This article has some fundamental strategy tips but also a game plan for a couple of deeper strategies to employ. I will also provide some comments on the subsequent ticket to ride games and how they vary from the basic. I will assume we are playing a four player game unless otherwise specified.
I write on the back of around 300 online and face to face games and I hope I can give my readers a bit of a leg up based on my experience. I have said complete strategy to engage the comment of the critics and I look forward to being proved wrong.
Founding principles
Long routes - If one considers each turn as an investment and tries to maximise the value of each turn then long routes provide the biggest return. In the first instance more trains can be used in a long route hence reducing the total number of turns used in building. In the second instance longer routes provide more points per train used. Although the same is true for TTR:E there are significantly less long routes and it is usually not an option you have to take the longer routes. In all variants the 6 train routes are optimal for points scoring.
Choke points - There are several choke points which must be taken as early as possible if they are part of your projected route. Failure to secure these routes will force you to waste valuable turns and trains taking an alternative route. TTR:E is an exception to this rule given you have stations available to you. In fact in some cases it is preferable in TTR:E to build stations.
The three choke points irrespective of game are LA-PHO, NAS-ATL, HOU-NO. In a two player game SEA - POR, DAL - HOU are also vital. Depending on the nature of the game (and the more players their are the more vital they are) you might also consider getting MON-NY, NAS - PIT, TOR-PIT. Needless to say if a route is critical to your success and the alternatives if it is lost are poor you want to get it.
Selecting tickets - Just as the long routes are most valuable, so are the long tickets. Where a long ticket is at your disposal early in the game, take it. Longer missions represent better economy in TTR because of the ability to use long routes to achieve them. TTR:M is a totally different ballgame and their is a significant cost associated with taking long missions and long routes. With this in mind most of the coast to coast routes are like gold. These include NY - SE, NY- LA, POR - NAS, SF - STL, VAN - MON. The exception is LA -MIA which does not pair well with as many other large missions.
In the same vein a horizontal mission that goes across the board is better than a vertical one. All the long routes are coast to coast and a substantial score will involve the two coasts.
Claiming routes - In opposition to the advice about claiming choke points early is the piece that says not to claim routes to early. Often a player will collect one colour and then add wilds to fill out the link then start on another colour. In addition they will build their routes sequentially to adjoining routes. In doing so they often give away the tracks they might want in the future and invite others to claim their critical tracks. IN general it is better to hold cards and play routes in subsequent turns for secrecy reasons.
Choosing cards - Claiming routes as above also allows you to collect from the pile rather than the face up cards. Drawing from the face up cards gives you the colour you want right now, but charges you a premium for wilds. In contrast if you pick from the pile then you often get the cards you will need in the long run and you get wilds as well but at the regular price. The more routes left not played gives you a longer time to get the long run average of cards and the colours you need. Of course you must balance that with picking up colours for the big routes, but the principle is sound.
Watch the cards being taken - With so much demand for the larger routes especially, one can often spot their competition for a route by observing what colours are taken from the face up cards. By spotting your opposition you can prioritise your collections and use those special wilds to get the jump on your opposition. It also allows you to measure how likely you are to get a card you like from the pile. Sometimes there are none of the cards you want in the pile and you need to collect wilds instead.
A single road - It is almost always as easy to build one continuous road than it is many pieces put together resembling a web or disconnected routes. Disconnected routes are always bad because it does not allow you to pick up and complete new missions as easily.
Picking up additional tickets - I always try to pick up my extra tickets earlier rather than later. The more tickets you can see the better you can plan your route to complete them. IN this light I will often pick up ticket early to try and get several across the board missions once I have claimed my initial choke points. The exception is where you have a good initial mission that goes along the perfect route (see below)IN this case you can build the best route anyway and then cash in on the investment later in the game when you know there is time to complete the extra tickets.
Finish quickly - The quicker you finish the game the less likely your opponents are to have completed their plans. Make it a surprise and hear their horror.
Game plans
A couple of broad strategy options that you may want to employ
The perfect route - Given that there are 45 trains in your arsenal how could they be best used? The maximum points from missions using only 45 trains is well in excess of 220. The core of this route is VAN - LA - NY diverting down to ATL/NAS and going through SANTA FE,DEN,CHI,PIT and up to MON. This takes in all the missions above 12 except for those involving Miami.
If you can get a route resembling most or all of those spots then you can almost always pick up tickets and be guaranteed points without additions. The perfect route will be tough to get especially in a large player game but the core down the west coast, through PHO-SAN F - DEN - CHI - PIT - NY and down to ATL-NAS will win allow you top cash in at the end of the game if missions remain.
Where I have a choice of missions I always take missions along that route.
The quick kill - Sometimes your missions suck and you can see people loading up for across the board missions. Your position seems precarious at best. One option is to go for the Quick kill. In this scenario the player achieves her short missions by building many long routes. They try to finish as many long routes as possible no matter where they are on the board. Where possible the player also tries to leave several long routes till last. In this way they surprise the opponents and finish the game before the others have completed their long tickets. Where a player has just picked up new tickets this is especially valuable. You may not score many points from missions but the number of long routes you have claimed has increased your score, decreased the others scores and left them with unfulfilled missions.
Closing comments
These tips have probably wrecked the game for life for you. Over analysis can take all the fun out of it. Still any game that takes 300 plays to lose it's life is a fantastic game in my opinion. Hence my BGG rating is a 9 despite my lack of desire to play it more. New players may dispute it but an old hand will beat a newbie nearly every time despite the luck involved in TTR.
I suspect most additions will be clarifications or fuller explanations of these principles, but please alert me to other i may not have come across. If you are just embarking on your TTR career, enjoy, and for the old hand I hope I have given you some more food for though. Either way TTR is my most played game ever and I think it is a classic that is the perfect introduction to Euro gaming for almost anyone.
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So, I (BGG:ijmorris) decided to respond to this thread 'cause it has the most thumbs ups on it.
I generally play only 5 player games of ticket to ride, because as I have found, to my dismay, any fewer generally involves a whole lot of luck centered around which tickets you are randomly dealt at the very beginning. I have, however, identified what I believe to be the 4 or 5 absolutely primary fundamentals to winning consistently at 5 player TTR.
Let me preface this by saying the one largest misconception above all, I believe, is that you need to complete tickets to win. This is patently false. I regularly win without completing any. Here's why:
1) The single most important thing to do, above all, is to be the player that ends the game. This not only generally means the other players haven't achieved all their objectives, but also, in essence, gives you an extra turn!!
2) I completely agree that playing longer tracks is key. Avoid playing tracks that are shorter than three trains. They score fewer points per train (PpT as I acronym it editor: technically not an acronym) but, more importantly, cause you to have to play more turns to end the game. That is bad. This specifically brings up one point of refutation for many strategies I've seen displayed: you don't need to, and often shouldn't, try and connect your tickets through the shortest route possible. If you do so, you generally score fewer points and take more turns to do so. That is bad.
3) There are actually certain colors that are more important than others, primarily because the longer tickets require them. In order of importance, I see it thus: White, Black, Yellow, Blue, Green, Orange, Purple/Pink & finally Red. When faced with a choice of which card to take, use this as a very basic guide. Taking a card someone else needs is just as important, and sometimes more so, than taking one you may need.
4) Taking new tickets is not necessarily important, as I believe you don't need to complete them to win. However, if you do, wait until as close to the end of the game as possible. If you have built a good, long route that connects a few major cities (LA, NY, MIA, SEA, VAN, PHX & MON being the primary ones), you will likely gather one or two more fully completed tickets at the end. Even more likely near the end because, as others take additional tickets, they likely leave the ones for routes you are playing on!!!
5) Having the longest route is akin to having the VAN-MON 20 point ticket instantly added to your pool. You add ten points to your score but, even more importantly, you keep your competition from having the additional 10 points!!! Usually, this is the player with the second or third-highest score, also...EXACTLY the player you are competing against for victory!
