1. Regarding Dominion, going from building complex engines to Big Money with some variations was an eye opener for me. Focusing on something reliable which can then be improved upon, instead of something grand which might work at some future point, since I can't predict when the game ends. I still remember some games were I managed to draw almost my entire deck each round, only to draw 7 coppers with 1 buy anyway :D
2. I'm reminded of a piece of advice when when teaching others how to play a boardgame: that is start with the win condition before the rules, instead of the other way around. That way, you give everyone an opportunity to thing about how each rule actually helps them win.
Dominion is my favorite game because building your engine is fun even when you're losing (possibly from building your engine for too long). IIRC, the Prosperity expansion lengthens gameplay so that you can still get a satisfying amount of engine building before attempting to fight bias and start your endgame earlier.
Prosperity did it the most, but approximately *every* expansion made engine-building (even sloppy engine-building)more viable of a strategy, and Big Money less so.
A design mistake imo, I think there was a lot of strategic elegance in original Dominion between reading the board correctly and gauging engine vs Big Money boards.
Pedantically, I would argue that Blood on the Clocktower is an example of duel elimination, just with asymmetric criteria for what counts as elimination (good has to kill one specific evil player, while evil has to kill most of the good players). Also "clocktower" is one word.
Twilight Struggle is an interesting example in that you can win via any of victory conditions 1, 2, or 3, and pivot your strategy to whichever victory condition seems most realistic as the game progresses. I can't immediately think of any other games like this.
John Company is an interesting exception-that-proves-the-rule to the beginners' strategy of VP maxing, in that most sources of VPs can be taxed in each subsequent round (and you lose the VPs if you don't have the money to pay the tax), so it's best to save money for a big VP purchase in the endgame if you can time it right.
This article explains exactly why I lost the last game of Splendor to someone who had never played before. I had the more efficient engine and the most cards, and even the most noble bonuses, while the winner just had the sequence of highest scoring cards she needed to win.
I'm going to use Dominion as the example, because it's what I have the most familiarity with. Dominion has lots of variety in strategy depending on Kingdom. The most intuitive beeline toward victory, where you buy nothing but VP is almost certain to lose; with only Coppers as your source of money, you can empty out Estates and Duchies initially, and then you'll struggle to empty a third pile; this takes way too long compared to a good Engine which can get the majority of Provinces by turn 15 if they're bad.
Additionally, while Rush strategies are often good on Kingdoms that support them, it's been discovered that they're often weaker than you'd expect.
There's all sorts of additional factors. Attacks, especially cursers, are very powerful ways to hurt your opponent, and there's all sorts of "hard" and "soft" counters for them which is a big factor on most boards with them.
And with modern Dominion packs, executing a good Combo/Engine is almost always possible, and are much more board-dominating. Hunting Grounds/Lurkers, Bishop + Fortress, King's Court + Bridge... buying lots of Actions that combo well with each other is a very legitimate strategy and will usually be available on the board (although perhaps not as powerful as the three I listed).
As a side note, there's a phenomenon that can happen in games with a Race condition and targeted attacks. What happens in these games is that everyone launches their attacks against whoever is closest to the win condition, often creating a cycle where someone shoots ahead only to be instantly brought back to neutral. In this case, the victor is either someone who builds so strongly their momentum survives the combined attacks of all other players or the individual out of group of players who progress toward the win condition in lockstep (it's usually not EVERY player due to variance) that is slightly more capable of making the final push toward winning.
I agree that most Dominion expansions make it so that engine strategies dominate over Big Money.
"As a side note, there's a phenomenon that can happen in games with a Race condition and targeted attacks. What happens in these games is that everyone launches their attacks against whoever is closest to the win condition, often creating a cycle where someone shoots ahead only to be instantly brought back to neutral. In this case, the victor is either someone who builds so strongly their momentum survives the combined attacks of all other players or the individual out of group of players who progress toward the win condition in lockstep (it's usually not EVERY player due to variance) that is slightly more capable of making the final push toward winning."
Can you give an example of a modern game where this is common? The only one that really jumps to mind for me is Munchkin
This is an excellent essay! And very true in my observations from card games to competitive pokemon to chess.
I will add that win conditions can often be more dynamic and complicated in that you need to think about which conditions will lead you to achieve the stated winning goals. They are also always the foundation of an ideal reasoning process.
1. What do you think the best 7 Wonders strategies are? Buying blue cards?
2. Do you think increasing the average value of cards in your Dominion deck is a good interpretation of the central theme of the game? This would explain the importance of cards like the Chapel
I haven't played enough 7 Wonders to know the actual "best" strategies but yeah I think if you take advice from this post literally you should be biased to buying blue cards.
2. Yeah something like that. Or more like the central narrative is about building cool/powerful engines. But Big Money tends to win against complex engines, especially for beginners, especially in the base game (the expansions tend to make engines more powerful)
Some thoughts
1. Regarding Dominion, going from building complex engines to Big Money with some variations was an eye opener for me. Focusing on something reliable which can then be improved upon, instead of something grand which might work at some future point, since I can't predict when the game ends. I still remember some games were I managed to draw almost my entire deck each round, only to draw 7 coppers with 1 buy anyway :D
2. I'm reminded of a piece of advice when when teaching others how to play a boardgame: that is start with the win condition before the rules, instead of the other way around. That way, you give everyone an opportunity to thing about how each rule actually helps them win.
