I Won, but Would You Have Resigned Instead?

[Gold Subscrptn Chick]

Just played a Wall game without trashing. After we exhausted all Duchies there was 1 Province left. I was down 7 points, so basically I couldn't win realistically. Instead of resigning, I was forcing my opponent to get $8 and buy the last province. After like 5 turns of not even getting $6, he/she started buying cards again... I was standing pat every turn still. After the score diff got down to 4 (I had to wait for a potential win as I started first, so can't tie), I happened to buy the last Province next turn and win...

Would you have resigned or forced your opponent to win there? A win's a win for me but that felt like a lousy win.

[santamonica811]

Your gameplay was fine.  Not remotely even a close call.  This was a case of your opponent failing to understand how the Wall event works.  Or she/he knew, but forgot all about Wall in the heat of the game.

For the almost-zero cost (ie, losing a game they should have won, in a game that you guys were not playing for money), your opponent learned a valuable lesson, and now is much less likely to do that sort of brain-fart again in the future.  If you had just forfeited, you would have deprived your opponent of this important lesson.

(Of course, in games with no alternate ways of gaining or losing VP, I don't see the point of playing out a game where a player is hopelessly behind.  But that's obviously not the situation you are talking about.)

[ftl]

Nah, I kind of disagree.

The obvious optimal strategy for the other person is simply to buy nothing until they happen to luck in to and get and $8 hand with the deck they currently have.

Do you really want to encourage that play? Sitting there for shuffle after shuffle being like nope, got $7, gotta pass five more turns for my gold to come around and hopefully collide...

I don't think it was a brain-fart, it was a metagame tradeoff - they're not willing to wait for hours being bored until they get the shuffle luck they need to finish the game, so they risk losing to just get the game over with. Same kind of decision as just resigning if someone is slow-playing you at a rate of one copper per minute. There's no lesson for someone to learn here. I'd have probably done the same, and then blocked the person who did that to me.

[Gold Subscrptn Chick]

Thank you guys for your thoughts! I think however you look at it can be justified. If I were on the other side as the opponent, I would not expect a win to be handed to me via resign nor would I hold a grudge. I'd definitely appreciate a resign, but I think it's fair to be "forced to win". Not justifying my actions, that's how I'd honestly feel.

I think situations like these make Dominion interesting because such niche scenarios arise often unexpectedly, keeping the gameplay fresh.

[jsh]

Nah, I kind of disagree.

The obvious optimal strategy for the other person is simply to buy nothing until they happen to luck in to and get and $8 hand with the deck they currently have.

Do you really want to encourage that play? Sitting there for shuffle after shuffle being like nope, got $7, gotta pass five more turns for my gold to come around and hopefully collide...

I don't think it was a brain-fart, it was a metagame tradeoff - they're not willing to wait for hours being bored until they get the shuffle luck they need to finish the game, so they risk losing to just get the game over with. Same kind of decision as just resigning if someone is slow-playing you at a rate of one copper per minute. There's no lesson for someone to learn here. I'd have probably done the same, and then blocked the person who did that to me.

Lol "I don't want to play with people playing the correct strategy" in other words. If you don't like the strategies Wall encourages, just add it to your ban list. There is nothing scummy about waiting for a good hand in this situation. I would be disappointed if my opponent played poorly here.