Anyway, just my thoughts
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BGG:markmist
Here are some thoughts on strategy in Ticket to Ride, written as overall strategy guide that could be used by beginners.
Ways to score points:
Longest Route – 10 pts
Length of Connections – longer is more points per train
Completing Tickets – 1 point per train segment
Not Completing Tickets – (-1) point per train segment
Selecting Tickets at beginning of game (must keep 2 out of 3):
- Select at least 1 long ticket to complete. (longer than length 12)
- Select at least 1 small ticket (preferably one that links up or is part of the long ticket).
- Take two small tickets if they link with or are part of the long ticket.
The beginning ticket selection is actually very important to determining the winner of a Ticket to Ride game. If you are stuck with a poor ticket draw where none match up, or you got all small tickets – you will be at a disadvantage from the start against skilled players. If you get all small tickets, you are going to want to draw more tickets early in the game to get a long ticket.
Train Card Selection:
- Collect colors of train cards that match the segments that you need in order to complete your destination tickets.
- Select from face-up cards first, only select from pile if no card showing is of any help.
- Take from pile if you have seen very few locomotives among the face-up cards.
- Take from pile if looking for a specific card that you will need in the short term (next few turns). You might get lucky and get a locomotive.
- If there are two locomotives showing, take your first card from the face-up cards showing. If another locomotive comes up the cards are shuffled and you have 5 new choices of cards to select from.
- Collect colors that no one else wants – this will enable you to mass a large amount of one color which might come in handy later.
- Select a locomotive from the face-up cards only if you absolutely need it the “next turn” and are afraid another player will beat you to a location.
Ticket Selection (During the game):
- When selecting destination tickets, make sure that you have enough trains left to complete all of the tickets.
- Also, don’t cut it too close. Keep a reserve of about 5 trains in case you have to make a detour.
- If you have completed all of your connections with only 1 path, select more destination tickets before completing connections with 2 paths (4-5 player games).
- 6 levels of selecting tickets:
1.) Select tickets that already exist within other completed tickets. (Always)
2.) Select tickets that already exist within other partially completed tickets. (Early in the game – Yes, Late in the game – check number of trains you have and the person with the lowest).
3.) Select tickets that link up with current tickets (Early in the game – Most of the time, Late in the game – check number of trains you have and the person with the lowest). Also if going for longest route – Yes.
4.) Select tickets that have longer train segments between cities over ones that have shorter segments. (Early in Game).
5.) If all tickets drawn do not meet any of the above criteria , then select the ticket that you have the best chance of completing.
6.) If no tickets can be completed, take the one with the least points (that will hurt your score the least).
Placing Trains:
- Build connections that only have 1 path as soon as possible (4-5 player game).
- Try to connect key cities (ones that are needed on the most tickets and only have 1 path):
- Focus on completing your longest tickets first.
- Focus on completing connections that require a certain color rather than gray (any color) connections.
- Save Locomotive cards until you absolutely need to play them.
- If another player telegraphs where they are going to place (left a gap that is easy to spot), and you have the cards, go ahead and block it if he has no other easy route to connect. If the location that you are going to block is still useful for you – (like for longest route) – even better.
- If you have two connections to make, which one to make first? - this should be based on where you think the other players are going and also if there is a detour route that you can take, should your connection be taken.
The more familiar that you get with the destination tickets, the better player you will become, because you start to get a feel for which ticket other players are trying to complete. This will likely take many games (30+) to get a grasp of.
Alternate Strategy:
Regardless of tickets, complete as many long routes as you can. If you happen to get a ticket that has a lot of long routes, this strategy will work even better.
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BGG:patrissimo
My group of friends is, frankly, obsessed with Ticket to Ride. We've gone from playing badly to, I think, playing quite well. Here are some of the things I regularly do now that I didn't even think about as a beginner:
* Go to key cities for which I don't currently hold tickets (Example - playing to NY when my tickets only go to Chicago, Pittsburgh, or Nashville. I may even *start* from NY in a 3-player game because its hard to get to. Look at it this way - if I get an NY ticket, I need this connection. If I don't, someone else probably will get the ticket, and I'll be in their way)
* Choose my starting tickets and route shape based on what high-scoring tickets it gives me access to, as well as the more obvious criteria (points, ease of completion). (Example - Denver->Pittsburgh is a great setup for the longer routes. NY -> Atlanta or to Dallas mboth kinda set you up nicely for LA->NYC if no one is grabbing the big bottom routes).
* Study other players routes to determine the composition of the ticket deck to determine when and how many times to draw new tickets. (Example - I start with and (mostly) complete LA -> Miami and NY -> Atlanta. If SF -> Atlanta and LA -> NY look "live", with Boston -> Miami, Montreal -> New Orleans, Toronto -> Miami as secondary considerations, I will draw lots of tickets to find them. If they've been taken, I'll big build sets and try to end fast)
* Draw cards which are crucial to other players routes and I don't really need, but can find a use for. (Example - a player has taken Houston -> NO, and is drawing black/red/green. If one of these colors has been rare, and I can use it for a grey or short route, and it comes up, I will draw it for denial purposes). This strategy can be very frustrating to play against, but it sure slows down opponents.
Some more intermediate things, but perhaps useful to beginners:
* Claim a route as a stalling tactic because face-up cards are being churned, but what I want isn't there yet.
* Time a route claim just before or just after a shuffle, depending on whether I need more of that color, or I want to deny it to others.
* Structure a set of routes in a non-obvious way so as to stay as one continuous route and contest for the bonus.
* Choose my claim order so as to make it difficult to block, and possible to work around if I am blocked.
Edits: Spellchecked; for clarity.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
Risk
1. Introduction
Time and again here on BGG I have encountered people smugly sure they know all about Risk and how to play. The most obvious dead-giveaways that these people have no idea what they're talking about are the beliefs that the game is dominated by luck and that it takes some horrendously long time to play. The fact is that Risk combines three elements of play with a natural victory condition which is well suited to those elements. The reason so many people have a bad experience playing Risk is that they have bought into the conventional wisdom of how to play, and that conventional wisdom is frankly wrong. This strategy article seeks to explain how the game should be played if one wishes to consistently win the game (and have fun)-- albeit no strategy will eliminate losses completely. The discussion is about standard rules world conquest Risk; missions and other variants are ignored.
The three elements of play in Risk are armies obtained for territories (including continents), the combat mechanism and the cards. The topology of the board plays into these. Of the elements listed, the number of armies received for territories is exactly predictable. The card combinations are governed by strict probabilities and are relatively easy to anticipate. The combat mechanism, i.e., the dice rolls, are not predictable for any given individual roll but are very strictly governed by a Gaussian probability distribution (due to the comparison of dice rolled) and therefore predictable in the aggregate. In other words, in spite of the random elements of the game, strategy can and will dominate play if players know what they're doing.
Some will admit the above, but then object that Risk takes too long for what it is as a game. I've been playing for about thirty years and have certainly played hundreds of games if not into the thousands. My consistent experience time and again is that with capable players, a 6 player game will typically take 5 or 6 rounds. Games with fewer players will take correspondingly more rounds.
2. The basic ideas
Risk is about ruthlessly crushing one's opponents. If one wants a "family game" perhaps one might try The Settlers of Catan. If playing with a child (or other person) who will cry if eliminated, Risk is definitely not the game to play.
Generally speaking, attackers have the advantage. True, on equal numbers of dice, the advantage favors the defender, but of course the attacker gets to choose when, where and whence the attack occurs and so again the advantage will generally go to the attacker.
