Cartographer's 4-card discard reach is second only to EmbassyWarehouse looks at 7 cards, young witch, inn, and vault 6, navigator, hamlet, and oasis 5. Anything that discards from your hand (secret chamber, cellar, horse traders, minion, tactician) can look at at least 4, more if you add in any non-terminal draw. So 4 is decent, but not spectacular reach.
Adding single Navigator is a big improvement - Cartographer/Navigator/Tunnel handily beats Smithy-BM and Envoy-BM.
Adding Harvest, on the other hand, loses to straight Cartographer/Tunnel. Not sure why this is.
<player name="Cartographer/X/Tunnel"
author="mischiefmaker"
description="A template for testing how well other cards play with the Cartographer/Tunnel combo.">
<type name="UserCreated"/>
<type name="BigMoney"/>
<type name="Bot"/>
<type name="TwoPlayer"/>
<type name="Combo"/>
<type name="Province"/>
<type name="Competitive"/>
<buy name="Province"/>
<buy name="Duchy">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Tunnel">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="3.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Estate">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Harvest">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Harvest"/>
<operator type="equalTo" />
<right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Cartographer">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Cartographer"/>
<operator type="equalTo" />
<right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Tunnel">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Cartographer"/>
<operator type="greaterThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
</condition>
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Tunnel"/>
<operator type="equalTo" />
<right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Cartographer">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Cartographer"/>
<operator type="smallerThan" />
<right type="countAllCardsInDeck"/>
<extra_operation type="divideBy" attribute="5.0" />
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Tunnel">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Cartographer"/>
<operator type="greaterThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Gold"/>
<buy name="Silver"/>
</player>
From my experience only YW, Warehouse and Embassy are powerhouses with Tunnel.
With all the cards below them, other strategies that may be available on the same board may become more dominant.
Cartographer + Tunnel is decent, but not overwhelming.
| Card | Pool |
| Embassy | 9 |
| Warehouse | 7 |
| Young Witch | 6 |
| Vault | 6 |
| Inn | 6 |
| Hamlet | 5 |
| Horse Traders (attacked) | 5 |
| Oasis | 5 |
| Navigator | 5 |
| Harvest | 4 |
| Tactician | 4 |
| Cellar | 4 |
| Secret Chamber | 4 |
| Minion | 4 |
| Horse Traders (unattacked) | 4 |
| Cartographer | 4 |
| Lookout | 3 |
| Oracle | 2 |
| Spy | 1 |
| Scrying Pool | 1 |
| Duchess | 1 |
| Card | First play | Additional plays |
| Embassy | 9 | 0 |
| Warehouse | 7 | 3 |
| Young Witch | 6 | 0 |
| Inn | 6 | 2 |
| Vault | 6 | 0 |
| Hamlet | 5 | 1 |
| Oasis | 5 | 1 |
| Horse Traders (attacked) | 5 | 0 |
| Navigator | 5 | 0 |
| Cartographer | 4 | 4 |
| Minion | 4 | 3 |
| Cellar | 4 | 3, 2, ... |
| Harvest | 4 | 0 |
| Tactician | 4 | 0 |
| Secret Chamber (unattacked) | 4 | 0 |
| Horse Traders (unattacked) | 4 | 0 |
| Lookout | 3 | 2 |
| Oracle | 2 | 0 |
| Spy | 1 | 1 |
| Scrying Pool | 1 | 1 |
| Duchess | 1 | 0 |
| Jack of all Trades | 1 | 0 |
Nice work on the table! I think an additional column might be interesting:
Card First play Additional plays Embassy 9 0 Warehouse 7 6, 5, 4, ... Young Witch 6 0 Inn 6 5, 4, 3, ... Vault 6 0 Hamlet 5 5 Oasis 5 4, 3, 2, ... Horse Traders (attacked) 5 0 Navigator 5 0 Cartographer 4 4 Minion 4 3 Cellar 4 3, 2, ... Harvest 4 0 Tactician 4 0 Secret Chamber 4 0 Horse Traders (unattacked) 4 0 Lookout 3 3 Oracle 2 0 Spy 1 1 Scrying Pool 1 1 Duchess 1 0
Obviously this is not the final word in how good each enabler is, since the cards actually, you know, DO something besides enable Tunnel, but it may be helpful in thinking about, for instance, why Cartographer/Tunnel is better than Vault/Tunnel, even though Vault has a bigger pool size AND is generally a better card.
I don't personally think that a draw engine using only Embassy as the terminal drawer is a good idea. Note that Embassy only increases your net handsize by 1, and that each purchase of Embassy generally helps your opponent's deck as well.
But 1) silver's usefulness is highly game dependent, and if he's mirroring you (or doing nearly any engine) its not that good at all.
and 2) Engines are often, though not always, more concerned with what cards get into your hand, not how many. In this respects embassy can be a very elite drawer. Village-embassy-bridge combos are probably more viable than village-smithy-bridge.
Obviously this is not the final word in how good each enabler is, since the cards actually, you know, DO something besides enable Tunnel, but it may be helpful in thinking about, for instance, why Cartographer/Tunnel is better than Vault/Tunnel, even though Vault has a bigger pool size AND is generally a better card.
I spent some time playing around with the simulator before making that claim, because it certainly doesn't seem intuitive, for the reasons that you state. Best I've been able to do so far is a 49-47 split in favor of Cartographer/Tunnel, which I suppose makes it a bit hyperbolic to say that Cartographer/Tunnel is "better", but my intuitive sense from tweaking the bots is that it's also easier to play Cartographer/Tunnel well (a naive bot that just opens Silver/Silver, buys Cartographer, then buys Tunnel, then buys Province/Cartographer/Tunnel + some endgame VP, does almost as well as the tweaked bot).
I suspect what you are seeing is that in solitaire, you have no competition for the Provinces, so you can get them more quickly with Vault/Tunnel. But in real games, you'll find that Vault/Tunnel stalls more quickly, especially once you start getting some Duchies. Cartographer/Tunnel has less of a problem with this, because you can't really overstuff your deck with Cartographers, whereas you can have too many Vaults.
* my usual disclaimer applies: I'm not that great at optimizing the bots, so folks are welcome to try and do better.
I think the way to analyze vault/tunnel, is that you get to reveal a tunnel from 6 cards not including the vault. You opponent gets to reveal a tunnel from his hand of 5 cards. So that's only a net difference of 1 card. So gaining gold is great using the vault when playing solitaire, but not so great if you opponent is also buying tunnels.
The cartographer/tunnel deck should have a higher density of gold. However the vault/tunnel deck has an easier time buying provinces. This might be what we are seeing in the sims. Or the sims might have a bug in them.
My instincts suggest those would be the optimal approaches, but I could be wrong. Tunnel is complicated, of course, because of its VP value, and there'll be turn by turn assessments as to whether it helps or not.
My instincts suggest those would be the optimal approaches, but I could be wrong. Tunnel is complicated, of course, because of its VP value, and there'll be turn by turn assessments as to whether it helps or not.
Just for fun, I simulated both those strategies on Dominiate, and both did quite well. Vault-Tunnel beat Cartographer-Tunnel 58% of the time, even with the latter taking full advantage of Vault's side effect of allowing one's opponent to discard.
Oh! Does that mean Vault-Tunnel is actually better then?