J P
United States
San Leandro
California
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On a totally different note, you can try some training against some AI with Androminion, dominion clone app for Android phones! It's got pretty decent AI, one of which uses Big Money almost exclusively. Try out some things and see what you think!
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Ben Bateson
United Kingdom
Ross-on-Wye
Owner of original 'crappy art' GtR and pleased about it.
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Myoman wrote: Take Villages and hang Woodcutters Smithies off of it like Christmas Tree ornaments. My wife uses that strategy, and she mopped the floor with me and my Big Money.
Ten gets you one that that's what he meant to say...
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Mark Judd
United States
Mapleton
Utah
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ousgg wrote: Myoman wrote: Take Villages and hang Woodcutters Smithies off of it like Christmas Tree ornaments. My wife uses that strategy, and she mopped the floor with me and my Big Money. Ten gets you one that that's what he meant to say...
Still not sold on this one either, unless you are throwing in a Woodcutter or Markets for an extra buy.
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Dennison Milenkaya
United States
Washington
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Well, I'm not going to pretend that I know what happened in their gaming session nor what he meant in his post. I merely say that Villages + Woodcutter can potentially pick up more than 6 points in one turn where a strictly Treasure card + Chapel deck cannot. This is undeniably true.
Yet, more important to basic game discussion is that when you aren't talking specifically about Big Money, an Action-based deck can incorporate whatever combination of cards a player wishes to employ.
Another way to have read his comment about hanging Woodcutters off Villages like Christmas tree ornaments is that the base and trunk of that tree looks like a stack of Libraries that he simply didn't mention because the comedy of the word image is ruined with too much mumbo-jumbo. And at some point, being too literal with an analogy just makes it irritating instead of evocative.
The short answer is that he never said she didn't use other cards along the way--just that Woodcutters were strung up like ornaments via Villages.
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FlatOnHisFace wrote:
The short answer is that he never said she didn't use other cards along the way--just that Woodcutters were strung up like ornaments via Villages.
I mean, that's true I guess... but if the question is "how do I beat big money?", "hanging woodcutters off villages like ornaments on a christmas trees" is not a good answer, no matter how cute an analogy it may be.
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Dennison Milenkaya
United States
Washington
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Man, if only they had Scrying Pools, it would be!
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V L
United States
Virginia
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FlatOnHisFace wrote: cphpitts wrote: What's the best one for this? In truth, all of them. But Perhaps Prosperity for the fact that you have over-powered cards and even bigger money to reach consistently, which doesn't happen with a bunch of Silvers and no Action cards. Or maybe Hinterlands so that you can get that quicker return on investment from cards that have on-gain effects. Or maybe Cornucopia since it rewards diversity in a deck and Big Money is not at all diverse. But my gut reaction is to claim Alchemy since it has even more powerful cards that make crazy combos and easily out-pace any Big Money decks. Still, Intrigue has a few cards in it that'll mess up Big Money fast--particularly the Attack cards since they tend to turn big Treasures into big wads of garbage. Um, Seaside, unfortunately, has little to combat Big Money but Pirate Ship is totally able to do it, single-handedly. There's some other good ways to do it, too, but usually requiring more of a case-by-case scenario, being that they usually do basic effects but with longer-lasting Duration cards, of which Big Money doesn't take advantage. So, yeah, all of them.
Cornucopia is your cheapest option.
Another cheap option is to get some of the promos from BGG.
edit: Alchemy might be as cheap as Cornucopia but I'd recommend getting Alchemy later. It's a stranger set.
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V L
United States
Virginia
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Remodel is interesting too. Being able to gain cards and still buy a card is useful.
Also Throne Room. Enough Throne Rooms plus interesting actions can make a deck that's better than Big Money.
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Chris Wood
United States
Wheaton
Illinois
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Yes she had some other cards that allowed her to draw more cards, but when she played her actions there were multiple woodcutters and villages, and that let her get a province every turn or almost every turn. Her luck when she drew cards was unbelievable too. She always seemed like she had the perfect combination of cards.