Hoarding armies for a future attack will often work with inexperienced players but will get one crushed by experienced players. This point is one of the biggest faults of the conventional wisdom. People think taking one territory per turn to get a Risk card but otherwise piling armies onto one's territories is a sure-fire winning strategy. On the contrary, against competent opponents, it's a sure-fire losing strategy. I'll explain how and why below.
At the heart of Risk is an arms race. In the end, the person who consistently gets the most armies and uses them most effectively will win. Therefore the person to attack (all else being equal) is whichever player is in the lead, unless attacking someone else will get one more armies. These additional armies may be from taking an entire continent or from eliminating the player entirely and thereby taking his Risk cards. If no player is significantly more in the lead than any other (at least among one's opponents) and no specific attacks will garner one more armies than any other attack, then one should go for whoever is most vulnerable. If one can take a bite out of another player's continent, one should generally do it even if one has no intention of holding the territory involved.
3. Start of the game
When I was a kid, we did what was then the standard out of the box rules and took territories by placing one army on a territory in turns until all territories were selected. The principles I'll talk about in how to play will naturally extend into the choice of territories if one plays this way.
Later versions of Risk used as standard what some of the earlier versions of Risk included as an optional "quick set-up". Namely, one temporarily removes the wilds and then shuffles and shares out the territory cards as evenly as possible among all players so that all territories on the board are randomly distributed among the players. This means of set-up makes for a better game in many ways and has become standard. In this article it is assumed that this type of set-up is in use hereafter.
When distributing one's armies, one needs bear in mind two opposing factors. Apart from complete continents, all territories are of equal value when collecting armies. On the other hand, territories which are adjacent or very nearly adjacent (e.g., separated by one territory) can form the nucleus of a strategically powerful base from which to build. One also generally knows the order of play before armies are placed. If one is fortunate enough to have a starting position where a territory cannot immediately be attacked (as for example Madagascar if one also controls South Africa and East Africa) one should not waste the armies on that country but use them to fortify the buffer territories (South Africa and East Africa in the example). Armies should then be divided as evenly as possible among all territories that can immediately be attacked. If one then has armies left over so that all these territories cannot get an equal amount, the priority should go to those territories which are mutually adjacent or else nearly so.
4. Weighing the odds
A number of otherwise well educated people dismiss Risk as being "all luck" because the core combat mechanism relies on dice rolls. Since no given roll of the dice can be predicted, they argue, one has no control over the outcomes in the game and hence the game is all luck supposedly. The flaw in the logic here is that while each individual die roll is random with even probability (i.e., in a fair die no one number is no likely than any other) Risk uses a comparison of dice. Any comparison or combination of dice is governed by a strict Gaussian distribution. Rolling equal numbers of dice, the defender has the advantage because ties go to the defender, but the attacker can roll more dice. The last point gives a very slight advantage to the attacker. The shift is small but enough to have a marked effect on the overall statistics. Roughly what this means is that if one could roll an infinite number of times for an attacker using three dice versus a defender using two dice (or respectively two and one), a good approximation is that the attacker would win slightly more than half the time and the defender slightly less than half. The variance in this result decreases as one rolls more times according to thee square root of the number of rolls. Admittedly, this is not a fine detailed analysis of the probabilities nor is this discussion meant to be. Rather this gives one a good enough approximation to inform strategic play of the game.
What all this means in practice is that as a rule of thumb, if one expects to conquer a territory, one should if possible begin with at least twice the number of armies being attacked (preferably more) if the number of armies involved is large. When the outcome is decided by only a few rolls of the dice, the statistics don't mean much. Flukes do happen, but the more rolls involved, the less influence fluke rolls will have over the outcome.
A corollary of the statistics is that the more often one attacks and the more armies are involved in the process, the more control one has over the game. If every player just distributes his armies over the territories he has and attacks only one or two territories a turn throughout the game, then Risk will become largely luck-driven. Conventional wisdom claims this is a strategy for winning the game. On the contrary, what I've described is a recipe for abrogating one's control of the outcome in the game; experienced players who know how to use the key mechanic of the game will time and again crush players who only attack a territory or two a turn throughout the game. Often the winning approach to Risk is derided as merely aggressive play and assumed to lose more often than it wins. Here one needs to bear in mind that the strategy also involves when and where to attack. Aggressive play does not mean one ignores defensive play; used properly, aggressive play is defensive play.
5. Where and when to attack
Especially in the early part of the game, armies are in limited supply. So one wants to use what armies one has as effectively as possible. The key element here is minimizing one's borders. Building up armies on territories that cannot be attacked (and by the same token cannot therefore attack either) is largely a waste. The benefits are that one delays an advance but one cannot stop an advance which takes the number of armies into account. Yet all armies in territories that cannot attack are just that fewer armies one has to pursue the objective of the game-- conquering the board. In the same way, the fewer attackable territories one has, the more powerful those territories can be with the same number of armies.
This aspect of the game lies at the core of the legend of the supposedly unbeatable tactic of taking control of Australia and using it as a base to build out from. Only Indonesia can be attacked from outside Australia, and one can only make such an attack from Siam. So one could pile all of one's available armies onto Indonesia or better yet Siam, with Australia controlled behind it by one army a territory. Such a position is certainly powerful, but invincible it's not.
The Australia legend however raises two important points germane to choosing a territory to attack. Namely, continental bonuses should not be ignored. The amount of armies added may be small in absolute terms, but relative to the number of armies one gets on a turn, the number is usually significant. That means one should always take a continent if one can, but likewise one should always deny a continent to another player if one can. That's the second point raised. A player gets armies for territories controlled at the start of his turn. If someone takes Ukraine from a player who had control of Europe, that latter player won't get the bonus armies for Europe that turn-- even if he takes Ukraine back immediately. If an opponent is building up a strong position, one absolutely should attack it-- the sooner the better. If one cannot take the territory involved, one should attack anyway because the attacker has the advantage; one will destroy more armies that will otherwise be used against one as the attacker in a losing contest than as the defender on the opponent's turn. That is defensive play. Ideally one takes the territory one would be attacked from, but if not then one either eliminates the ability to attack from the given territory or at least substantially weakens it. Opponents should not be allowed to build up powerful positions, even one has to make a drive specially to do so and even if one does not keep all the territories one takes. That brings up another point as well, one should not be afraid to lose territories. So long as one conquers more territories than one loses, one is advancing toward victory.
What this all means is that when choosing one's target for attack, one should give priority to reducing opponents' ability to attack one's own territory, then to taking continents or creating a buffer zone of territories about a continent one has and finally to minimizing one's borders. These considerations need not be mutually exclusive. Also one should not think in terms of a single territory to attack but a series of them whenever possible.
When one should attack is generally whenever possible, but one should try to arrange a string of attacks which allows one (after fortification) to leave one's attackable territories with a number of armies comparable to those armies from which each territory can be attacked. When more than one territory can attack, leaving the territory with a number comparable to the total of all territories it could be attacked from is generally a waste if that means one chooses not to attack one of those regions. The more territory one takes, the one armies one gets and the less one's opponents will correspondingly get as well.
6. Distributing armies
When placing armies, one should place armies for the attacks one wishes to make during the turn, whether the armies are from territories held and continental bonuses or from a set of Risk cards. Whenever possible one should before attacking figure out a continuous non-branching path of territories to attack one after another. For example, if one controls Brazil and wants to take all of South America, one should attack Argentina, then Peru and then Venezuela with armies starting in Brazil rather than attacking Peru first and then dividing the armies between an attack into Argentina and one into Venezuela. After all, one must move as many armies as one rolled dice in the last attack when taking a territory. Attacking Argentina first, in the example, is generally superior to attacking Venezuela first because Argentina dead-ends and so stops any advance. (Forcing an opponent to split up armies in this manner is a great defensive tactic because it forces the opponent to effectively waste armies.)
When figuring out if one has enough armies for a series of attacks, a minimum is roughly twice as many armies as the armies occupying the territories to be attacked plus an additional army for each territory one will have to occupy in the process. More armies is better.
