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Elliot Simpson
United States
North Carolina
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Ok, I'm very new to Dominion, but I'm loving it! I kind of developed a small strategy with the 'first game' cards. It's helped me win several times, so please comment on it. I usually buy 2 villages (great for extra actions), 2 smithys, and 2 mines. After buying these, I never buy any more action cards. I will use my mines for more money, and I will buy gold if I can. Once I get a nice hand with little to no coppers and a lot of gold, I can buy a province almost every turn. The goal is getting a lot of high level coins, and getting rid of the coppers.
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Martin Dorrington
England
Saffron Walden
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Hi, welcome to the world of Dominion.
So, the first game showcases various different possibilities, and you've found a reasonably good one. Of course, the beginner game is just one game... once you move on to using the randomiser cards, getting a new game each time, you'll find it's much more interesting trying to build a fun deck.
As for your strategy, it really isn't bad. How many turns does it normally take you to reach ~4 Provinces (the number per player in 2-3 player games)? I suspect it might be faster if you bought one less mine, and Silvers instead of Villages. It sounds strange, as then you can only play 1 action per turn, but you also only have a maximum of 2 other actions each Smithy could draw - so you're actually not likely to draw cards dead very often anyway. And the extra power of the Silvers might well help you more than the Villages. I suspect this strategy should reach 4 provinces in around 12-15 turns.
In fact, it might even be better to skip mine altogether... It's surprising, but it seems to work.
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Joseph Jobes IV
United States
Emmaus
PA
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Elliotpwnz wrote: Ok, I'm very new to Dominion, but I'm loving it! I kind of developed a small strategy with the 'first game' cards. It's helped me win several times, so please comment on it. I usually buy 2 villages (great for extra actions), 2 smithys, and 2 mines. After buying these, I never buy any more action cards. I will use my mines for more money, and I will buy gold if I can. Once I get a nice hand with little to no coppers and a lot of gold, I can buy a province almost every turn. The goal is getting a lot of high level coins, and getting rid of the coppers.
In my opinion buying Villages is a trap that a lot of newer players fall into. However, you're not really stacking them up that much so I suppose that is good. Just, in future sets you play, don't value Village too high.
As for your actual strategy, it certainly isn't bad. However, you may find that, as Martin described, you'll have more success buying silvers over the villages. It will give you more money in your deck, allowing you to buy the more expensive cards you want (Mines, Golds, and Provinces for you) quicker. If you're hesitant to get rid of the Villages then next time you play just count the number of turns that you actually use all of the actions in your turn that you've used a Village.
To echo Martin though, a lot of the fun from this game comes from playing with random set ups each time. So, don't focus so much on maximizing a strategy with a particular set up, as you may play completely differently when you get to a new set up.
Finally, in most cases Mine is not that great of a card. You seem to be using it well enough in this beginner set up, but again, I just don't want you to overvalue it in later games.
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Martin Dorrington
England
Saffron Walden
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I agree with what Jobes said, but I'd also add: Every card has a time and a place. Sometimes a specific card might be really good with the other cards in the game but often be not very useful (for example, Workshop with Gardens is great, but otherwise is often poor), while other cards might be usually really awesome but occasionally just not worth it (e.g. Witch is normally very powerful, but not if your opponents have both bought two Chapels).
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PJ Killian
United States
Cambridge
Massachusetts
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Getting rid of coppers, ideally trashing them for benefit, mixing up terminal (mine/smithy) and non-terminal (village) action cards, and not overbuying action cards just because you can -- sounds like you're avoiding the common rookie mistakes.
Time to bust out them randomizer cards and see if you can beat your buddies when there's a different set of cards on the board...
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Welcome to Dominion Elliot. I like villages, just don't get caught as the village idiot, make sure you have enough terminal cards to make use of those extra actions.
And why no love for Militia? Sure it's a terminal and it only gives you a silver, but it's the first 'nasty' card in the game. I like nasty cards 
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Elliot Simpson
United States
North Carolina
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Strangely enough I haven't been into the militia cards at all. I think I've been more concerned on working on my on deck than messing up others. Can anyone explain this terminology like terminal cards and nastys?
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Dennison Milenkaya
United States
Washington
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Terminal cards are those that don't provide
+_ Action
If you play it, it is your last action, like Mine or Smithy.
Unless you played explosive action before that, like Village, which cause you to end up with more actions than you had before you played them (+2 Actions). And you'll also see "chainable actions" which are those that just replace the action required to use 'em (+1 Action).
Fully chainable cards also replace the card it took to play it (+1 Card, +1 Action [at least]), like Laboratory.
"Nasty" isn't really common terminology but it looks like he's referring to attacks.
By the way, two Villages is not too much. The guy is keeping to a conscious limit and having only one minimizes the odds that it is drawn when needed, which is to say before the Smithies, not after them. I'd generally avoid two Mines, however, especially if you are already avoiding buying any Treasure cards with less value than Gold.
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Elliotpwnz wrote: Strangely enough I haven't been into the militia cards at all. I think I've been more concerned on working on my on deck than messing up others. Can anyone explain this terminology like terminal cards and nastys?
Nasty is just what it sounds. It's a mean attack card. I had a silver and 4 coppers and was going to buy a gold. You play a Militia and now I can't even afford a $5. That's nasty =/
Terminal means a card that doesn't grant +1 action. It's called a terminal because if you haven't played a +2 action card previously, it will end your action phase.
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It get's nastier. The other night I played Kings Court, Kings Court, Witch. Twice, mwahahahahahaha.
Slept on the couch that night.
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Jester Wales wrote: It get's nastier. The other night I played Kings Court, Kings Court, Witch. Twice, mwahahahahahaha.
Slept on the couch that night.
I think catsclaw has us all beat with horrible King's Court combos.
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FlatOnHisFace wrote:
By the way, two Villages is not too much. The guy is keeping to a conscious limit and having only one minimizes the odds that it is drawn when needed, which is to say before the Smithies, not after them. I'd generally avoid two Mines, however, especially if you are already avoiding buying any Treasure cards with less value than Gold.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that two mines is probably inefficient. One mine might actually be inefficient, depending on when you get it. While upgrading your deck is fun, drawing a mine with a smithy is usually trouble.
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JackRudd wrote:
I love how the VP versus turns chart at the bottom counts the Possession turns as part of the regular turn that triggered them, so it looks like catclaw gained 50 VP all at once.
I'm still not sure whether 9 Possessions is as horrible as the Masquerade/Goons pin, though. At least with 9 Possessions, the game probably ends quickly.
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