3 Pile Win

[Wolfhere]

Once in awhile, I receive negative feedback when I win with a 3 pile elimination.  Someone even blacklisted me the other day, which I had a good laugh about.

I was wondering what people's opinions were.  As far as I'm concerned, it's as legit as a victory point win.

[josh bornstein]

What a bizarre reaction to a 3-pile ending.  I mean, the game of Dominion ends in only a few specified ways, and 3-pile is one of those few.

In poker, you can win by (1) Having the best hand, OR, (2) by bluffing a player into folding, even though she had the better hand.  The reaction you encountered is as weird as if a poker player complained after being successfully bluffed.  The only correct reaction is, of course, to say, "Nicely played.  Wanna play another game???"     

[Wolfhere]

I agree, but the number of times I've received derogatory comments in the last month made me curious what others on this forum thought.

[dane]

My guess is that you are getting those comments from players with a very low rating.  The existence of the 3-pile ending adds a lot to the richness of Dominion, for example because it sometimes allows an engine to be beaten before it can start firing.

I had one particularly crazy game that involved Advance, Border Village and something that gave +Buy.  The game didn't last very long.  My opponent was quicker to spot what was going to happen, so he won.

[vail62]

I won an engine/cursing game recently by chasing duchy's for the third pile. No one complained, and I was clearly the first to see it as an exit strategy while others kept trying to get their decks ready for provinces.

Anyone who gets upset at a third pile win shouldn't be playing dominion, imo. lol

[Ingix]

I guess when you start as a beginner, you see the Province ending as the "normal" ending and the 3-pile ending as something that ends your Witch game slogs when everybody drowns in Curses. Only later, when you learn of the power of gaining cards (if you ever reach that point) you'll see more games end on piles.

[Quori]

I'd chalk it up to new player or poor attitude. I've been flamed for similarly head scratching things too. Some people just want to play the game by their own rules, not the rules of the game.

3 pile victory is incredibly powerful and effective. Especially when kingdom cards happen to be worth VP too. Give me Islands, Distant Lands, and Nobles and I am going for the win via empty piles, not Provinces or Colonies.

[no expansions]

nothing wrong with that. as long as you win

if i'm about to win on my last turn and i have multiple buys, i would empty province or the 3rd pile, and then buy some curses just for fun

[Ingix]

My own personal pet peeve is that doing the last thing, while may be fun for you, is not fun for your opponent. You are not doing something to win the game, you are doing something that objectively (in 99.9% of case) ist a time wasting procedure. The difference is that for you it's a good time (you are winning, yay!), while for your opponent it's a bad time (they are losing). I can guarantee you that your "good time" will have the same length after you "know you win", even if you forgo the Curse buying, while your opponent can, if they want, dive right back into the next game to cut their "bad time" short.

So just take the win when you have it, buy a Curse only when it actually makes you win (I won once by 1 point from buying my 1st Curse giving me 2VP from Museum), and similarly, don't by 1 Province, 2 Duchies and 3 Estates when just the Province ends the game and wins it for you as well. Your opponent will have a slightly shorter "bad time", while you loose nothing of your good time. And you may silently thank your opponent for doing so when you are on the loosing end of a game.

[AdamH]

don't by 1 Province, 2 Duchies and 3 Estates when just the Province ends the game and wins it for you as well

I'm going to disagree with this piece of advice. It's pretty rare but it does happen that the VP counter hits you with a nasty surprise after you click "End Turn", expecting to win the game, but you could have bought some more VP somehow to win the game. When it screws me over I never see it coming, so my "best practice" is to maximize scoring VP on the last turn of the game every time just to be safe.

If your opponent is not having fun for any reason at all, they can always resign and immediately be out of the game. Nobody should ever feel bad for clicking buttons that the UI provides because this option is always available.

[josh bornstein]

I'd also disagree with just that last piece of advice, Ingix.  I cover a portion of my computer monitor's screen, so that I can't see who is winning, or by how much.  (I do this, to train my brain to keep rough track, as practice for my IRL games.)  So, while I'd never stretch out a game where I'm comfortably ahead, just to torture my opponent; if I have 18 coins and 3 buys on the last turn, I might as well get into the habit of maximizing my points that turn, by buying the last Prov and 2 more Dutchies.  (Doing so, and making these "unnecessary" 2 last buys takes literally 10 extra seconds of play time.)

[Ingix]

Obviously, when you don't (surely) know how many points you have, you don't even know if ending the game will be good for you, so of course then maximize points.

My advice was general, I've seen it happen countless times in games where all players know the point total and there were no "bite me in the back" cards like Museum and Traveller exchanges (or something similar) that could screw you over.

[AdamH]

My advice is general too. The point is, that even with the VP tracker shoved in our face, some people choose not to use it and sometimes that's not enough to know the actual VP totals at the end of the game. So the situation where you "know" the final score just isn't a thing unless you want people to brainstorm every possible way that they might get screwed over on the final turn of the game, which probably takes longer than just buying some more VP.

[dane]

My advice is general too. The point is, that even with the VP tracker shoved in our face, some people choose not to use it and sometimes that's not enough to know the actual VP totals at the end of the game. So the situation where you "know" the final score just isn't a thing unless you want people to brainstorm every possible way that they might get screwed over on the final turn of the game, which probably takes longer than just buying some more VP.

I tend to agree with this.  I've lost count of the number of games in which I've forgotten that my opponent was going to have a Fleet turn.  I don't think I've ever lost such a game because I failed to maximise my VPs on my final turn, but I treat such games as a dire warning that such a thing could happen.  Sometimes I'm confident enough of the situation to curtail my final turn, but much of the time I consider it quicker to play my turn out naturally rather than pause to work out whether I need to do so or not.

[no expansions]

My own personal pet peeve is that doing the last thing, while may be fun for you, is not fun for your opponent. You are not doing something to win the game, you are doing something that objectively (in 99.9% of case) ist a time wasting procedure. The difference is that for you it's a good time (you are winning, yay!), while for your opponent it's a bad time (they are losing). I can guarantee you that your "good time" will have the same length after you "know you win", even if you forgo the Curse buying, while your opponent can, if they want, dive right back into the next game to cut their "bad time" short.

So just take the win when you have it, buy a Curse only when it actually makes you win (I won once by 1 point from buying my 1st Curse giving me 2VP from Museum), and similarly, don't by 1 Province, 2 Duchies and 3 Estates when just the Province ends the game and wins it for you as well. Your opponent will have a slightly shorter "bad time", while you loose nothing of your good time. And you may silently thank your opponent for doing so when you are on the loosing end of a game.

does it matter in rated games how many vp you win by? or is the ranking only based on win/lose