One should remember as well that the number of Risk cards a player has is open information,although what cards they have specifically is not. If at any point, one eliminates a player and thereby acquires a total of six or more Risk cards, one must turn in a set immediately-- even in the middle of a turn. So eliminating a player and using his Risk cards to fuel an additional series of attacks is a great tactic whenever possible. So if one has a choice between eliminating various opponents on a turn, if possible pick the opponent that will give one a total of six Risk cards or if that's not possible whichever opponent will get one the most Risk cards.
7. Risk cards
A number of people complain because Risk cards increase in value as the game progresses, but the increasing value of sets of Risk cards is an essential factor of the game. It works both as a leveling mechanism to mitigate the advantage the leader in the game has and to force players to play for the win. The cards fuel an escalation of an arms race which should result a situation where each player must either eliminate other players or face being eliminated himself.
So a natural question arises whether one should hold onto Risk cards, even if one has a set, so that when one turns cards in the set will be worth more. The answer is a resounding no because armies are the limiting factor in how much one conquers on a turn. The more one conquers on a given turn, the more armies one gets and the correspondingly less opponents will get. Moreover holding onto Risk cards makes one a valuable target.
One should also not forget that if one controls the territory on a Risk card in the set one hands in, one will get two additional armies on that territory-- albeit one territory per set. So where one has a choice one should choose the cards in a set to give one additional armies on a territory, again if possible. If one has more than one territory in the set, then one should choose the territory most useful for attack actually or at least potentially as the one on which to place the extra armies. Of course if one can do so when one controls more than one territory shown on one's Risk cards, one should hold onto one of the cards with a controlled territory for the next set.
8. Conclusion
In general, the more armies one gets now the better. The more attacks one makes on a turn, the more control one has over what happens in the game. One should not interpret this to mean that one should make pointless or wasteful attacks that serve only to weaken one's position. If the attacks have a likelihood or success or are worth the Risk of failure, then one should make the attacks-- otherwise not. Preemptive attacks, even when one will not take the territory being attacked, are the heart of defense in this game. Attacks with equal numbers of dice should be avoided. Whether as attacker or defender, one should always roll the most dice possible.
When taking continents, having a buffer zone about that continent is strongly advisable if one can do it. The rule to remember is that one should attack with at least twice as many units as the defending armies, plus one army for each territory to be taken, as a minimum. If the case is borderline, one should usually Risk the attack but stop when the number of armies one has becomes comparable to the number of defending armies.
Players get armies for territories held at the start of a turn and so taking territories one cannot hold but which deny an opponent armies is always advisable. If in the end one does in fact manage to hold the territory, so much the better. To this end, wherever possible attackable borders should be minimized. Armies on those borders should be maximized. When at the end of a turn moving reinforcements, one should place them on the territory from which one most wishes to attack next turn.
If an opponent has done so with a large amount of armies, one should attack the territory, especially if one is massively outnumbered. If such cases, one stops when one can no longer roll three dice unless one has reduced the opponent to a single dice or taken the territory.
If all players play in the manner described, then borders will ebb and flow like tides. All one has to do to win is have one's losses on the whole outweighed by one's gains.
Time and again here on BGG I have encountered people smugly sure they know all about Risk and how to play. The most obvious dead-giveaways that these people have no idea what they're talking about are the beliefs that the game is dominated by luck and that it takes some horrendously long time to play. The fact is that Risk combines three elements of play with a natural victory condition which is well suited to those elements. The reason so many people have a bad experience playing Risk is that they have bought into the conventional wisdom of how to play, and that conventional wisdom is frankly wrong. This strategy article seeks to explain how the game should be played if one wishes to consistently win the game (and have fun)-- albeit no strategy will eliminate losses completely. The discussion is about standard rules world conquest Risk; missions and other variants are ignored.
The three elements of play in Risk are armies obtained for territories (including continents), the combat mechanism and the cards. The topology of the board plays into these. Of the elements listed, the number of armies received for territories is exactly predictable. The card combinations are governed by strict probabilities and are relatively easy to anticipate. The combat mechanism, i.e., the dice rolls, are not predictable for any given individual roll but are very strictly governed by a Gaussian probability distribution (due to the comparison of dice rolled) and therefore predictable in the aggregate. In other words, in spite of the random elements of the game, strategy can and will dominate play if players know what they're doing.
Some will admit the above, but then object that Risk takes too long for what it is as a game. I've been playing for about thirty years and have certainly played hundreds of games if not into the thousands. My consistent experience time and again is that with capable players, a 6 player game will typically take 5 or 6 rounds. Games with fewer players will take correspondingly more rounds.
2. The basic ideas
Risk is about ruthlessly crushing one's opponents. If one wants a "family game" perhaps one might try The Settlers of Catan. If playing with a child (or other person) who will cry if eliminated, Risk is definitely not the game to play.
Generally speaking, attackers have the advantage. True, on equal numbers of dice, the advantage favors the defender, but of course the attacker gets to choose when, where and whence the attack occurs and so again the advantage will generally go to the attacker.
Hoarding armies for a future attack will often work with inexperienced players but will get one crushed by experienced players. This point is one of the biggest faults of the conventional wisdom. People think taking one territory per turn to get a Risk card but otherwise piling armies onto one's territories is a sure-fire winning strategy. On the contrary, against competent opponents, it's a sure-fire losing strategy. I'll explain how and why below.
At the heart of Risk is an arms race. In the end, the person who consistently gets the most armies and uses them most effectively will win. Therefore the person to attack (all else being equal) is whichever player is in the lead, unless attacking someone else will get one more armies. These additional armies may be from taking an entire continent or from eliminating the player entirely and thereby taking his Risk cards. If no player is significantly more in the lead than any other (at least among one's opponents) and no specific attacks will garner one more armies than any other attack, then one should go for whoever is most vulnerable. If one can take a bite out of another player's continent, one should generally do it even if one has no intention of holding the territory involved.
3. Start of the game
When I was a kid, we did what was then the standard out of the box rules and took territories by placing one army on a territory in turns until all territories were selected. The principles I'll talk about in how to play will naturally extend into the choice of territories if one plays this way.
Later versions of Risk used as standard what some of the earlier versions of Risk included as an optional "quick set-up". Namely, one temporarily removes the wilds and then shuffles and shares out the territory cards as evenly as possible among all players so that all territories on the board are randomly distributed among the players. This means of set-up makes for a better game in many ways and has become standard. In this article it is assumed that this type of set-up is in use hereafter.
When distributing one's armies, one needs bear in mind two opposing factors. Apart from complete continents, all territories are of equal value when collecting armies. On the other hand, territories which are adjacent or very nearly adjacent (e.g., separated by one territory) can form the nucleus of a strategically powerful base from which to build. One also generally knows the order of play before armies are placed. If one is fortunate enough to have a starting position where a territory cannot immediately be attacked (as for example Madagascar if one also controls South Africa and East Africa) one should not waste the armies on that country but use them to fortify the buffer territories (South Africa and East Africa in the example). Armies should then be divided as evenly as possible among all territories that can immediately be attacked. If one then has armies left over so that all these territories cannot get an equal amount, the priority should go to those territories which are mutually adjacent or else nearly so.
4. Weighing the odds
A number of otherwise well educated people dismiss Risk as being "all luck" because the core combat mechanism relies on dice rolls. Since no given roll of the dice can be predicted, they argue, one has no control over the outcomes in the game and hence the game is all luck supposedly. The flaw in the logic here is that while each individual die roll is random with even probability (i.e., in a fair die no one number is no likely than any other) Risk uses a comparison of dice. Any comparison or combination of dice is governed by a strict Gaussian distribution. Rolling equal numbers of dice, the defender has the advantage because ties go to the defender, but the attacker can roll more dice. The last point gives a very slight advantage to the attacker. The shift is small but enough to have a marked effect on the overall statistics. Roughly what this means is that if one could roll an infinite number of times for an attacker using three dice versus a defender using two dice (or respectively two and one), a good approximation is that the attacker would win slightly more than half the time and the defender slightly less than half. The variance in this result decreases as one rolls more times according to thee square root of the number of rolls. Admittedly, this is not a fine detailed analysis of the probabilities nor is this discussion meant to be. Rather this gives one a good enough approximation to inform strategic play of the game.
