Poor Taste on Last Turn of Game

[Gold Subscrptn Chick]

Almost everyone does this (I personally never do). Let's say you're going to win on this turn. Instead of buying the minimum required to win the game, say the last province, you buy the maximum possible with your coins and # of buys.

That always leaves a poor taste for me. At a minimum, you're wasting time for yourself clicking extra, and for others waiting for you to finish clicking. Taken further, it's just poor sportsmanship running up the score for literally no difference.

When there's no VP counter this is obviously justified, but with VP counter this is just pointless.

It's not the same as sports teams going hard all game because it's not over till it's over. What I'm saying here is when it's already 100% over, why run up the score at the cost of extra time wasted/poor taste for literally 0 benefit.

Maybe I'm sensitive, but convince me that there's value in "maximizing scoring on your last/winning turn".

[santamonica811]

I can think of two-three possible reasons.
1.  You want to see your max score, just for your own edification.
2.  You want to practice for your In Real Life games.  In IRL games, of course, you do not have an accurate running total of how many VP you have, nor how many your opponent has. So, obviously, it would make sense (esp in games that use alternate VP as well) to get as many points as possible, to give yourself a good margin of error, in case you have miscalculated your rough estimate about how you are doing in that game.  I think that good practicing (ie, online) makes it more likely that you'll do the same in games you play IRL.
3.  Related to #2.  Even though you are playing online, some people deliberately are not looking at the VP counters.  I do this...I put Post-It notes on my screen, to cover up the running scores.  Good practice for me, for my IRL games.

And there might be other reasons I am overlooking...these are just off the top of my head.

My general rule is:  Don't get offended (in everyday life, and in Dom. games) if there's a reasonable innocuous explanation.  I would look to the game chat.  If the opponent is making mocking or mean comments, then she is probably acting in bad faith.  But without those comments--esp if you two are playing a series of fun games--I'd assume good faith.

My two cents only.  YMMV.

[bluey_the_bear]

Yeah, I'm definitely guilty of this myself sometimes.

I think the main reason people do it is because it's fun to see numbers turn into bigger numbers. Sometimes there's an element of showing off as well. I usually don't mind it when my opponent does it. After all, usually I find it's just buying a duchy and an estate in addition to the last province or something. That doesn't take up that much time, and I don't want to begrudge anyone their oppurtunity to get those last few points.

That being said, it's perfectly reasonable that you find this annoying. It's certainly annoying if, say, they three-pile midturn but then they keep on playing a complicated deck to buy 3 provinces instead of just 1. In those cases I usually resign. I can see how even the duchy-estate thing could get on some people's nerves. I'm just not super bothered by it myself.

[Gold Subscrptn Chick]

I can think of two-three possible reasons.
1.  You want to see your max score, just for your own edification.
2.  You want to practice for your In Real Life games.  In IRL games, of course, you do not have an accurate running total of how many VP you have, nor how many your opponent has. So, obviously, it would make sense (esp in games that use alternate VP as well) to get as many points as possible, to give yourself a good margin of error, in case you have miscalculated your rough estimate about how you are doing in that game.  I think that good practicing (ie, online) makes it more likely that you'll do the same in games you play IRL.
3.  Related to #2.  Even though you are playing online, some people deliberately are not looking at the VP counters.  I do this...I put Post-It notes on my screen, to cover up the running scores.  Good practice for me, for my IRL games.

And there might be other reasons I am overlooking...these are just off the top of my head.

My general rule is:  Don't get offended (in everyday life, and in Dom. games) if there's a reasonable innocuous explanation.  I would look to the game chat.  If the opponent is making mocking or mean comments, then she is probably acting in bad faith.  But without those comments--esp if you two are playing a series of fun games--I'd assume good faith.

My two cents only.  YMMV.

Agree wholeheartedly in that I always assume best intentions. I should make it clear that I don't think in any single case of this I remember the person was intentionally being a d!*k in doing so.

I'm borderline getting into an "online discussion" here, which I at my ripe age of 31 should know better. Nonetheless, I think from a utilitarian perspective it's best if the winning player just minimized clicks to end game.

I'm not disagreeing with your reasons or anyone else's (practicing for real life is certainly a good one, assuming you're actually trying to memorize your and your opponent's VPs). I think we probably just differ in how much we value those reasons over the reasons not to.

[Gold Subscrptn Chick]

Yeah, I'm definitely guilty of this myself sometimes.

I think the main reason people do it is because it's fun to see numbers turn into bigger numbers. Sometimes there's an element of showing off as well. I usually don't mind it when my opponent does it. After all, usually I find it's just buying a duchy and an estate in addition to the last province or something. That doesn't take up that much time, and I don't want to begrudge anyone their oppurtunity to get those last few points.

That being said, it's perfectly reasonable that you find this annoying. It's certainly annoying if, say, they three-pile midturn but then they keep on playing a complicated deck to buy 3 provinces instead of just 1. In those cases I usually resign. I can see how even the duchy-estate thing could get on some people's nerves. I'm just not super bothered by it myself.

LOL I probably come off as a petty b!**h in the OP. As much as I'd like to say "I'm not super bothered either", obviously it bothers me enough to make a post :P

And yes, I actually usually prevent this from even happening by resigning before they get to the buy phase of the last turn, if not several turns before the would-be last turn (I also have gripes about people who don't resign lol, but that's for another day).

