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Dennison Milenkaya
United States
Washington
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Here is a crazy, as in bizarre, game from Isotropic. I won this in 16 turns but the kicker is that it was set up for a 3-player game, one player bailed immediately, making it a 2-player game with large Victory card piles. Featuring:
Haven, Scrying Pool, Moneylender, Quarry, Hunting Party, Stash, Vault, Grand Market, Hoard, Bank
We both open with Quarry and Silver
I buy a second Quarry.
He buys a second Quarry.
I buy a Moneylender.
He buys a Gold.
Using a Moneylender and Quarry, I buy a Grand Market.
He buys a Vault.
Using a Quarry, I buy a Hunting Party.
He uses a Quarry to buy a Moneylender.
Using a Quarry, I buy a Hunting Party.
He buys a Hoard.
Using a Moneylender and a Quarry, I buy a second Grand Market.
Using a Vault (me too!), and Quarry, he buys another Hoard, maybe mistakenly playing a Copper.
With two Grand Markets, a Hunting Party, and Silver, I buy a third Grand Market.
He plays a Vault (me too!), a Quarry, and a Gold, he buys a Bank, again not getting a Grand Market, although this time, he didn’t play any Coppers.
I play two Quarries and get a fourth Grand Market.
He buys another Hoard.
I play three Grand Markets, Hunting Party, Moneylender, Quarry, Silver, and buy three more Grand Markets, now owning seven.
Using a Hoard, he buys a Duchy to get Gold.
I use six Grand Markets and two Hunting Parties, Quarry, and Silver to buy the final three Grand Markets and another Hunting Party.
He buys a Bank with nothing but Treasure.
I play a Grand Market and two Quarries for my fourth and fifth Hunting Parties.
He plays a Moneylender with only Silver and Bank (no Copper to trash), buy Silver, which he doesn’t need by now.
I use all ten Grand Markets with a few Hunting Parties between to buy three Provinces and eight Havens.
He buys a Province, gaining two Golds from Hoards.
I use a Grand Market and play some Havens to buy the remaining pair of Havens.
He buys an Estate to gain a Gold from a Hoard.
I use seven Grand Markets, a couple Havens, and a couple Hunting Parties, and a Quarry among my Treasure cards to buy the remaining five Hunting Parties and two Estates to end the game.
Having single-handedly emptied three piles, my 45-card deck consisted of:
10 Havens, 10 Hunting Parties, 10 Grand Markets, 1 Moneylender, 3 Coppers, 1 Silver, 5 Estates, and 3 Provinces.
His 29 cards were:
1 Moneylender, 1 Vault, 7 Coppers (never trashing one!), 2 Silvers, 5 Golds, 2 Quarries, 3 Hoards, 2 Banks, 4 Estates, 1 Duchy, and 1 Province.
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Matthew Cordeiro
United States
Cumberland
Rhode Island
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Definitely a weird game. I've played a lot of Dominion, but I don't consider myself an expert, so apologies if I'm missing something obvious with any of these questions.
Did you plan all along to empty 3 piles, or did it just develop into that as the game went along?
You had 10 hunting parties but only 8 unique cards. Did you run into many situations where you couldn't draw the 2nd card because nothing left in your deck was unique?
Wouldn't the +buys with the grand markets and the lack of terminal actions defeat the purpose of stowing away cards with the 10 havens?
You clearly had a better engine than your opponent, yet your 45-card deck only netted you 23 points vs. your opponent's 13. As you were emptying the 3 piles, were you concerned that your opponent could have strung together a couple of good (lucky) turns and taken the lead? I'm surprised you didn't just empty the provinces and put him in a situation where he couldn't win.
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Mark Judd
United States
Mapleton
Utah
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cordeiro wrote: ...
You had 10 hunting parties but only 8 unique cards. Did you run into many situations where you couldn't draw the 2nd card because nothing left in your deck was unique?
Wouldn't the +buys with the grand markets and the lack of terminal actions defeat the purpose of stowing away cards with the 10 havens?
...
If you play a Grand Market every time it's drawn, Hunting Party will frequently find another Grand Market - either with the first card drawn or second. Hunting Parties will also frequently find other Hunting Parties. Stowing away cards with Havens can also help Hunting Party a little. I've usually found that Hunting Party gets bogged down with Treasure and terminal actions - not with cycling (or cantrip or whatever you want to call them) cards like Grand Market.
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Dennison Milenkaya
United States
Washington
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Well, questions addressed by means of giving turn-by-turn details as to how the game played out. I understand not reading it all but I did distill it to a much easier read than the Isotropic Logs.
You'll notice that I only picked up 5 of the Hunting Parties in the final turn to empty a pile and the Havens after I bought my first three Provinces in one turn (they were free after a Quarry was played).
I did not plan to empty three piles but after collecting every Grand Market (completely intentional but surprising my opponent got none), only two remained to be emptied and both Hunting Parties (the next smallest pile at 5 cards and never a bad choice, 1 coin each if I played both Quarries) and Havens (10 remaining but free with one Quarry and help to draw beyond Provinces) were good choices.
The alternate would be emptying the Provinces but as there were 12 of them in this 2-player game, that's a lot of chaff. I originally thought Hunting Parties would help to avoid those if I held one but would draw Grand Markets since I'd never need to hold onto a Grand Market before playing a Party (even if the first draw did pick up one, no matter since a Party can only ever pick up one at a time). But the Provinces would stop up the Market draws. Havens may have helped that but I really bought those as the opportunity presented itself to a 3-pile finish.
My opponent only bought Treasure cards and -lots- of 'em so my guess is he was preparing for a long 12-Province game and probably would've performed better than me as we added many Victory cards to our decks. I instead capitolized on my many Buys and the price-reduction of Action cards and emptied three piles while I was ahead.
So, questions were asked:
The 3-pile finish wasn't planned but an opportunity to exploit at the time.
I only actually played with 5 Hunting Parties and never noticed them to peter out.
The Havens weren't really bought to stow cards, but they were used to hide Victory cards and otherwise to draw passed them, which wasn't really helpful but they only entered the deck late to quickly deplete a pile and were never necessary for my engine.
In fact, when drawing with a Haven and having only 1 Estate, 1 Province, and cards that I want to use that turn, including Hunting Party, I had to choose which Victory card to stow, knowing I had 3 of each in my deck and not wanting Hunting Party to stop on a copy of either. It happens. Well, maybe once--like I said, they weren't around long.
My opponent had huge money but without a single Grand Market, he couldn't possibly pick up more than 6 points in a turn so there was no chance of him over-taking me. If he did, I'd delay the emptying of the third pile until I was again in the lead. Without extra Buys, he couldn't focus on emptying any piles without ignoring picking up points for how ever long it would take, which would've been five turns for him to get the other half of the Hunting Parties. I did that in one turn and picked up 2 points with them.
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As a rule of thumb, when you have been dominating the Grand Markets, you should look to see whether you have the opportunity to close the game out with a 3-pile.
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Leon Zhou
United States
California
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I gotta post this:
"This board averages emptying the entire board (while gaining about 1000 VP) in 12 turns (I've done it in 10)." -Geronimoo
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/13/game-2011121...
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Dennison Milenkaya
United States
Washington
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That's pretty amazing. How long did it take you to orchestrate that?
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