What all this means in practice is that as a rule of thumb, if one expects to conquer a territory, one should if possible begin with at least twice the number of armies being attacked (preferably more) if the number of armies involved is large. When the outcome is decided by only a few rolls of the dice, the statistics don't mean much. Flukes do happen, but the more rolls involved, the less influence fluke rolls will have over the outcome.
A corollary of the statistics is that the more often one attacks and the more armies are involved in the process, the more control one has over the game. If every player just distributes his armies over the territories he has and attacks only one or two territories a turn throughout the game, then Risk will become largely luck-driven. Conventional wisdom claims this is a strategy for winning the game. On the contrary, what I've described is a recipe for abrogating one's control of the outcome in the game; experienced players who know how to use the key mechanic of the game will time and again crush players who only attack a territory or two a turn throughout the game. Often the winning approach to Risk is derided as merely aggressive play and assumed to lose more often than it wins. Here one needs to bear in mind that the strategy also involves when and where to attack. Aggressive play does not mean one ignores defensive play; used properly, aggressive play is defensive play.
5. Where and when to attack
Especially in the early part of the game, armies are in limited supply. So one wants to use what armies one has as effectively as possible. The key element here is minimizing one's borders. Building up armies on territories that cannot be attacked (and by the same token cannot therefore attack either) is largely a waste. The benefits are that one delays an advance but one cannot stop an advance which takes the number of armies into account. Yet all armies in territories that cannot attack are just that fewer armies one has to pursue the objective of the game-- conquering the board. In the same way, the fewer attackable territories one has, the more powerful those territories can be with the same number of armies.
This aspect of the game lies at the core of the legend of the supposedly unbeatable tactic of taking control of Australia and using it as a base to build out from. Only Indonesia can be attacked from outside Australia, and one can only make such an attack from Siam. So one could pile all of one's available armies onto Indonesia or better yet Siam, with Australia controlled behind it by one army a territory. Such a position is certainly powerful, but invincible it's not.
The Australia legend however raises two important points germane to choosing a territory to attack. Namely, continental bonuses should not be ignored. The amount of armies added may be small in absolute terms, but relative to the number of armies one gets on a turn, the number is usually significant. That means one should always take a continent if one can, but likewise one should always deny a continent to another player if one can. That's the second point raised. A player gets armies for territories controlled at the start of his turn. If someone takes Ukraine from a player who had control of Europe, that latter player won't get the bonus armies for Europe that turn-- even if he takes Ukraine back immediately. If an opponent is building up a strong position, one absolutely should attack it-- the sooner the better. If one cannot take the territory involved, one should attack anyway because the attacker has the advantage; one will destroy more armies that will otherwise be used against one as the attacker in a losing contest than as the defender on the opponent's turn. That is defensive play. Ideally one takes the territory one would be attacked from, but if not then one either eliminates the ability to attack from the given territory or at least substantially weakens it. Opponents should not be allowed to build up powerful positions, even one has to make a drive specially to do so and even if one does not keep all the territories one takes. That brings up another point as well, one should not be afraid to lose territories. So long as one conquers more territories than one loses, one is advancing toward victory.
What this all means is that when choosing one's target for attack, one should give priority to reducing opponents' ability to attack one's own territory, then to taking continents or creating a buffer zone of territories about a continent one has and finally to minimizing one's borders. These considerations need not be mutually exclusive. Also one should not think in terms of a single territory to attack but a series of them whenever possible.
When one should attack is generally whenever possible, but one should try to arrange a string of attacks which allows one (after fortification) to leave one's attackable territories with a number of armies comparable to those armies from which each territory can be attacked. When more than one territory can attack, leaving the territory with a number comparable to the total of all territories it could be attacked from is generally a waste if that means one chooses not to attack one of those regions. The more territory one takes, the one armies one gets and the less one's opponents will correspondingly get as well.
6. Distributing armies
When placing armies, one should place armies for the attacks one wishes to make during the turn, whether the armies are from territories held and continental bonuses or from a set of Risk cards. Whenever possible one should before attacking figure out a continuous non-branching path of territories to attack one after another. For example, if one controls Brazil and wants to take all of South America, one should attack Argentina, then Peru and then Venezuela with armies starting in Brazil rather than attacking Peru first and then dividing the armies between an attack into Argentina and one into Venezuela. After all, one must move as many armies as one rolled dice in the last attack when taking a territory. Attacking Argentina first, in the example, is generally superior to attacking Venezuela first because Argentina dead-ends and so stops any advance. (Forcing an opponent to split up armies in this manner is a great defensive tactic because it forces the opponent to effectively waste armies.)
When figuring out if one has enough armies for a series of attacks, a minimum is roughly twice as many armies as the armies occupying the territories to be attacked plus an additional army for each territory one will have to occupy in the process. More armies is better.
One should remember as well that the number of Risk cards a player has is open information,although what cards they have specifically is not. If at any point, one eliminates a player and thereby acquires a total of six or more Risk cards, one must turn in a set immediately-- even in the middle of a turn. So eliminating a player and using his Risk cards to fuel an additional series of attacks is a great tactic whenever possible. So if one has a choice between eliminating various opponents on a turn, if possible pick the opponent that will give one a total of six Risk cards or if that's not possible whichever opponent will get one the most Risk cards.
7. Risk cards
A number of people complain because Risk cards increase in value as the game progresses, but the increasing value of sets of Risk cards is an essential factor of the game. It works both as a leveling mechanism to mitigate the advantage the leader in the game has and to force players to play for the win. The cards fuel an escalation of an arms race which should result a situation where each player must either eliminate other players or face being eliminated himself.
So a natural question arises whether one should hold onto Risk cards, even if one has a set, so that when one turns cards in the set will be worth more. The answer is a resounding no because armies are the limiting factor in how much one conquers on a turn. The more one conquers on a given turn, the more armies one gets and the correspondingly less opponents will get. Moreover holding onto Risk cards makes one a valuable target.
One should also not forget that if one controls the territory on a Risk card in the set one hands in, one will get two additional armies on that territory-- albeit one territory per set. So where one has a choice one should choose the cards in a set to give one additional armies on a territory, again if possible. If one has more than one territory in the set, then one should choose the territory most useful for attack actually or at least potentially as the one on which to place the extra armies. Of course if one can do so when one controls more than one territory shown on one's Risk cards, one should hold onto one of the cards with a controlled territory for the next set.
8. Conclusion
In general, the more armies one gets now the better. The more attacks one makes on a turn, the more control one has over what happens in the game. One should not interpret this to mean that one should make pointless or wasteful attacks that serve only to weaken one's position. If the attacks have a likelihood or success or are worth the Risk of failure, then one should make the attacks-- otherwise not. Preemptive attacks, even when one will not take the territory being attacked, are the heart of defense in this game. Attacks with equal numbers of dice should be avoided. Whether as attacker or defender, one should always roll the most dice possible.
When taking continents, having a buffer zone about that continent is strongly advisable if one can do it. The rule to remember is that one should attack with at least twice as many units as the defending armies, plus one army for each territory to be taken, as a minimum. If the case is borderline, one should usually Risk the attack but stop when the number of armies one has becomes comparable to the number of defending armies.
