Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Jeebus on November 29, 2017, 04:13:09 pm
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There are many cards in Empires I play less than optimally, but there are a few I don't get at all. ...Actually, Annex is the only real puzzler.
I have seen someone buy Annex exactly once. It was end game and he had $7. In that situation, if you would buy the Duchy anyway, I get it - given that you have good cards in your discard pile of course. And you really have to think it helps you to get those cards into your deck, because you're potentially making your next turn $7 instead of $8, which could lose you the game. If you have less than $7, you're hurting your next turn even more. So the situation where you should buy Annex seems very rare. Is there something I'm not seeing, some other use for it?
Triumph also seems very limited. I have seen Triumph used like two times, but then it was to very good effect. Also, that was in two different games. So Triumph was good overall in those games, not just once in a game like Annex.
The other one is Ritual. I get the concept here I think. Trash high cost cards, get VP, then trash the Curses later. The other more rare case would be in the endgame, you buy it if you have exactly $7 to trash a gold for 6 VP and a Curse, or if you have $4 and some other expensive card. But I have still not experienced anybody ever buying it I think. (Unlike Defiled Shrine, you have to trash a good card, and it costs $4 instead of $0.)
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Annex is bad. Triumph is actually really good. You need to get lots of buys and gains, but when you do, you can get a lot of points from it. Ritual needs two things going for it. One, the game can't have another curser or the curser must be weak. 2, you need a gold gainer. Essentially, you turn golds into points. At least, that's the best use I have for Ritual. Overall, though, Ritual's uses are pretty niche.
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Annex is real bad. Ritual is ok in the right deck, but usually it's bad. Still, extra VP is extra VP, which may give you extra time to build. Triump I think you are greatly underestimating. It's occasionally amazing, but often at least decent. It's not hard to make it worth 3-4 points, and if you are drawing your deck you can usually kill the estate(s) next turn. And in engine games with a lot of +buy, it puts a lot of pressure on potential pile-outs because you can just scoop up a huge number of points on the last turn.
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I'm just waiting for someone to say that these are actually Empires card shaped things you still don't get. ::)
I'm no expert, but I've used both triumph and ritual quite a bit. Annex though....wow. Not only is it bad, but the way it's worded makes me have to think really hard about what it's actually doing to my deck.
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Annex is a free 3VP for the player who ends the game with an extra buy, so it changes the endgame math slightly.
I've also used it once or twice in a really awful kingdom where terminal draw + money seemed like the best strategy. TD+BM suffers badly from greening, and if it's going to take three turns between shuffles, buying Annex just before a shuffle can turn the next shuffle from Duchy/Duchy/Duchy to Debt+Duchy/Province/Province. Kingdoms that bad are pretty rare, though. And it may be that I'm just not good at money kingdoms. I should probably buy more Gold and green slightly later.
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With Scout gone, we need a new thread devoted to wins depending on Annex...
And I have one! A slog board, no trashing and yes Familiar. I got a Fortune while my opponent just went for Provinces. I was playing from behind, then I decided I wanted to see my Fortune again soon, so I Annexed to get it back in my deck. Managed to put together a solid enough turn to get the win.
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Annex is bad. Triumph is actually really good. You need to get lots of buys and gains, but when you do, you can get a lot of points from it. Ritual needs two things going for it. One, the game can't have another curser or the curser must be weak. 2, you need a gold gainer. Essentially, you turn golds into points. At least, that's the best use I have for Ritual. Overall, though, Ritual's uses are pretty niche.
Once I got completely owned by someone using Ritual like this.
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I used Ritual on Peddler once, that was nice. You just have to remember not to play any Peddlers when you decide to sac one, or it's terrible.
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Ritual seems to be crying out for a golden deck, and that's the only way I've ever used it. (I don't think I've ever seen an opponent use it.)
In my case, I did a cute Ritual/Rats trick. Every turn, play Rats, trash Curse, gain Rats, play four Copper, buy Ritual, gain Curse, trash Rats, gain 4VP. It's really quick to get off the ground and not trivial for opponents to overtake.
I can see plenty of other tricks, though, including gain-from-trash and everything that gains expensive non-victory cards cheaply.
Broadly, I suspect it works in much the same way, in much the same decks, as Bishop. You have to spend $4 every time rather than just once, but you get twice the VP yield.
