Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Let's Discuss ... => Topic started by: faust on August 22, 2016, 06:01:03 pm

Title: Let's Discuss Landmarks: Aqueduct
Post by: faust on August 22, 2016, 06:01:03 pm
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3f/Aqueduct.jpg/800px-Aqueduct.jpg)
With Aqueduct, you get to keep 40% of your money when you buy something... wait, I must have switched my notes with some other game.

Am I the new schadd? Probably not, I'm not funny enough and look at all the Caps! Anyway someone's gotta do the dirty work.

So, Aqueduct. It's like turning every Victory card pile into a Feodum, except it's not. Imagine if the Victory pile already was Feodum to begin with! Craziness ensues. Here's that delicate decision again that's present virtually everywhere in Empires: Do I hurt my deck earlier than I want to deny my opponent the VP? At some point we're going to figure it out, and it will be glorious. You simulator geeks can get working on the question when to grab the points in a standard BM game.

We'll end on some questions because I'm not creative enough to come up with a new format:
- Will you ever choose not to gain a Silver or Gold because of this?
- Can you figure out if the effect has anything to do with an actual aqueduct? Maybe in form of fanfiction?
- Will I have the perseverance to post a new one of these each day?
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Landmarks: Aqueduct
Post by: Beyond Awesome on August 22, 2016, 07:08:09 pm
If I were to be honest, I really have no clue how Landmarks will play out or how they will effect of change strategies.

With that said, I have played with this once, I don't think it changes strategy that much, but one game really isn't much to judge off of.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Landmarks: Aqueduct
Post by: Jimmmmm on August 22, 2016, 07:11:06 pm
Quote from: Beyond Awesome on August 22, 2016, 07:08:09 pm
With that said, I have played with this once, I don't think it changes strategy that much, but one game really isn't much to judge off of.

I think, like many card-shaped things in Empires, it's much more tactical than strategic. Eg do you take an Estate for 3 VP or give your opponent the chance to take one for 4 VP?
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Landmarks: Aqueduct
Post by: trivialknot on August 22, 2016, 08:39:12 pm
Yesss, Aqueduct!  After playing a bunch of Empires, Aqueduct has become my favorite landmark, next to Defiled Shrine.

If you only read the card rules, you might think that Mountain Pass is the only landmark that sets up an auction.  Not true.  Aqueduct sets up an auction too.  Anyone wanna gain an estate for 2 VP?  No?  Let's raise it to 3 VP.  Then 4 VP, and so on.

This is basically a "dutch auction", where it starts with a high asking price, and the price is gradually lowered until someone bites.  And then once it's over, another auction starts.  But each auction has a different value, because gaining green early in the game is awful, and gaining green later on is less awful.  To play well with aqueduct, you have to have a good idea of how much green hurts you and your opponent at various points in the game.

Of course, you can also do a few cute things with gaining treasure and green on the same turn.  One time I went for Treasure Maps and bought an estate on the turn they collided.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Landmarks: Aqueduct
Post by: mameluke on August 31, 2017, 11:52:29 pm
I've been playing Empires for a while, but I guess I never had or don't remember a game where Aqueduct and Ambassador (and also Swindler) were on the board until now. I hadn't realized that you can gain the VP tokens even if it isn't your turn. I Ambassadored a few estates, and of course my opponent got the VP tokens. The game ended when my Swindler hit a Province, and my opponent took 3 VP that were sitting there before I could buy a green card as I had intended. Good thing I was already fairly far behind.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Landmarks: Aqueduct
Post by: Limetime on September 01, 2017, 11:41:09 am
Quote from: mameluke on August 31, 2017, 11:52:29 pm

Battlefield tends to be even worse