Players get armies for territories held at the start of a turn and so taking territories one cannot hold but which deny an opponent armies is always advisable. If in the end one does in fact manage to hold the territory, so much the better. To this end, wherever possible attackable borders should be minimized. Armies on those borders should be maximized. When at the end of a turn moving reinforcements, one should place them on the territory from which one most wishes to attack next turn.
If an opponent has done so with a large amount of armies, one should attack the territory, especially if one is massively outnumbered. If such cases, one stops when one can no longer roll three dice unless one has reduced the opponent to a single dice or taken the territory.
If all players play in the manner described, then borders will ebb and flow like tides. All one has to do to win is have one's losses on the whole outweighed by one's gains.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Dominion - Basic Concepts
Dominion is not a CCG (although I reserve the right to alter that opinion after the 10th expansion), but it shares a number of concepts with those games . I think a player with a background in playing CCGs will pick the game up faster than a player without - this is born out at my local club where the two best Dominion players have played tournament Magic.
Before you even start reading this, I should warn you that my last submission to BGG was a list detailing why I still suck at Dominion. So if you're looking for killer Dominion strategies, then this is the wrong place to look; I'm not good enough at the game myself to help there! Whilst I've played over one hundred games, mainly offline, I'm still learning. But I'm winning more than I lose, and hopefully there are some useful ideas here for those who are fairly new to the game.
I'm going to try and stick to general points that work for most decks; obviously there will be sets and strategies (Gardens, I'm looking at you here...) where these principles will not apply. It's less of a "what-to-do" article, than a "why-you-might-want-to-do-it" one. At least, that's the intention - apologies if it's a mix between the obvious and the questionable!
The observant may notice that there are a number of points here that I've repeated from the aforementioned Geeklist. Blame the credit crunch; there's just not the budget there once was for new material.
So... what are these concepts I mentioned?
1) Deck Thinning
You've heard about the "Chapel Deck" on this forum (if not, never fear - there's a link at the bottom)? The reason it works is because you are "thinning" your deck. You're taking out the cards you don't want to draw, so that the ones left are the ones that you do want to draw. Sort of like throwing out all the salt and vinegar crisps in a multi-pack and leaving the good flavours. In Dominion though, you'll typically want to throw out as many of the copper and estate cards that you started the game with as you can.
Throwing out VP cards sound counter-productive, doesn't it? You need them to win the game, after all. The point is that every time you draw one of those VP cards it's a dead card in your hand. If you didn't draw that VP, you could have drawn a card that was useful to you. So, getting rid of those three estates in your deck sets you up better in the long term to buy more provinces.
Same principal with the Copper coins in your deck. Getting rid of them after you've started buying Silver and Gold coins increases your chance of drawing the Silver and Gold, rather than the Coppers. Hence a higher average amount of money in your hand in your buy phase, allowing you to start buying better cards more reliably early in the game. Again, what you're doing here is generating tempo. Whilst your early turns may be less impressive (throwing away cards), your later turns will hopefully contain reliably richer hands.
I've quite happily used a Chapel to throw out hands of three Copper and an Estate. Okay, that means I can't do anything else in the turn, but it means that I won't have to draw those cards again in multiple future turns, thereby helping me in the long run.
The other deck thinning card in the set is Moneylender; a card which I dismissed at first but which I look out for now for precisely this reason. Whilst it can't thin your deck quite as fast as the Chapel, it helps keep the money rolling whilst it does. That +3 money can be a significant boost towards being able to buy a powerful five or six cost card. Which nicely brings me round to my next point.
2) Tempo
This is nothing to do with music, but why write my own definition? I'll let Wikipedia do it for me:
"Tempo is a term used in Magic: The Gathering to indicate the advantage gained when a player is able to play more or stronger cards (relative to their opponent) in a shorter period of time due to efficient resource allocation"
I think this term can be applied to Dominion as well. There are of course differences, but the core idea is the same.
Here's a really simple example of a card generating Tempo: Militia. Militia generates tempo in two ways; Firstly, you get that +2 money which helps drive your own buy phase. Secondly, by forcing your opponents to discard down to three cards, you may very well force them to discard cards they were planning to play on their turn, thereby reducing the effectiveness of what they are able to do.
3) Tempo & Money/+Money Cards
I'm going to assume if you're reading this, posted as it is in the strategy section of a board games website, that you've at least heard of Magic the Gathering. I'm also going to assume that you know you need to have Land cards in that game to be able to cast your spells. If you don't draw any land, then you can't cast any spells. This is the same in Dominion as well, but for "Land" read "Treasure cards".
There are a lot of very pretty toys in this game. Three money? Maybe buy the Village, or that Workshop? Perhaps, but don't forget the Silver cards. Silvers are pretty strong buys in the early rounds of the game, especially with the Usual 4/3 split of money in turns one and two. Why is silver a good buy early on? Well, the obvious answer is that it gives your the potential for hands with more buying power, as drawing a silver is flat out better than drawing a copper.
The game is a race; in the long term it's a race to buy the relevant points cards. At the start of the game, it's typically a race towards being able to buy five and six cost cards.
It comes down to this: there are two ways of getting more money; buying treasure cards, and actions with +money on them. Which is better in the deck you're building will depend on how many actions you'll typically be getting in one of your turns.
4) Tempo & +Actions Cards
This is an aspect of the game that I wasn't thinking through when I first started playing. At the start of each of your turns, you have one action available; therefore if you play a card which doesn't have any +actions on it, that will be your one any only action card of the turn. You have two cards in hand, and neither of them give you + actions? That second card is a dead card in your hand, and you won't see it until your next reshuffle.
The best illustration of this is at the start of the game. In the first two turns you make two buys (hopefully), and then reshuffle your deck, getting a chance to draw those two cards. Let's say you bought a Workshop for three, and a Militia for four. Two useful cards.
Now you draw both of them in the same hand at the start of turn three.
You can only play one; until you reshuffle that second card is as dead a card as any of your VPs. You've lost an opportunity to use it early. You've compromised your buy phase for this turn (as that card could have been a Treasure). You've likely let your opponent steal a march on you (If they're able to use every card in their hand). Most, if not all, Euro-style games are at some level an exercise in being efficient, and this is the case here with Dominion. By ending up in a position where you've bought a card you're prevented from playing, you've been inefficient; and that means you've lost tempo.
+Action cards are your friends here. they give you their effect and let you continue playing additional action cards. Something you need to keep an eye on is the relative amount of cards with +actions and cards without. You want more of the former than the latter, otherwise you'll be stuck full of a hand of unplayable cards, with less money to buy with.
5) Tempo, +Buy cards, and ending the game
I like to be in a situation where I can buy the first province in a game. Simply, it's easier to win from being in the lead than it is trying to come back.
For now, let's ignore the fact that Gardens exist. As a rule of thumb most games end when all the Provinces have been bought. So, if you've bought more than your share of them (five+ in 2-player or 3-player, four+in 4-player), you're in with a great shout of winning. Let's stick to a two-player game as an example. You buy the first province. Now you only need another 3 to at-worst tie on Provinces with your opponent. Or, to look at it another way, for your opponent to beat you on Provinces alone they have to buy five out of the remaining 7, allowing you only 2.
In games without +buy actions, this is really important as you're relying on your opponent's deck breaking down to let you overtake them. Yes, you can remodel provinces from Gold/Adventurers, but will you have the money left in you hand to buy a second?
In games with +buy actions, Duchies grow in importance as they can sometimes be picked up with an extra buy, and as far as points go two Duchies = one Province (although, of course that's an extra dead card in your deck - see deck thinning, above).