Good post overall
Dominion is my favorite game because building your engine is fun even when you're losing (possibly from building your engine for too long). IIRC, the Prosperity expansion lengthens gameplay so that you can still get a satisfying amount of engine building before attempting to fight bias and start your endgame earlier.
Prosperity did it the most, but approximately *every* expansion made engine-building (even sloppy engine-building)more viable of a strategy, and Big Money less so.
A design mistake imo, I think there was a lot of strategic elegance in original Dominion between reading the board correctly and gauging engine vs Big Money boards.
Pedantically, I would argue that Blood on the Clocktower is an example of duel elimination, just with asymmetric criteria for what counts as elimination (good has to kill one specific evil player, while evil has to kill most of the good players). Also "clocktower" is one word.
Twilight Struggle is an interesting example in that you can win via any of victory conditions 1, 2, or 3, and pivot your strategy to whichever victory condition seems most realistic as the game progresses. I can't immediately think of any other games like this.
John Company is an interesting exception-that-proves-the-rule to the beginners' strategy of VP maxing, in that most sources of VPs can be taxed in each subsequent round (and you lose the VPs if you don't have the money to pay the tax), so it's best to save money for a big VP purchase in the endgame if you can time it right.
Thanks! Fixed the "Clocktower" spelling.
I haven't heard of John Company before, would be keen to try it out!
This article explains exactly why I lost the last game of Splendor to someone who had never played before. I had the more efficient engine and the most cards, and even the most noble bonuses, while the winner just had the sequence of highest scoring cards she needed to win.
LOL, love the endorsement!
I'm going to use Dominion as the example, because it's what I have the most familiarity with. Dominion has lots of variety in strategy depending on Kingdom. The most intuitive beeline toward victory, where you buy nothing but VP is almost certain to lose; with only Coppers as your source of money, you can empty out Estates and Duchies initially, and then you'll struggle to empty a third pile; this takes way too long compared to a good Engine which can get the majority of Provinces by turn 15 if they're bad.
Additionally, while Rush strategies are often good on Kingdoms that support them, it's been discovered that they're often weaker than you'd expect.
There's all sorts of additional factors. Attacks, especially cursers, are very powerful ways to hurt your opponent, and there's all sorts of "hard" and "soft" counters for them which is a big factor on most boards with them.
And with modern Dominion packs, executing a good Combo/Engine is almost always possible, and are much more board-dominating. Hunting Grounds/Lurkers, Bishop + Fortress, King's Court + Bridge... buying lots of Actions that combo well with each other is a very legitimate strategy and will usually be available on the board (although perhaps not as powerful as the three I listed).
As a side note, there's a phenomenon that can happen in games with a Race condition and targeted attacks. What happens in these games is that everyone launches their attacks against whoever is closest to the win condition, often creating a cycle where someone shoots ahead only to be instantly brought back to neutral. In this case, the victor is either someone who builds so strongly their momentum survives the combined attacks of all other players or the individual out of group of players who progress toward the win condition in lockstep (it's usually not EVERY player due to variance) that is slightly more capable of making the final push toward winning.
I agree that most Dominion expansions make it so that engine strategies dominate over Big Money.
"As a side note, there's a phenomenon that can happen in games with a Race condition and targeted attacks. What happens in these games is that everyone launches their attacks against whoever is closest to the win condition, often creating a cycle where someone shoots ahead only to be instantly brought back to neutral. In this case, the victor is either someone who builds so strongly their momentum survives the combined attacks of all other players or the individual out of group of players who progress toward the win condition in lockstep (it's usually not EVERY player due to variance) that is slightly more capable of making the final push toward winning."
Can you give an example of a modern game where this is common? The only one that really jumps to mind for me is Munchkin
This is an excellent essay! And very true in my observations from card games to competitive pokemon to chess.
I will add that win conditions can often be more dynamic and complicated in that you need to think about which conditions will lead you to achieve the stated winning goals. They are also always the foundation of an ideal reasoning process.
1. What do you think the best 7 Wonders strategies are? Buying blue cards?
2. Do you think increasing the average value of cards in your Dominion deck is a good interpretation of the central theme of the game? This would explain the importance of cards like the Chapel
I haven't played enough 7 Wonders to know the actual "best" strategies but yeah I think if you take advice from this post literally you should be biased to buying blue cards.
2. Yeah something like that. Or more like the central narrative is about building cool/powerful engines. But Big Money tends to win against complex engines, especially for beginners, especially in the base game (the expansions tend to make engines more powerful)
this is actually my dream essay i can’t believe it
If you ever use this advice in real games, I'd love to learn how it went! :D
i have a friendsgiving coming up where we will definitely be playing board games, so i will report back 🫡