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Mark Judd
United States
Mapleton
Utah
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Neo42 wrote: Cornucopia is your cheapest option.
Another cheap option is to get some of the promos from BGG.
edit: Alchemy might be as cheap as Cornucopia but I'd recommend getting Alchemy later. It's a stranger set.
If you are going for strictly $, yes promos and then Cornucopia (or Alchemy) are your cheapest options. But if you are looking at price per kingdom card, the full expansions are the way to go, with Hinterlands being the best value.
Hinterlands - 26 kingdom cards, $40 MSRP, ~$1.54 per kingdom card
Seaside - 26 kingdom cards, $45 MSRP, ~$1.73 per kingdom card
Intrigue - 25 kingdom cards, $45 MSRP, $1.80 per kingdom card
Prosperity - 25 kingdom cards, $45 MSRP, $1.80 per kingdom card
Cornucopia - 13 kingdom cards, $30 MSRP, ~$2.31 per kingdom card
Alchemy - 12 kingdom cards, $30 MSRP, $2.50 per kingdom card
Black Market/Envoy/Stash - $2.50 per kingdom card
Governor - $5.00 per kingdom card
Walled Village - ??? (not in BGG store anymore - used to be $5.00)
But hey, I suck at math.
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Beaveman wrote: [q="Neo42"]
Intrigue - 25 kingdom cards, $45 MSRP, $1.80 per kingdom card
Not quite! Relevant to my point though.
If any of your friends are amazingly taken by Dominion and how awesome it is(as I was when I first played at christmas), then it may be worth suggesting they get a set of their own, the only problem with this at the moment, almost all expanasions don't come with the base cards(treasure, VPs etc)...
Except Intrigue! I got my own set of intrigue just after christmas, regularly combining up with my friend's base set for a huge variety in games. In fact, I've been so taken I got prosperity a couple weeks back, and another friend who doesn't even have base has bought Cornucopia to live alongside my set as he loves it too!
As for beating Big Money alone, I have very little experience as I've rarely played with only the base set as options for cards, but I imagine the attack cards are a semi-potential counter to Big Money?
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For all who want to learn about alternatives to "Big Money" just having the base set available i suggest to play a number of games with the "size distortion" setup, which is among the recommended setups in the printed game rules:
Chapel, Cellar, Village, Woodcutter, Workshop, Feast, Garden, Thief, Laboratory, Witch.
It allows a great variant of the Workshop-Garden-Strategy starting with
chapel/workshop, then a village + trashing all copper and estates with chapel, then a workshop->feast-> witch, ideally reducing the 10 original cards to
chapel, workshop, Village, Witch, (probably + a cellar, if 2 coins were left for a buy or additional villages if 3 coins were left for a buy)
After that reducing phase additional workshops, villages and feastst-> labs or one more witch are bought (if opponent does not buy witches).
The deck is kept in a way that ideally every move all cards of the deck can be drawn until the deck has a size of about 15 cards. The number of workshops is about 3-4 in that phase.
Then I start bying one silver with a workshop (for buying additional cellars) and at the same time all the gardens. The goal is to finish the game with 30 cards in hand and the following piles empty: curses, villages and gardens. With 8 gardens and 30 cards this means 24 points which is an equivalent to 4 provinces by the opponent.
If the opponent plays chapel/big money+labs one has to buy some thieves, too in order to spoil his strategy of buying a province with gold/gold/silver + some labs every turn.
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Jay Tummelson
United States
Placitas
New Mexico
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For what it is worth, the new digital version's initial AI is big money - just to get the basic workings of the thing tested. I am not an experienced player and do not recall ever winning a game (with players). However, even with my limited playing abilities, I was able to beat the big money AI EVERY time and with whatever cards the computer threw at me. Thus, I do not think a player needs to look for an expansion to be successful against big money - I know and average player - me - who found a way. Yes, when I started playing against the computer, I was not a novice, but certainly also nowhere near a seasoned, successful player.
Jay
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