Of course, if it's one of those slow, low-money games where the provinces remain mostly untouched as the piles run out, it might mean that you need to start going for Duchies instead. Estates rarely get bought before the last few turns of the game when players have extra buys, or they've drawn all their VPs and only a few treasure cards. Oh, unless Gardens is in the game, but we're ignoring that, of course. ;)
If you're leading the race for points, you're also going to want to end the game as soon as possible to limit the chances of your opponent coming back at you. This means buying provinces more quickly than them (which you're trying to do anyway), or buying cards from whichever three piles are down to their last few cards. The best, sneakiest trick I've seen for this is, when you're using Remodel, to Remodel a Province in to another Province. That decreases the amount left to your opponent to buy and makes it harder for them to overcome your lead.
A final point here that's been made in countless other posts I've read but I'll repeat it here. If you're 99% sure that the game will end before you next get a chance to reshuffle, the concept of buying "dead" cards no longer applies - you won't draw the cards you're buying so you should only buy victory points.
6) Focus
There are a lot of ways that you can go with any given set of Dominion. There's almost never an exactly right way, but there are a lot of wrong ways. There's also only one win condition - get more points than your opponents. However cool the deck you're putting together looks, DO NOT LOSE SIGHT OF THIS!
There's also a lot to be said for picking a strategy and sticking with it; making sure that the cards you buy are the ones that you need for this strategy. Work out what the key cards are. Buy those. Don't buy irrelevant cards. Building a very action-lite deck? Don't buy villages. Picking up Smithies and Moats for the card draw? Prioritise those Villages! Again, you don't want to end up with dead action cards in your hand when you get to your buy phase. If there's a card that nine times out of ten you wouldn't play in a straight choice against another card in your deck, should you really buy it?
There are a few cards that are at home in almost every strategy. Cellars are great in the late game, Festivals are normally very useful. Laboratories likewise (actually, going back to Cellars, most decks will want to drop one of these in if they're available, purely to counter those frustrating late-game hands full of green cards).
7) Special Cases
There are two cards in Dominion that are fundamentally different enough from other cards that they need to be handled differently (well, three if you count the chapel, but I've harped on enough about that already). Those two cards are Throne Room, and Gardens (which I've been desperately avoiding talking about up until now, but I don't think my luck's going to hold...)
Throne Room
A special case amongst action cards, it's only useful as long as you draw at least one other action card. Crucially, that's one other action card that ISN'T another Throne Room (or a Library, as "draw until you have 7 cards in hand is not quite so strong the second time). So the bottom line is that you don't want too many, and you only want to pick them up if you HAVE been buying a lot of actions, and that probably means you need +action cards in the set as well to be able to properly utilise them. I think this card can really reward gambling - picking it up early and hoping to draw it with another powerful action card that you've bought. Of course, as with all gambles, it can just as easily turn sour.
Gardens
If the Gardens card is in the set, it completely and absolutely changes the game. Probably. It does as always depend on the rest of the cards in the mix. The typical Gardens deck is the antithesis of the Chapel deck; rather than ditching cards to thin your deck you're trying to get as many as you can: +Buy cards, Workshops, grabbing a copper with each and every spare buy. Gardens cost 4; it's not hard to get up to 30 cards in your deck, making them cheap Duchies. If you're really trying, and with the right set of cards, getting up to 50 can be realistic. If you go for a gardens deck you pretty much break all the normal conventions of playing Dominion. Ideally, you'll try and end the game off of three piles being exhausted as you're almost certainly not going to be able to afford provinces. Gardens, Workshops and Estates are my favourites when going down this road; as a tip take the more expensive cards you're trying to run down before the cheaper ones, as you're more likely to be able to get the cheaper ones later in the game (Caveat: If both you AND your opponent are doing this, grab Estates before action cards from the piles you're trying to run out as they will be crucial in a close game).
Summary
- Try to minimise your odds of drawing dead action cards by acquiring +action and treasure cards
- Note whether there are +buy cards in the game; if not it'll be hard for a player who falls behind early to catch up.
- Keep track of the points score as best you can, and try to end the game on your own terms.
- If a deck is being assembled to do one thing really well, such as pulling your entire deck in to your hand each turn, focus on buying the cards that enable this.
- There are situations that will come up in the game where almost everything I've said here will be wrong.
Further Reading
If you're reading this you've probably already gone through this forum with a fine-tooth comb, but I'd like to link to a couple of the posts and articles that have really helped me in developing my understanding of the game:
Analysing a random cardset
Short Analysis of the 25 Kingdom Cards
A look at the Interactive cards
The Chapel Deck
Thanks to Arthur and Grim for proofing this for me
Let me know if you've found this helpful, or otherwise.
Stewart
Before you even start reading this, I should warn you that my last submission to BGG was a list detailing why I still suck at Dominion. So if you're looking for killer Dominion strategies, then this is the wrong place to look; I'm not good enough at the game myself to help there! Whilst I've played over one hundred games, mainly offline, I'm still learning. But I'm winning more than I lose, and hopefully there are some useful ideas here for those who are fairly new to the game.
I'm going to try and stick to general points that work for most decks; obviously there will be sets and strategies (Gardens, I'm looking at you here...) where these principles will not apply. It's less of a "what-to-do" article, than a "why-you-might-want-to-do-it" one. At least, that's the intention - apologies if it's a mix between the obvious and the questionable!
The observant may notice that there are a number of points here that I've repeated from the aforementioned Geeklist. Blame the credit crunch; there's just not the budget there once was for new material.
So... what are these concepts I mentioned?
1) Deck Thinning
You've heard about the "Chapel Deck" on this forum (if not, never fear - there's a link at the bottom)? The reason it works is because you are "thinning" your deck. You're taking out the cards you don't want to draw, so that the ones left are the ones that you do want to draw. Sort of like throwing out all the salt and vinegar crisps in a multi-pack and leaving the good flavours. In Dominion though, you'll typically want to throw out as many of the copper and estate cards that you started the game with as you can.
Throwing out VP cards sound counter-productive, doesn't it? You need them to win the game, after all. The point is that every time you draw one of those VP cards it's a dead card in your hand. If you didn't draw that VP, you could have drawn a card that was useful to you. So, getting rid of those three estates in your deck sets you up better in the long term to buy more provinces.
Same principal with the Copper coins in your deck. Getting rid of them after you've started buying Silver and Gold coins increases your chance of drawing the Silver and Gold, rather than the Coppers. Hence a higher average amount of money in your hand in your buy phase, allowing you to start buying better cards more reliably early in the game. Again, what you're doing here is generating tempo. Whilst your early turns may be less impressive (throwing away cards), your later turns will hopefully contain reliably richer hands.
I've quite happily used a Chapel to throw out hands of three Copper and an Estate. Okay, that means I can't do anything else in the turn, but it means that I won't have to draw those cards again in multiple future turns, thereby helping me in the long run.
The other deck thinning card in the set is Moneylender; a card which I dismissed at first but which I look out for now for precisely this reason. Whilst it can't thin your deck quite as fast as the Chapel, it helps keep the money rolling whilst it does. That +3 money can be a significant boost towards being able to buy a powerful five or six cost card. Which nicely brings me round to my next point.
2) Tempo
This is nothing to do with music, but why write my own definition? I'll let Wikipedia do it for me:
"Tempo is a term used in Magic: The Gathering to indicate the advantage gained when a player is able to play more or stronger cards (relative to their opponent) in a shorter period of time due to efficient resource allocation"
I think this term can be applied to Dominion as well. There are of course differences, but the core idea is the same.
Here's a really simple example of a card generating Tempo: Militia. Militia generates tempo in two ways; Firstly, you get that +2 money which helps drive your own buy phase. Secondly, by forcing your opponents to discard down to three cards, you may very well force them to discard cards they were planning to play on their turn, thereby reducing the effectiveness of what they are able to do.
3) Tempo & Money/+Money Cards
I'm going to assume if you're reading this, posted as it is in the strategy section of a board games website, that you've at least heard of Magic the Gathering. I'm also going to assume that you know you need to have Land cards in that game to be able to cast your spells. If you don't draw any land, then you can't cast any spells. This is the same in Dominion as well, but for "Land" read "Treasure cards".
