Dominion Strategy Forum

Archive => Archive => Dominion: Adventures Previews => Topic started by: theschizm on May 19, 2015, 10:33:46 am

Title: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: theschizm on May 19, 2015, 10:33:46 am
Playing an Adventures game yesterday (the recommended set Groovy Decay (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Adventures#Adventures_.26_Dark_Ages_.28Use_Shelters.29)), I managed to get a fairly early 8-coin hand, and I decided to see how Pathfinding would be on Knights - I didn't have very many action cards yet, so I thought I could start focusing heavily on Knights, having a nice extra boost on my attacker.

This was dumb.

For one, I didn't take into account that my wife could easily contest the Knights, which not only lowered my potential supply, but handily destroyed the ones I had acquired. Also, she had some crazy Rats & Ratcatcher jargle going on, and even if my Knights hit her Rats, that only helped her. In short, I made the worst possible decision of what to Pathfind (except for Ruins... or maybe it would be better on Ruins in this case if she went Cultist-heavy!). I likely would've been better served just buying a Province, or maybe even a Gold.

What other cards are usually quite stupid to Pathfind?
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: A Drowned Kernel on May 19, 2015, 10:40:01 am
Feast. Chapel. Sea Hag.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: Mr Anderson on May 19, 2015, 10:49:32 am
Maybe also Rats because you would run out of cards to trash even faster, unless you can reliably draw a Fortress, at least if your name is Lord Bottington. But still, if Rats are good, you eventually stop playing them (Scrying Pool, Vineyard) or you will trash them, so you will not get enough out of the extra draw.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: tailred on May 19, 2015, 10:51:22 am
Feast. Chapel. Sea Hag.
Pillage, Forge, Saboteur?
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: Mic Qsenoch on May 19, 2015, 10:54:21 am
Maybe also Rats because you would run out of cards to trash even faster, unless you can reliably draw a Fortress, at least if your name is Lord Bottington. But still, if Rats are good, you eventually stop playing them (Scrying Pool, Vineyard) or you will trash them, so you will not get enough out of the extra draw.

Rats is easily the best target for Pathfinding on that board, just because of Fortress.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: Awaclus on May 19, 2015, 10:57:34 am
Library.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: drsteelhammer on May 19, 2015, 11:01:11 am
Library.

That is actually the first one where it is actually useless
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: Awaclus on May 19, 2015, 11:04:57 am
Library.

That is actually the first one where it is actually useless

It's worse than useless, you can't set the Pathfinding +card aside if it's an Action (even if it's not).
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: tailred on May 19, 2015, 11:14:34 am
Also, Tactician.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: Jimmmmm on May 19, 2015, 11:16:21 am
Also, Tactician.

This would be slightly useful - unless your deck runs out you wouldn't need to worry about saving a card to discard.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: Gherald on May 19, 2015, 11:22:42 am
Or KC it to start your next hand with +15 cards, +3 buys, +3 actions
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: Haddock on May 19, 2015, 11:30:00 am
Or KC it to start your next hand with +15 cards, +3 buys, +3 actions
OK, that's just disgusting. :)
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: gkrieg13 on May 19, 2015, 11:41:26 am
I played this one with my wife last night.  We both went for fortress and both set the pathfinding token on that.  That really makes you not go for knights because every time you hit a fortress, they get a lost city put into their hand.  It also worked really well with transmogrify because you could trash a fortress, gain a fortress and then you had two of them in your hand.  Needless to say the fortress pile ran out really quickly.  Really fun set!
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: belugawhale on May 19, 2015, 02:50:03 pm
Hireling, Prince, Embargo, all one-shots basically
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: drsteelhammer on May 19, 2015, 07:59:30 pm
So does kc tactician with pathfinder really work? If so, I'm pretty sure this would be bad haha
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: eHalcyon on May 19, 2015, 09:31:53 pm
So does kc tactician with pathfinder really work? If so, I'm pretty sure this would be bad haha

It actually works.  Whether it's worth doing, I have no idea.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: Gherald on May 20, 2015, 03:54:10 am
In general you can find a better target for pathfinding (any cantrip or village you want lots of, typically) so it will rarely be worth doing

But the most likely scenario is one where Tactician is the only +Buy on the board.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: drsteelhammer on May 20, 2015, 06:54:15 am
I'd do it anyway just to have a 20cards hand once
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: enfynet on May 20, 2015, 09:06:02 am
I'd do it anyway just to have a 20cards hand once
I put my +Action token on Haunted Woods and started a few turns with 14-20 cards.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: Minotaur on June 13, 2015, 03:00:50 am
+1 card tends to be really good on $2 cantrips, especially if you can get some +buy.  Without +buy, I'd expect $4-$5 cost to be more ideal.  Grand Market is really powerful with +1 card as well, letting you BUY ALL THE THINGS.

On the opposite end, we have Expand, Forge, and King's Court.  Is it really worth giving +1 Card to a card you can hardly afford to buy more than one of?  Probably not.

I can't really think of situations where you'd really want to put +1 card on a terminal.  I'm sure I'm forgetting something.  There's Nobles, and that could be really fun, but that's only terminal when you want it to be.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: GendoIkari on June 13, 2015, 10:02:19 am
In general you can find a better target for pathfinding (any cantrip or village you want lots of, typically) so it will rarely be worth doing

But the most likely scenario is one where Tactician is the only +Buy on the board.

