Dominion Strategy

Jay from Rio Grande Games released a statement that counterfeit copies of Dominion 2nd Edition are out there. Here is the complete statement:

We have recently learned that counterfeit copies of the game are being distributed via Amazon’s Fulfillment by Amazon service.  We have purchased confirmed counterfeit copies of the game from the following third-party retailers on Amazon:

FastnBest LLC
Daily Deals Shop (NO TAX)
Tax Free Tech
Speedybuyllc

Of course, more may show up and we will continue to monitor this situation. If you bought a counterfeit version of the Dominion 2nd edition game, we encourage you to return it to Amazon for a refund – and hope you will buy another from a reputable retailer. Of course, most sellers are selling legit games, including, of course, Amazon itself. For those who are uncertain if the game they bought is a counterfeit, there are two obvious differences. The counterfeit game has a VERY badly made plastic inlay with crumpled in the plastic and the artists names on the cards are not white, but tend toward orange and red. If your game has this, it is counterfeit.

Jay at Rio Grande Games

Donald X. also commented on the forum that he believes another way to tell legit copies from fakes is that the fakes are likely bendy.

Next week, will be the official start of Game Analysis. Please join us tomorrow for a special guest article and Friday for our first podcast.

More content is coming to the DominionStrategy blog!

Quite a few years have passed since this blog started, and unfortunately, there has been a while without really any substantial posts or updates.  However, the DominionStrategy blog has come under new management and our new administrator, Beyond Awesome, is assembling a team of writers and Dominion experts to bring weekly content to the blog for new and veteran players alike.

Our tentative schedule is currently:

• Mondays: Dominion 101 – a weekly column with advice geared toward new players, to help them get up to speed on Dominion strategy
• Wednesdays: Game Analysis – we look at a particularly interesting game, and dissect it
• Thursdays: Experts Corner – a weekly guest column where we invite a high-level Dominion player to share their experience with articles geared toward veteran players
• Friday: The Outpost – A podcast hosted by Beyond Awesome and Seprix, discussing the latest Dominion news and strategy

Also, keep your eyes out for previews of the upcoming expansion Nocturne.

We hope you enjoy the new blog!

This Saturday at 16:00 UTC / 11:00 AM EST, the Dominion League’s Championship match will be livestreamed, featuring Donald X., creator of Dominion, as a commentator.

The contestants for the twelfth Champion match are Stef and Mic Qsenoch, the only two people who ever won a Championship match so far. Due to the regular League standings, Mic Qsenoch needs to win five out of the six played matches, whereas Stef has to win only 1.5 games to claim the title.

Regardless of the results, we’ll be seeing the complete six games. Donald X. will be accompanied by SCSN, the third place finisher in the League, as co-commentator. You will find the broadcast here (February 13, 2016 at 16:00 UTC / 11:00 AM EST):

www.twitch.tv/dominionstreams

You can also find the broadcast recorded using the same link if you can not catch the action live.

If you have further questions, you can ask them here or post in this thread.

In this article series I will explore the so called Alt-VP or Alternate Victory Point cards. I will analyze simple decks that use Alt-VP as their win condition and how well they fare against baseline strategies. I will also try to find (near) optimal strategies for the mirror match. 

Week 5 : Feodum

Most of the Alt-VP cards are worth going for if you can get them up to 4 VP. This means you’re going to need at least 12 Silver in your deck which is a lot of junk, especially for an engine. It’s perfect for a Slog with some kind of Silver gainer (Jack of All Trades or Amulet). Today we’re going to use the ultimate enabler, Masterpiece. Here are the buy rules for the Masterpiece/Feodum bot (evaluated from top to bottom for each buy):

• buy Feodum when you have 21 or more Silver
• buy Province when you have 21 or more Silver
• buy Duchy when you have 21 or more Silver
• buy Estate when you have 21 or more Silver
• buy Masterpiece with $5 or more
• buy Silver

Here’s how it fares vs a Smithy Big Money strategy (which buys 1 Smithy, Treasures and Provinces)

It’s a hopeless battle for the poor Smithy. It spends $8 to get 6VP while the Feodum player only needs to spend $4 to get 7VP. Masterpiece/Feodum wins very close to 100% of games. This strategy is so strong that it even beats strong engines. Its only rivals are probably mega turn engines with Goons. As an example let’s let it fight against a Fishing Village/Wharf mega turn engine:

Feodum wins a whopping 80% of matches vs the engine.

When a strategy is so dominant the game often turns into a mirror match. It’s pretty obvious that winning the Feodum split is going to be important. Here are the buy rules for the best mirror bot:

• buy Feodum when there are 8 or less Silver in the supply
• Masterpiece with $5 or more (if there are still Silver left in the supply)
• buy Province if you already have Feodum
• buy Duchy if you already have Feodum
• buy Estate if you already have Feodum
• buy Silver

The mirror bot wins 60% of games versus the original bot. It surprised me that winning the Feodum split gives only a small advantage, but getting lots of Silver first will allow easier access to Province which are going to be worth as much VP as Feodum in a mirror match (40 Silver split in 2 means 6VP Feodum).