There are a lot of very pretty toys in this game. Three money? Maybe buy the Village, or that Workshop? Perhaps, but don't forget the Silver cards. Silvers are pretty strong buys in the early rounds of the game, especially with the Usual 4/3 split of money in turns one and two. Why is silver a good buy early on? Well, the obvious answer is that it gives your the potential for hands with more buying power, as drawing a silver is flat out better than drawing a copper.
The game is a race; in the long term it's a race to buy the relevant points cards. At the start of the game, it's typically a race towards being able to buy five and six cost cards.
It comes down to this: there are two ways of getting more money; buying treasure cards, and actions with +money on them. Which is better in the deck you're building will depend on how many actions you'll typically be getting in one of your turns.
4) Tempo & +Actions Cards
This is an aspect of the game that I wasn't thinking through when I first started playing. At the start of each of your turns, you have one action available; therefore if you play a card which doesn't have any +actions on it, that will be your one any only action card of the turn. You have two cards in hand, and neither of them give you + actions? That second card is a dead card in your hand, and you won't see it until your next reshuffle.
The best illustration of this is at the start of the game. In the first two turns you make two buys (hopefully), and then reshuffle your deck, getting a chance to draw those two cards. Let's say you bought a Workshop for three, and a Militia for four. Two useful cards.
Now you draw both of them in the same hand at the start of turn three.
You can only play one; until you reshuffle that second card is as dead a card as any of your VPs. You've lost an opportunity to use it early. You've compromised your buy phase for this turn (as that card could have been a Treasure). You've likely let your opponent steal a march on you (If they're able to use every card in their hand). Most, if not all, Euro-style games are at some level an exercise in being efficient, and this is the case here with Dominion. By ending up in a position where you've bought a card you're prevented from playing, you've been inefficient; and that means you've lost tempo.
+Action cards are your friends here. they give you their effect and let you continue playing additional action cards. Something you need to keep an eye on is the relative amount of cards with +actions and cards without. You want more of the former than the latter, otherwise you'll be stuck full of a hand of unplayable cards, with less money to buy with.
5) Tempo, +Buy cards, and ending the game
I like to be in a situation where I can buy the first province in a game. Simply, it's easier to win from being in the lead than it is trying to come back.
For now, let's ignore the fact that Gardens exist. As a rule of thumb most games end when all the Provinces have been bought. So, if you've bought more than your share of them (five+ in 2-player or 3-player, four+in 4-player), you're in with a great shout of winning. Let's stick to a two-player game as an example. You buy the first province. Now you only need another 3 to at-worst tie on Provinces with your opponent. Or, to look at it another way, for your opponent to beat you on Provinces alone they have to buy five out of the remaining 7, allowing you only 2.
In games without +buy actions, this is really important as you're relying on your opponent's deck breaking down to let you overtake them. Yes, you can remodel provinces from Gold/Adventurers, but will you have the money left in you hand to buy a second?
In games with +buy actions, Duchies grow in importance as they can sometimes be picked up with an extra buy, and as far as points go two Duchies = one Province (although, of course that's an extra dead card in your deck - see deck thinning, above).
Of course, if it's one of those slow, low-money games where the provinces remain mostly untouched as the piles run out, it might mean that you need to start going for Duchies instead. Estates rarely get bought before the last few turns of the game when players have extra buys, or they've drawn all their VPs and only a few treasure cards. Oh, unless Gardens is in the game, but we're ignoring that, of course. ;)
If you're leading the race for points, you're also going to want to end the game as soon as possible to limit the chances of your opponent coming back at you. This means buying provinces more quickly than them (which you're trying to do anyway), or buying cards from whichever three piles are down to their last few cards. The best, sneakiest trick I've seen for this is, when you're using Remodel, to Remodel a Province in to another Province. That decreases the amount left to your opponent to buy and makes it harder for them to overcome your lead.
A final point here that's been made in countless other posts I've read but I'll repeat it here. If you're 99% sure that the game will end before you next get a chance to reshuffle, the concept of buying "dead" cards no longer applies - you won't draw the cards you're buying so you should only buy victory points.
6) Focus
There are a lot of ways that you can go with any given set of Dominion. There's almost never an exactly right way, but there are a lot of wrong ways. There's also only one win condition - get more points than your opponents. However cool the deck you're putting together looks, DO NOT LOSE SIGHT OF THIS!
There's also a lot to be said for picking a strategy and sticking with it; making sure that the cards you buy are the ones that you need for this strategy. Work out what the key cards are. Buy those. Don't buy irrelevant cards. Building a very action-lite deck? Don't buy villages. Picking up Smithies and Moats for the card draw? Prioritise those Villages! Again, you don't want to end up with dead action cards in your hand when you get to your buy phase. If there's a card that nine times out of ten you wouldn't play in a straight choice against another card in your deck, should you really buy it?
There are a few cards that are at home in almost every strategy. Cellars are great in the late game, Festivals are normally very useful. Laboratories likewise (actually, going back to Cellars, most decks will want to drop one of these in if they're available, purely to counter those frustrating late-game hands full of green cards).
7) Special Cases
There are two cards in Dominion that are fundamentally different enough from other cards that they need to be handled differently (well, three if you count the chapel, but I've harped on enough about that already). Those two cards are Throne Room, and Gardens (which I've been desperately avoiding talking about up until now, but I don't think my luck's going to hold...)
Throne Room
A special case amongst action cards, it's only useful as long as you draw at least one other action card. Crucially, that's one other action card that ISN'T another Throne Room (or a Library, as "draw until you have 7 cards in hand is not quite so strong the second time). So the bottom line is that you don't want too many, and you only want to pick them up if you HAVE been buying a lot of actions, and that probably means you need +action cards in the set as well to be able to properly utilise them. I think this card can really reward gambling - picking it up early and hoping to draw it with another powerful action card that you've bought. Of course, as with all gambles, it can just as easily turn sour.
Gardens
If the Gardens card is in the set, it completely and absolutely changes the game. Probably. It does as always depend on the rest of the cards in the mix. The typical Gardens deck is the antithesis of the Chapel deck; rather than ditching cards to thin your deck you're trying to get as many as you can: +Buy cards, Workshops, grabbing a copper with each and every spare buy. Gardens cost 4; it's not hard to get up to 30 cards in your deck, making them cheap Duchies. If you're really trying, and with the right set of cards, getting up to 50 can be realistic. If you go for a gardens deck you pretty much break all the normal conventions of playing Dominion. Ideally, you'll try and end the game off of three piles being exhausted as you're almost certainly not going to be able to afford provinces. Gardens, Workshops and Estates are my favourites when going down this road; as a tip take the more expensive cards you're trying to run down before the cheaper ones, as you're more likely to be able to get the cheaper ones later in the game (Caveat: If both you AND your opponent are doing this, grab Estates before action cards from the piles you're trying to run out as they will be crucial in a close game).
Summary
- Try to minimise your odds of drawing dead action cards by acquiring +action and treasure cards
- Note whether there are +buy cards in the game; if not it'll be hard for a player who falls behind early to catch up.
- Keep track of the points score as best you can, and try to end the game on your own terms.
- If a deck is being assembled to do one thing really well, such as pulling your entire deck in to your hand each turn, focus on buying the cards that enable this.
- There are situations that will come up in the game where almost everything I've said here will be wrong.
Further Reading
If you're reading this you've probably already gone through this forum with a fine-tooth comb, but I'd like to link to a couple of the posts and articles that have really helped me in developing my understanding of the game:
Analysing a random cardset
Short Analysis of the 25 Kingdom Cards
A look at the Interactive cards
The Chapel Deck
Thanks to Arthur and Grim for proofing this for me
Let me know if you've found this helpful, or otherwise.
Stewart
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