Or if it's the only "village" on the board.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: Awaclus on June 13, 2015, 10:11:02 am
In general you can find a better target for pathfinding (any cantrip or village you want lots of, typically) so it will rarely be worth doing

But the most likely scenario is one where Tactician is the only +Buy on the board.

Or if it's the only "village" on the board.

It's not, because KC is already there.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: GendoIkari on June 13, 2015, 10:17:49 am
In general you can find a better target for pathfinding (any cantrip or village you want lots of, typically) so it will rarely be worth doing

But the most likely scenario is one where Tactician is the only +Buy on the board.

Or if it's the only "village" on the board.

It's not, because KC is already there.

Not necessarily, all other cards could be terminal.

Ok, I suppose even in that situation you could argue that KC acts as a Village...
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: Kirian on June 13, 2015, 11:55:48 am
In general you can find a better target for pathfinding (any cantrip or village you want lots of, typically) so it will rarely be worth doing

But the most likely scenario is one where Tactician is the only +Buy on the board.

Or if it's the only "village" on the board.

It's not, because KC is already there.

Not necessarily, all other cards could be terminal.

Ok, I suppose even in that situation you could argue that KC acts as a Village...

If any of the other cards can draw, then KC-KC-Draw sets off a chain that might not need +Actions.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: Awaclus on June 13, 2015, 12:04:36 pm
In general you can find a better target for pathfinding (any cantrip or village you want lots of, typically) so it will rarely be worth doing

But the most likely scenario is one where Tactician is the only +Buy on the board.

Or if it's the only "village" on the board.

It's not, because KC is already there.

Not necessarily, all other cards could be terminal.

Ok, I suppose even in that situation you could argue that KC acts as a Village...

If any of the other cards can draw, then KC-KC-Draw sets off a chain that might not need +Actions.

And there's Pathfinding which means that even KC itself can draw.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: GendoIkari on June 13, 2015, 12:36:35 pm
Ok, but it's not that hard to think of boards where the best way to get multiple Goons into play consistently is Pathfinding on Tactician with KC-Tactician (or TR-Tactician).
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: Awaclus on June 13, 2015, 12:41:28 pm
Ok, but it's not that hard to think of boards where the best way to get multiple Goons into play consistently is Pathfinding on Tactician with KC-Tactician (or TR-Tactician).

It's not hard to think of them, but you'll probably never see one in full random. It's already extremely rare to see three specific cards in a kingdom in full random, and then we still need a specific event and some extra conditions that need to be true.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: nate_w on June 13, 2015, 02:32:23 pm
Ok, but it's not that hard to think of boards where the best way to get multiple Goons into play consistently is Pathfinding on Tactician with KC-Tactician (or TR-Tactician).

It's not hard to think of them, but you'll probably never see one in full random. It's already extremely rare to see three specific cards in a kingdom in full random, and then we still need a specific event and some extra conditions that need to be true.

I'm mildly drunk on a European vacation right now (thank god I'm missing the MF online dominion drama), and so maybe I missed a point you made. And I don't really know or understand the adventures cards/events, so I am talking outside of my comfort zone here. But isn't the combo being discussed here significantly more likely than you make it seem?

You need tactician and path finding on the same board, with one of: procession, throne room, KC, or any othe adventure cards I haven't played with that have similar effect and you essentially are starting each hand with 15-20 cards and 3-4 actions/buys. Because you can play tactician multiple times for multiple effect if you draw a card first, right?  This seems both pretty sweet and not unbelievably improbable?
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: Awaclus on June 13, 2015, 02:53:01 pm
Ok, but it's not that hard to think of boards where the best way to get multiple Goons into play consistently is Pathfinding on Tactician with KC-Tactician (or TR-Tactician).

It's not hard to think of them, but you'll probably never see one in full random. It's already extremely rare to see three specific cards in a kingdom in full random, and then we still need a specific event and some extra conditions that need to be true.

I'm mildly drunk on a European vacation right now (thank god I'm missing the MF online dominion drama), and so maybe I missed a point you made. And I don't really know or understand the adventures cards/events, so I am talking outside of my comfort zone here. But isn't the combo being discussed here significantly more likely than you make it seem?

You need tactician and path finding on the same board, with one of: procession, throne room, KC, or any othe adventure cards I haven't played with that have similar effect and you essentially are starting each hand with 15-20 cards and 3-4 actions/buys. Because you can play tactician multiple times for multiple effect if you draw a card first, right?  This seems both pretty sweet and not unbelievably improbable?

Boards where the best way to get multiple Goons into play consistently is Pathfinding on Tactician with KC-Tactician requires Goons, Pathfinding, Tactician and KC. It's not unbelievably improbable, but KC, Tactician and Goons on the same board is already something you'd expect to see maybe every 1500 games or so.
Title: Re: Don't Use Pathfinding on Knights
Post by: nate_w on June 13, 2015, 03:50:58 pm
Right, sorry. Again this bottle of wine is quite helping my mood but perhaps not my communication skills. 

Yes, I agree that pathfinding/tact/goons/throne room variant is not common enough to discuss. I was trying to step back one card (as this topic was focusing on pathfinding, and the sub thread was focused on tact+Pathfinding) and suggest that pathfinding on tactician could be interesting in the presence of a throne room variant in a number of settings, goons being one of many. 

My only point was supposed to be that pathfinding allows tactician to fire multiple times (I think?) in the presence of pathfinding, and so throne room variants, which usually do nothing to tact, appear to me to work. Well that just seems fun!

Sorry if I miscommunicated earlier, gov.