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Triumph is actually really good. You need to get lots of buys and gains, but when you do, you can get a lot of points from it.
There was that one game where I emptied the Grand Markets and picked up some Peddlers and Estates one turn, played Outpost then emptied the Estates and Peddlers on my second turn for a three-pile ending.
I won because I managed to go off before anyone had a second Province; if Triumph had been available, I could have used that strategy against someone who already had several Colonies.
Having remarked that Ritual works like Bishop, I'll say Triumph works like Goons.
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Remember that Triumph is a Duchy for just 5 debt if you've gained at least one other card this turn. It gets much better than that when you've gained a bunch of cards...
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With trashers to get rid of the curses and an extra buy Ritual is great for trashing Colonies, Provinces, and late game Platinums for VP tokens. In particular, removing green cards from your deck without losing VP.
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One issue with late-game Rituals is that the Curses may have run out.
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Remember that Triumph is a Duchy for just 5 debt if you've gained at least one other card this turn. It gets much better than that when you've gained a bunch of cards...
But how often is that relevant (that Triumph is a Duchy for 5 Debt if you've gained at least one other card this turn)? Usually when you want a Duchy, you'd rather have a Province. Giving yourself Debt in that situation is usually not smart.
If you've gained a bunch of cards, that usually means you're building. Giving yourself Debt and an Estate in the same turn is usually not smart either. I guess you could time it so that you're done building and can start greening on that same turn. The other possibility is that you're just gaining a lot of crap in order to cap it off with a Triumph. But then, you'd better end the game too, right? So Triumph is mostly good when you can end the game with it? I know there are some other circumstances when it can be great, but they are pretty rare I think.
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I don't know about you, but I got all the Empires cards. They were in the box neatly packaged in plastic wrap too!
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Remember that Triumph is a Duchy for just 5 debt if you've gained at least one other card this turn. It gets much better than that when you've gained a bunch of cards...
But how often is that relevant (that Triumph is a Duchy for 5 Debt if you've gained at least one other card this turn)? Usually when you want a Duchy, you'd rather have a Province. Giving yourself Debt in that situation is usually not smart.
If you've gained a bunch of cards, that usually means you're building. Giving yourself Debt and an Estate in the same turn is usually not smart either. I guess you could time it so that you're done building and can start greening on that same turn. The other possibility is that you're just gaining a lot of crap in order to cap it off with a Triumph. But then, you'd better end the game too, right? So Triumph is mostly good when you can end the game with it? I know there are some other circumstances when it can be great, but they are pretty rare I think.
It is fairly common to be able to get 3+ vp and an estate out of triumph without going out of your way to do it. This makes it 4 points, add one card to your deck, and only pay 5 debt. As comparisons, Fairgrounds is good, even if it is worth 4 at the end of the game. Distant lands is good, and it is most likely worth 4 vp, and it costs 5. Sure seems like 5 debt for 4 vp is better that $5 for a card that will probably be worth 4. Plus, triumph can easily go past 4vp.
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When Triumph is in the kingdom, it is usually correct to never buy Provinces. That's how good Triumph is.
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I just played a sloggy moneyish game with Treasure Trove and Triumph which was pretty cool, picked up some 4vp Triumphs and a 6vp one when two Troves collided. I then dudded about 4 turns in a row and lost, but that's how those games go I suppose.
I suggest playing some games against Lord Rat to see how good Triumph can be uncontested, it doesn't take much to make it worth 6vp+.
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It is fairly common to be able to get 3+ vp and an estate out of triumph without going out of your way to do it. This makes it 4 points, add one card to your deck, and only pay 5 debt. As comparisons, Fairgrounds is good, even if it is worth 4 at the end of the game. Distant lands is good, and it is most likely worth 4 vp, and it costs 5. Sure seems like 5 debt for 4 vp is better that $5 for a card that will probably be worth 4. Plus, triumph can easily go past 4vp.
But Fairgrounds for 4 VP is usually good when you get $6 and you would rather have a Province. Again, do you want to put yourself in debt in that situation? Distant Lands is good because you get it out of your deck, unlike the Estate from Triumph. And to be able to get Triumph up to 3 VP (plus Estate), you have to gain two cards. Either they're good cards, but then why aren't you buying a Province instead for that money, or they're junk, in which case you're junking yourself with 3 cards, so much worse than Distant Lands.