[AdamH]

I've lost one game because I forgot about a Landmark that affected my score when I just mindlessly clicked the button for Travellers because the VP counter said I had won. There was a lot I could have done differently, but it made me adopt the mindset that I'll always maximize my score on the last turn if I'm playing to win. Maybe it doesn't matter this game, but maybe it could matter some game, and by definition I won't be expecting it when it does, so this is that habit that I've developed.

So yes there is a competitive reason to do this kind of thing.

I understand how it can leave a bad taste in an opponent's mouth though. Luckily, the opponent is free to resign at any point and can blacklist people who do this if they feel strongly enough about it.

[santamonica811]

I think you come across as a self-aware young woman, who wrote a good-faith question.  And, as you can see in the responses; no one replied, "Man, you are so thin-skinned." or anything like that.  So, cut yourself some slack, and give yourself a break, okay?  We encourage questions and encourage comments.  ;)  My experience here is that 99+% of the people here are really nice, and will respond in kind to anyone who is trying to make this Dominion community better . . . EVEN IF they disagree with a particular point you are trying to make.  That's certainly been what I've encountered, anyway.

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LOL I probably come off as a petty b!**h in the OP. As much as I'd like to say "I'm not super bothered either", obviously it bothers me enough to make a post :P

And yes, I actually usually prevent this from even happening by resigning before they get to the buy phase of the last turn, if not several turns before the would-be last turn (I also have gripes about people who don't resign lol, but that's for another day).

[Gold Subscrptn Chick]

@Adam, thank you for your feedback. As mentioned earlier, I'm too old to even be seen as "engaging" on the internet, so I'll just provide my opinion tactfully and hopefully end there. I don't believe developing a habit of running up the score will compensate for or mitigate the risk of missing a landmark or not winning when you thought you won. We're already going off topic a bit here, as my OP was about when you've already won (hopefully unless we're playing tired, which I'm sure we all have :) we know when we've won), but you could perceivably run into the Wall or be hitting multiple Embargo curses as you run up the score for its pure sake. So I don't think running it up ensures winning necessarily (which again is a pretty basic thing to ensure with the VP counter in the first place). I may have misread your post, and my apologies if so. Also, totally agree, as mentioned, I usually just resign long before "running it up" happens. And fwiw, I've yet to blacklist anyone iirc.

@Josh, thank you for your kind words, yea I think it's this quarantine thing that got me doing non-productive things like posting about some trivial complaint on the web lol... totally agree, people that play Dominion or post here tend to be awesome human beings.

[Ingix]

I think discussing certain behaviours like this is a good idea. Sometimes it happens out of "being in the flow" of the game, sometimes because of past experiences (AdamH) but I guess most often the player isn't thinking about this, they do there engine routine and at the end see they have $22 and 5 buys, they can buy 2 Provinces and a Duchy and realize they are just 3 VP behind and there is only one Province left, so this could have been over faster.

Players doing a "full last turn" by their decision (AdamH) is OK, but if more players can see this as a potential annoyance and turn it from "just doing it as every other turn" to an actual decision, I guess this would be good.

A similar topic is the showing of your initial deck before the game starts, with the advent of Nocturne. Some players use it to read up the cards they are not familiar with, and that's totally OK. But many players consider it an annoyance when this is done at this point, when starting hands haven't yet been distributed, because it means they can't think about their opening buys. The idea is that this reading up can be done when starting hands have been distributed.

I told my opponent in a league match who read the cards before "Start Game" about this after the match. I don't know what they'll do, but at least now they know that there is another way to do that, that others find better, and they can adapt as they feel is appropriate.

[AdamH]

A similar topic is the showing of your initial deck before the game starts, with the advent of Nocturne. Some players use it to read up the cards they are not familiar with, and that's totally OK. But many players consider it an annoyance when this is done at this point, when starting hands haven't yet been distributed, because it means they can't think about their opening buys. The idea is that this reading up can be done when starting hands have been distributed.

I told my opponent in a league match who read the cards before "Start Game" about this after the match. I don't know what they'll do, but at least now they know that there is another way to do that, that others find better, and they can adapt as they feel is appropriate.

Or, you know, you could at least show me my starting hand once I click on "start game" instead of making me wait for my opponent for no reason. Some things can maybe sometimes be solved by etiquette but if you make the software better then it's a better solution for everyone and everyone is happy.

Imagine if there was no resign button and if I felt my opponent was taking too long on their last turn, my only recourse would be to ask them in the chat to stop and hope they complied. That would be an issue, wouldn't it?

[jdsdog10]

Totally agree with this pet peeve, although I don't see it as commonly as you say. Maybe like every 5th opponent? Its one thing to buy an extra card or two, but its still poor sportsmanship. If you don't look at your VP counter, then whatever, but I am in doubts that many people ignore their VP counter.
Interesting that you mention sports. In most sports it's actually extremely unsportsmanlike to run up the score at end game. If a football team is up by multiple touchdowns and could win the game by kneeling, but decide to keep trying to score, they will get boo'd like crazy, create bad blood between the teams, many articles will be written about it, it will be covered on espn. In basketball, fights have broken out because of trying to run up the score in the last seconds.

As much as this annoys me, it's definitely nowhere near as bad as disconnecting instead of resigning end of game. Just thinking about this gets me triggered 🤣🤣