiba and Yugioh since we both found the show hilariously ridiculous. Those two have voices that are far to deep given their physical frames.
*mid game*
James(Kiba): "Yugi, clearly my Throne Rooms will win me this game. They are too strong, I draw them to fast, you will surely lose"
Jay (Yugi): "This is the story of a Tortoise and the Hair. You have found a powerful combo, Throne Room and Adventure, but can you stand in front of the constant push Bureaucrat. Have you already fallen to far behind..."
*game ends*
James(Kiba): "So Yugi, I have 45 points. The day is mine, the Hair has won! Your grandfather's soul is MINE!" (There is far to much soul stealing in that show, poor grandpa)
Jay (Yugi): *puts down points. sly grin* "Kiba, your rapid gaining of provinces was quiet impressive. But I must ask, what is 6X8+1?"
James(Kiba): *looks left while squinting for split second...probably doing mental math* *opens eyes wide* "NOOOOOOOO!"
Good times, good times.
If the game is a long one, it's going to be a lot harder to get hands full of money, because they will be full of curses (witch) or you'll only have three cards (militia). In this case, village can help. You can buy lots of cheap action cards and combo them together to make up for the fact that you can't afford gold. You can also combo those extra actions to draw cards and get through your terrible deck.
If the game is short, however, a village or two is just fine. Remember, all the wicked combos in the world don't really help you win most of the time. You might think someone is doing awesomely because they were able to play 6 action cards in a turn. But what did they really end up with at the end of the turn? Just a gold? Just a province? Big whoop.
In all the games we have played, the winning deck typically has very few action cards in it. Between 6 and 8 total action cards in the deck at the end of the game is pretty typical of a winner.
Think of this mathematically. You draw five cards per turn. You get an action every turn. So having one action card for every five cards in your deck is a good balance. A village gives you +1 card, +2 actions. So in order for a village to be mathematically practical, you need to have 3 action cards in your deck for every 6 cards total. If you don't, then you're going to draw the village and not be able to use both extra actions. If you do, then there are a lot of times you will be drawing a bunch of action cards you can't use. That is, unless, 1/3 of your action cards are villages.
This math works out early in the game because you can buy two villages, and four other action cards right off the bat when your deck is only 10 cards or so. If you do this, however, those will probably be the only action cards you ever buy. The rest of the game should be spend getting silver/gold/dutchys/provinces and maybe a special scoring card if one is available.
First two hands: Buy workshop and village
Next two hands: Buy 3 Villages (very consistent, I have done this roughly 2/3 the time I play with workshop and village available)
Next two hands: Buy 2 Smithies, + silver if lucky. (Can do this roughly 1/2 the time)
Next hand: Cycle through entire deck, buy a gold and a silver (silver work shopped)
Proceed to buy provinces every turn by cycling through your entire deck every turn. Next Workshop get one more Workshop. Then Workshop either silvers or smithies. More Silver then Smithy. You'll get half the Provinces before you start getting dead draws. At that point Workshop/buy Duchy and get Provinces when you get lucky. Congrats you've won. This is very powerful not only because of extra actions, but because Villages/Drawing cards make your deck incredibly consistent. Until you get 4-5 other victory cads in your deck (likely provinces) you will never have a dead draw.
This works with any combination of Village + drawing card. It's just most evident with Smithy. The Workshops are not necessary but you get slowed down a turn without them. Though, if there is no Workshops everyone gets slowed down a turn or two so it doesn't make a difference. My friend James did this to us on our second day playing Dominion. It was absolutely ruthless. Everyone else was still buying silver/gold when he was turning out Provinces. The same thing was then done by various people using Village/Library, Village/Laboratory, Village/Witch, Village/Council Room. Though with these other combos your slow enough cause of the 5 cost of the cards to not have a landslide of a victory.
4 Villages 3 Witches = GG. (Buy no other cards but villages and witches...maybe a Duchy when those piles run out)
*edit* This may be an artifact of our group still being new enough with the game that we don't know ways to combat this strategy efficiently. Like when we started Puerto Rico and it seemed Factory = Instant win. Time will tell.
*double edit* This also works even if your being Militiaed/Witched yourself. You dump your non drawing cards and keep your drawing cards and draw right back into your combo again. It just slows you down a little bit, but everyone else is being slowed down too.
I didn't know what any of the cards did, but a friend was telling me about the Potion card mechanic. At first I was a bit leary, because you basically have to buy a Potion card in order to get other cards. After reading what the cards do, I can see why they added the Potion cost mechanic. I can see this as a good way to buy Provinces during mid to end game. I love this card. It's so mean. I can see Andrew playing this on Lyddi a lot. ^_~ Cheap cost, effective output. Another card to use towards end of game to get the Duchy cards for victory points. For anyone that enjoys building a deck full of actions, this card can be very worthwhile Some of these cards look really awesome to play, however the rules suggest if you were to play with cards from Alchemy, that you have at least 3-5 Alchemy cards in the set. I'll think I'll try some of their recommended set combinations. They look pretty wicked.
We played with their first suggested deck. I wasn't kidding about Possession. That card is beyond wicked. I was able to get Provinces off that card. Jeremy finally played a possession on me and got 2 Provinces out of it by going through my entire deck. For those who have Alchemy, check out that deck set up. It has a lot of good combination set ups.
Also my buying of Gardens paid out. I was able to make each Garden card worth 5 points each. It's definitely a card not to ignore.
The card does cost 6 coin and 1 potion, so you have to build your deck up to at least buy the Potion which is 4 coin, then go from there.
Also University is a really good card for such a cheap cost. You get a free action card of costing up to 5. I was using that to get my Throne Room and Laboratory cards.
BTW, I just played another round. Jeremy: 32, Ro: 29
Lost by a Duchy.
This was a fast game. Golem is a good mid-game card to use. I should have also got Herbalist earlier in the game, but I didn't and it ended up being my downfall. I had many instances where I had lots of money but no extra buying power. I was also disappointed I wasn't able to use the two Transmute cards I bought.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/apreche/sets/72157623959448945/
If anyone wants to rebox their Dominion, I suggest you get a box half the size of the one I got.
Here is our current set up:
We're going to take out all the coin cards and put them a separate container so we can put the alchemy in the box with all the other kingdom cards.
http://www.bcwsupplies.com/
This is the box I should have gotten.
These are the dividers. I went all out and got 25 packs of dividers because it was cheaper in bulk, and I won't have to order them again for future expansion(s).
Jeremy eagerly awaits an expansion from this game.