Again, I see that there are some cases when you can gain a lot of cantrips, or even a lot of better cards with cost reduction, and then get Triumph for a lot of VP. And also there are cases where you can end the game with a Triumph so junk doesn't matter. But it seems like you're trying to generelize it beyond those cases.
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With trashers to get rid of the curses and an extra buy Ritual is great for trashing Colonies, Provinces, and late game Platinums for VP tokens. In particular, removing green cards from your deck without losing VP.
This is only really true if you're certain to dump the Curses every turn. Turning a Province into a Curse with Ritual is like paying $4 for 1 VP, unless you're certain you can get rid of the Curse ASAP. And even then, Ritual might be better used on other cards if you no longer need those cards to draw your deck.
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I'm also one who struggles to see why Triumph is so good. It seems like you need a lot of things in place for it to work. You need a deck that can gain a bunch of cards in a single turn, and then you need to deal with the Estate. I doesn't seem like something that's always going to be good.
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I'm also one who struggles to see why Triumph is so good. It seems like you need a lot of things in place for it to work. You need a deck that can gain a bunch of cards in a single turn, and then you need to deal with the Estate. I doesn't seem like something that's always going to be good.
There's an Article in the Articles subforum you can check out.
Triumph is really, really strong in the presence of lots of gainers. You basically cannot ignore it when it's relevant.
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Triumph heavily rewards extra gains / buys, in a few ways. There’s a few main ways it helps.
One of the most common ways it impacts the game in a heavy engine board is that basically it almost guarantees a win if you can pile out. As long as you have an extra buy, you just get Triumph after piling out and the VP you gain will likely set you over the top. In these games you might not get around to buying it regularly or whatever but it’s very impactful as you have to constantly play around the opponent getting 5+ VP virtually for free if they can end the game.
Less common but very potent if relevant are the games where you buy Triumph multiple times. Maybe your engine has a “mega-turn” or two where you got several components, so you squeeze a Triumph buy or two in (remember, you can buy it more than once a turn!) in order to add 10+ VP to your score. There’s the obviously bonkers Watchtower games where you buy and trash a billion Copper and Triumph to green. All sorts of situational and opportunistic times to buy Triumph exist.
Plus even in weaker Triumph games, you only need to gain... one other card, for it to be basically strictly better than Duchy, and you usually are able to do that. Not to mention the points are not tied to keeping the Estate at all, so you’re free to rid yourself of that every turn if you’re doing any extended Triumph points farming. Really the presence of an Estate in your deck is the least important thing about Triumph - it’s just never really an issue.
I think the naive way to look at Triumph is to compare it to the amount of points Province buys you, to assume that debt and coin are comparable costs, and to assume you only buy one Triumph a turn so that “each triumph needs 4 gains to be good!”. All of this is wrong. Triumph is good because it’s acfessible, it rewards what you already should be doing, and it gives an enormous boost to those with good buys / pile control. It’s a game changing card and one of the best events in Dominion.
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To take an extreme case, if you have $10 to spend and lots of buys on your last turn, ten Coppers and three Triumphs is 38VP. That's a lot better than most ways of buying VP with $10.
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I read the Triumph article, but I can't see that it addresses what I wrote.
(1) Plus even in weaker Triumph games, you only need to gain... one other card, for it to be basically strictly better than Duchy, and you usually are able to do that.
(2) Not to mention the points are not tied to keeping the Estate at all, so you’re free to rid yourself of that every turn if you’re doing any extended Triumph points farming. Really the presence of an Estate in your deck is the least important thing about Triumph - it’s just never really an issue.
Numbers added by me.
Not both of those are true at the same time though. If you rid yourself of the Estate, the Triumph was not strictly better than Duchy. It was $5 for 2 VP, although you paid those $5 over 2 turns.
But anyway, it's exactly this kind of situation that I don't get, when you only gain a few cards and then buy Triumph midgame. People keep saying this is good, but I just don't see it. As I said before, when do you want a Duchy after having gained two cards, leaving yourself in debt so that you impede continued building next turn? Well, I guess if you gained two cards and your deck is already drawing itself and you can trash the Estate later, it's 3 VP for $5 without adding a card to your deck long term. But if your deck works that great, maybe you would rather save that $5 for something like buying a Province. Sure, it leaves a dead card in your deck, but it's 6 VP for $8.
