Gardens Strategies (ft. Workshop)

Gardens deserves a post of its own because the strategies that focus on it use completely different tactics than what you would see in a game without Gardens. In this post, I'll also cover Workshop because of how it interacts with Gardens.

Gardens

Copyright 2013 M. Stith

A Gardens strategy focuses on getting lots of Gardens and lots of cards. To do this, you need a cheap source of +buy like Woodcutter, or a card like Thief that lets you gain more cards. Deck efficiency goes out the window -- buy Estates, buy Coppers, buy terminals, buy as many cards as you can!

You can end the game quickly by depleting three supply piles¹. You should aim to deplete the supply of Gardens, the supply of Estates, and the supply of a cheap action card that is useful to you in high numbers.

Workshop

Copyright 2013 M. Stith

In my experience, a well-played combination of Gardens and Workshops is unbeatable when you play with just the basic set. When you see Workshop and Gardens in the supply, immediately execute the following strategy...

1. Get two Workshops as quickly as possible² (if you can't afford a Workshop, buy an Estate that turn).
2. Gain/buy cards with the following priority: Gardens > Workshops > Estates² > Coppers².

The Workshops will almost double the rate that you get cards, increasing the value of Gardens. You will deplete the Gardens, Workshop, and Estate piles², and you or someone else who used this strategy will win.

Workshop has uses outside of Gardens strategies, of course. If you want a big deck, you can use a Workshop to get you several Silver cards over the course of the game. If you plan to use a lot of terminals, you can use Workshop to get some supportive Villages.

Workshop's main weakness is that it doesn't contribute to large buys like Provinces -- it just gives you something useful for later. To be fair, I've bought Provinces just with Silver I got from playing my Workshop every time I drew it.

References...

1 Dominion Game Manual (2008). Dominion. Rio Grande Games, Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

2 Kirkwb. (2011, Oct 19). Beginners’ Guide: Dominion. Retrieved from http://www.gamehead.com/article/1271/dominion