Conclusions

This combo is going to dominate on the majority of boards, but losing the Feodum split in the mirror is not the end of the world.

I will be taking requests for future articles, so feel free to send me a message (Geronimoo on the forum).

(these bots have been incorporated in the latest version of the simulator)

In this article series I will explore the so called Alt-VP or Alternate Victory Point cards. I will analyze simple decks that use Alt-VP as their win condition and how well they fare against baseline strategies. I will also try to find (near) optimal strategies for the mirror match. 

Week 4 : Silk Road

Silk Road doesn’t need much support to be awesome. Any green card in the kingdom will enable it. Even the lowly Great Hall. Today I’ll examine Island as an enabler. We won’t be using any other kingdom cards to keep things simple. Let’s let it fight against Smithy Big Money (which buys 1 Smithy, Treasures and Provinces)

Island/Silk Road wins 69% of games! Here are the buy rules for the optimal bot (evaluated from top to bottom for each buy):

• buy Silk Road when you have 5 more Islands than Silk Road
• buy Island
• buy Silk Road
• buy Duchy
• buy Estate if there are 4 or less Silk Roads left in the supply
• buy Silver

Notice that this bot starts greening from the first turn and hardly builds economy. I expected this kind of strategy wants to buy Copper, but the simulations suggest otherwise. Also this bot shouldn’t buy Province because emptying the Province pile fast enough wins the game for the Smithy deck. You want the game to drag on to maximize Silk Roads.

Now we look at the mirror match where both players go for Silk Roads.

After a few iterations I came to this optimal and very simple bot for the mirror:

• Open Island/Silver
• buy Silk Road
  
• buy Duchy
  
• buy Island
• buy Estate if there are 4 or less Silk Roads left in the supply
• buy Silver
• buy Copper

As was expected you want to rush the Silk Roads as soon as possible and turn 3 is really soon. Contrary to the previous deck, this one wants Copper. It wins 75% vs the original non-rushing bot.

Lessons learned: don’t help your opponent by buying cards he wants to pile out as fast as possible; and you don’t want a lot of economy building if your goal cards cost $4 or less.

Join me next week when I build a Masterpiece.

(these bots have been incorporated in the latest version of the simulator)

In this article series I will explore the so called Alt-VP or Alternate Victory Point cards. I will analyze simple decks that use Alt-VP as their win condition and how well they fare against baseline strategies. I will also try to find (near) optimal strategies for the mirror match. 

Week 3 : Vineyard

This is probably the most complex of the alt-vp cards. First the threshold to get these is dependant on action cards and not treasures and second you need to determine when to get Potion and how many you need.

The deck I will analyze today is completely focused on maximizing Vineyard. It uses Workshop, Worker’s Village and Smithy. The game plan is to get a bunch of action cards in the deck and then get all the Vineyards. I will let it battle against a simple Smithy Big Money deck (which buys 1 Smithy, Golds and Provinces)

After a lot of tweaking here’s the best bot:

• Open Workshop/Workshop
• Get some Worker’s Villages
• Get Smithy whenever you have more Villages than terminal actions in your deck
• Get Workshop whenever you have more Villages than terminal actions in your deck
• when you have acquired 8 action cards, get 2 Potions
• Continue collecting action cards and Vineyards
• Empty 3 piles: Vineyard, Worker’s Village and Smithy/Workshop

You probably end up with 7-point Vineyards (56 VP) in 20 turns.

This deck wins 91% of games versus Smithy Big Money. It beats most Big Money decks and only loses to the stronger engines.

Let’s examine the mirror match where both players go for Vineyards. After some tweaks this is the optimal bot:

• Open Workshop/Workshop
• Get some Worker’s Villages
• Get Smithy whenever you have more Villages than terminal actions in your deck
• Get Workshop whenever you have more Villages than terminal actions in your deck
• when you have acquired 5 action cards, get 3 Potions
• Continue collecting action cards and Vineyards
• Empty 3 piles: Vineyard, Worker’s Village and Smithy/Workshop

So this bot wins 57% of games versus the original bot. It’s pretty obvious that winning the Vineyard split is crucial. Buying/gaining up to 3 (!) Potions after the second reshuffle seems to be the way to do that. This game is also over a lot faster averaging 14 turns.

The lesson here is that if Vineyard is part of your strategy you probably want to get Potions fast and more than one.

Join me next week when I walk the Silk Road.