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Not both of those are true at the same time though. If you rid yourself of the Estate, the Triumph was not strictly better than Duchy. It was $5 for 2 VP, although you paid those $5 over 2 turns.
But if you trash the Duchy then it was $5 for 0 VP, so it's still strictly better in this situation. You can't really compare trashing it to not trashing it like that. The only ways it's not strictly better that I can think of is when the cost of the card matters, cost reduction or Goons type triggers. It's also important to note that this is pretty much the floor on Triumph.
In the midgame situation Triumph is kind of like Distant lands where you can start to green without hurting your deck too much but you have to trash the Estate rather than playing the Distant lands.
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Not both of those are true at the same time though. If you rid yourself of the Estate, the Triumph was not strictly better than Duchy. It was $5 for 2 VP, although you paid those $5 over 2 turns.
But if you trash the Duchy then it was $5 for 0 VP, so it's still strictly better in this situation. You can't really compare trashing it to not trashing it like that. The only ways it's not strictly better that I can think of is when the cost of the card matters, cost reduction or Goons type triggers. It's also important to note that this is pretty much the floor on Triumph.
In the midgame situation Triumph is kind of like Distant lands where you can start to green without hurting your deck too much but you have to trash the Estate rather than playing the Distant lands.
Yes, you're right. That was a faulty statement from me. It's strictly better than a Duchy. But it's still $5 for 2 VP and having to trash a card, so it's pretty bad. Distant Lands on the other hand is $5 for 4 VP, although you have to pay it all upfront and it's terminal while some trashers might not be.
I'm still not getting it, for all the reasons I wrote.
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Not both of those are true at the same time though. If you rid yourself of the Estate, the Triumph was not strictly better than Duchy. It was $5 for 2 VP, although you paid those $5 over 2 turns.
But if you trash the Duchy then it was $5 for 0 VP, so it's still strictly better in this situation. You can't really compare trashing it to not trashing it like that. The only ways it's not strictly better that I can think of is when the cost of the card matters, cost reduction or Goons type triggers. It's also important to note that this is pretty much the floor on Triumph.
In the midgame situation Triumph is kind of like Distant lands where you can start to green without hurting your deck too much but you have to trash the Estate rather than playing the Distant lands.
Yes, you're right. That was a faulty statement from me. It's strictly better than a Duchy. But it's still $5 for 2 VP and having to trash a card, so it's pretty bad. Distant Lands on the other hand is $5 for 4 VP, although you have to pay it all upfront and it's terminal while some trashers might not be.
I'm still not getting it, for all the reasons I wrote.
Like I said, it's important to note that this is one of the worst cases for Triumph. It needs a little bit of support but it's not uncommon to be able to get 3VP+ Triumphs, at which point the comparison to Distant Lands starts looking okay. I don't think anyone is saying that 2 VP Triumph is very good, just that in it's worst case it's still pretty much better than Duchy.
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But anyway, it's exactly this kind of situation that I don't get, when you only gain a few cards and then buy Triumph midgame. People keep saying this is good, but I just don't see it. As I said before, when do you want a Duchy after having gained two cards, leaving yourself in debt so that you impede continued building next turn?
Why do you keep assuming that you're in debt after buying Triumph? You can pay off the debt the turn you buy it if it's important to to avoid debt. Also, I'm not sure if anyone is recommending regularly buying Triumph in the midgame.
In an engine with plentiful +buy, it's usually going to pay to keep building and not slow down for Triumphs midgame. I would usually only buy Triumph if I could threaten to end the game on the following turn. Triumph is the dominant way to get VP on these boards. Buying Provinces can't compete.
In an engine with limited gaining, Triumph needs to be evaluated against the other VP options. It's conceivable that there are some boards where it can make sense to use Triumph in a similar manner to Distant Lands (e.g. Bandit Camp draw engine without +buys, with trashing), but I don't expect these boards to be common.
In moneyish games, Province is almost certainly going to be worth more points than Triumph, but it isn't uncommon for Triumph to be better than a Duchy. If there's any gaining (e.g. Treasure Trove, Bandit, Jester, Butcher, Transmogrify, Magpie), you gain at least 3 VP from a Triumph buy, and you can even afford it if you have < $5. Triumph isn't a superstar in these games, but it's still more valuable than most Alt VP.
