Evolution of a Dominion Player
Let me break down the progression of your typical Dominion player. By typical, I mean a player who strives to get better at the game in order win more often. I'm sure there are players who just want to "have fun" and build a deck to mess around with, but I like to think that most players want to figure out how to build a better deck. This progression has three major phases, from new player, to big money player, to well rounded player. Hopefully, you'll pick up some tips as I detail each step of this evolution.
There are three major phases that players tend to go through when playing Dominion. Most players will start out as new players, as in they don't fully grasp the mechanics of the game, nor how to build a deck that performs well. Once players gain this basic understanding they will graduate to be Big Money players as they focus on the easiest strategy to work with. As those players learn that Big Money doesn't win every time, and is even fairly easy to disrupt, they will eventually start to become well rounded Dominion players.
New players tend to be dazzled by the promise of all those fancy action cards that have neat text and do more than just let you buy stuff or win the game. After a player's first taste of playing a Village into a Smithy into four more Villages it is hard to focus on anything but picking up more actions. New players will typically have turns where they play a lot of actions, but find themselves with very little money to actually buy something useful with; it's nice that Villages cost three coins. This is because new players value actions much too highly, thinking that playing more actions will make them win in the end.
The problem with picking up too many actions is the new players will have very little else in their decks with which to move towards a winning position. Actions typically do not turn into victory points, and a deck that is packed with actions, but only Copper treasures will have hard time mustering enough coins to pick up Provinces every turn.
New players also put too much value into the Copper and Estate starting cards. Having to trash a card to Remodel seems like too much of a drawback, and the Chapel looks utterly horrible because losing those three Estates means you'll be down three points in the end. Cards that trash are undervalued by new players because of their attachment to those cards in their deck.
Another trait of a new player is their aversion to purchasing treasure. The value of a Village far outweighs the value of a Silver to a new player. Why buy a Silver when you could pick up a Village that could potentially lead to a turn with several actions in it?
Eventually, the new player will get tired of decks that stall out on three or four coins. They will begin to see that treasure is more powerful than it first appeared. Picking up a Silver is very similar to packing two Coppers into a single card. Having a hand that begins with three Coppers, a Silver, and an Estate is almost like having a six card hand (5 Coppers and an Estate). Once the new player starts picking up that money earlier they begin to transition into the next phase of Dominion play; the Big Money player.
In a nutshell, the Big Money strategy focuses on picking up coins rather than actions. Buy Silver, and when you can, buy Gold. This phase of a typical Dominion player will start when they realize that the actions they are playing will only translate into victory points if they have enough cash to purchase them. By purchasing coins, there is a better chance their initial five cards will yield enough high value coins that they can simply purchase victory points outright.
This strategy is effective, and it puts a definite limit to the amount of turns there will be in the game which will cause action happy newer players to be put under more pressure. Those early strategies will break down because they are not fast enough to keep up with a Big Money deck. It isn't terribly interesting, but it can win games if the other players are not focusing their decks to compete.
The next step is figuring out how to beat Big Money. This is more than just picking up a card here and there that helps with drawing into more treasure cards. This step is about being able to assess the actions that are available, and figure out how to either construct a combo that can out pace Big Money or attack it. Some cards are blatantly obvious about this approach, such as Pirate Ship; others are much more subtle like Bridge. I feel that I'm just bordering on this sort of play, but I haven't been able to perfect it quite yet.
These are the three steps that I've been going through, and have watched other players go through as well. Looking back on the first night I can shake my head at how frustrated I was when I would end a turn with only four coins, or how I was loathe to get rid of Coppers. Now that I'm up and running on BSW, I should be able to see how even more people are putting the games together. I don't see Dominion getting old anytime soon.