(these bots have been incorporated in the latest version of the simulator)

In this article series I will explore the so called Alt-VP or Alternate Victory Point cards. I will analyze simple decks that use Alt-VP as their win condition and how well they fare against baseline strategies. I will also try to find (near) optimal strategies for the mirror match. 

Week 2 : Duke

For beginning players Duke is often the elephant in the room. They know it should be incorporated into their strategy, but haven’t a clue how. It’s easy to see that it can be a strong cards if you manage to get the majority of the Duchies, but most players find it hard to spend $8 on a Duchy, while it’s often the best move. Today I’ll be looking at a Duke-slog with Cache as an enabler.

Dominion: Intrigue

The simulator proves that Gold is worse than Cache in the Duke slog. This is caused by the “padding” effect of Cache. You see, in the mid to end game a deck with a lot of green cards will cause many hands to contain three or more victory cards leaving you with $4 (eg a Gold and a Copper) and unable to buy anything meaningful. Adding a bunch of Copper into this deck will cause hands to contain relatively fewer green cards (eg 2 Duchies, Cache and 2 Copper), hence the padding effect. Here’s how this simple deck (buy a few Caches, then Duchies, then Dukes) fares against simple Big Money Smithy (buy 1 Smithy, treasure and Provinces).

The Duke slog wins 64% of games. So it’s not a dominating strong combo and can easily beaten by a strong engine. Simulations suggest you want to build up some economy first. Three Caches seem to be the sweet spot before greening. You want to get at least 7 Duchies before attacking the Duke pile.

Now let’s look at the mirror match.

In the mirror match it’s crucial to try to win the Duchy split. But you need a little bit of money first. It appears you want at least $18 worth of treasure in your deck before greening (so probably 3 Silver and 1 Cache or 2 Silver and 2 Cache). Once the Duchies are gone you need to keep buying green cards (Duke and Province). Switching back to building economy doesn’t work out well according to the simulator. Estates should be bought when there are 4 or less Dukes left on the board. This strategy wins 57% against the player who builds more economy first.

Join me next week when I tackle Vineyard.

(These bots have been incorporated in the latest version of the simulator)

In this article series I will explore the so called Alt-VP or Alternate Victory Point cards. I will analyze simple decks that use Alt-VP as their win condition and how well they fare against baseline strategies. I will also try to find (near) optimal strategies for the mirror match.

Week one: Gardens

We’re going to start with the forefather of Alt-VP: Gardens. I fondly remember one of my first games of Dominion where I went for Gardens by buying a lot of Markets bloating my deck as much as possible. I ended up the winner with a 60 card deck and Gardens worth as much as Provinces. I felt great and to this day when I see Gardens appear in a kingdom I try to incorporate it into my deck. At the time I just saw Gardens as a good card to buy in stretched out games. It never even occurred to me that it could be used in a rush strategy.

Dominion

Today I’m going to explore one of the classic combos: Ironworks/Gardens. This deck will get a bunch of Ironworks (gaining them with … Ironworks) and when it has enough of them it will start to gain Gardens and Estates (and more Ironworks if you’re holding multiple Ironworks). So it rushes 3 piles before the other player can buy enough Provinces. Typically you will end up with a deck of 40 cards meaning 43 points in 16 turns. You need a very strong engine to beat that kind of speed.

Let’s see how the deck does against a baseline strategy. I’ll take the Smithy Big Money deck which buys one Smithy, money and Provinces.

The Gardens player will win 97% of games vs the poor Smithy player. The simulator shows that you want 6 Ironworks before making the switch to gaining Gardens. The spikes in the graph show where the Gardens player reaches the next threshold (every 10 cards).

This is a very strong combo and can only be beaten by the strongest engines. So what will happen most of the time is that each player will go for the same combo. The mirror match is all about winning the Gardens split. To achieve this you want to start greening after getting two Ironworks. It will also try to get Duchy because the game is over so fast that Gardens are never worth more than 3VP. We’ll call this deck Ironworks/Gardens (Paper) and the original rush is Ironworks/Gardens (Rock).

Paper will win 87% of games vs a mindless Gardens rusher. Now this is not the end of the story. There is another way to tackle Alt VP boards and that is turning your game into a slog. You’re no longer rushing to empty 3 piles, but trying to get the most victory points in a drawn out game. The plan for this deck, which we’ll call Ironworks/Gardens (Scissors) is to get two Ironworks and using them as a source of economy, gaining several Silvers. This economy will allow the deck to get more Duchies. This will often result in losing the Gardens split, but winning the Duchy split by a lot.

Ths slog wins 63% of games.

And now it gets interesting. We match up the slog (Scissors) with the original rush (Rock).

Rock wins 57% of games!

So this illustrates that being flexible is important and on some boards you need to adjust to your opponent’s strategy.

Join me next week when I’ll talk about Duke.

(these bots have been incorporated in the latest version of the simulator)