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But anyway, it's exactly this kind of situation that I don't get, when you only gain a few cards and then buy Triumph midgame. People keep saying this is good, but I just don't see it. As I said before, when do you want a Duchy after having gained two cards, leaving yourself in debt so that you impede continued building next turn?
Why do you keep assuming that you're in debt after buying Triumph? You can pay off the debt the turn you buy it if it's important to to avoid debt. Also, I'm not sure if anyone is recommending regularly buying Triumph in the midgame.
Well, for one, that's the only way it's strictly better than Duchy if you gain 1 card, which someone said. Second, to gain 2 or more cards and then go for Triumph midgame, I assume the most common scenario would be to take some of it as debt.
Yes, people were talking about Triumph being good midgame, better than Distant Lands etc. What can I say, go check.
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But anyway, it's exactly this kind of situation that I don't get, when you only gain a few cards and then buy Triumph midgame. People keep saying this is good, but I just don't see it. As I said before, when do you want a Duchy after having gained two cards, leaving yourself in debt so that you impede continued building next turn?
Why do you keep assuming that you're in debt after buying Triumph? You can pay off the debt the turn you buy it if it's important to to avoid debt. Also, I'm not sure if anyone is recommending regularly buying Triumph in the midgame.
Well, for one, that's the only way it's strictly better than Duchy if you gain 1 card, which someone said. Second, to gain 2 or more cards and then go for Triumph midgame, I assume the most common scenario would be to take some of it as debt.
Yes, people were talking about Triumph being good midgame, better than Distant Lands etc. What can I say, go check.
I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who mentioned distant lands, and I didn't actually say anything about mid-game. I'm just saying the point total compares favorably in many games. I'm not even saying that it is better than distant lands (although I'm not sure that it isn't) I was just comparing it to an alt VP that is considered very good.
I do occasionally like to buy it mid game though, if I have tons of gains in a turn via Ironworks, magpie, etc. But usually I agree with you that it isn't worth it to sacrifice your next turn by having debt.
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Not both of those are true at the same time though. If you rid yourself of the Estate, the Triumph was not strictly better than Duchy. It was $5 for 2 VP, although you paid those $5 over 2 turns.
But if you trash the Duchy then it was $5 for 0 VP, so it's still strictly better in this situation. You can't really compare trashing it to not trashing it like that. The only ways it's not strictly better that I can think of is when the cost of the card matters, cost reduction or Goons type triggers. It's also important to note that this is pretty much the floor on Triumph.
In the midgame situation Triumph is kind of like Distant lands where you can start to green without hurting your deck too much but you have to trash the Estate rather than playing the Distant lands.
Yes, you're right. That was a faulty statement from me. It's strictly better than a Duchy. But it's still $5 for 2 VP and having to trash a card, so it's pretty bad. Distant Lands on the other hand is $5 for 4 VP, although you have to pay it all upfront and it's terminal while some trashers might not be.
I'm still not getting it, for all the reasons I wrote.
Okay, it is fairly rare in a standard engine deck that you gain only 1 (other) card and then buy Triumph, sure. It’s not something you just casually do all the time. That is a really narrow case provided only for example to show how little Triumph has to do to be better than the gold-standard of non-Province VP, and isn’t itself a strategy. What it does show is that just getting a couple of gains allows you the flexibility of either scoring while building, or threatening a megaturn later, or both, which is very powerful.
Beyond that, if you can’t see the utility of Triumph, and you’re still stuck after looking up a couple of streams or YouTube videos where it clearly changes the pace of the game, I don’t know what else to tell you. It’s like arguing that the sky is blue.
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I buy Annex in sloggy games when I am hopelessly losing and can't afford the Duchy. I think I have always lost these games anyway, but not because of the decision to buy Annex.
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vsiewnar and I used Annex in this League match:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_bsSBnWR8s
So, Mission turns are one edge-case for Annex value. It's a pretty limited event.
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OK, I found an actual use case for Annex - Rebuild games. Not that rebuild needs the help, but it's nice to get another duchy and get to your rebuilds again faster.
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Rebuild is probably the best case for Annex. Plenty of times to buy it there, especially at a certain point where carrying Debt just isn’t a problem.
Rarely, you can use Annex in Duke / Duchy games to get a critical Duchy when you would otherwise lose the split, but it’s a bit of a risky desperation play there as the debt will almost definitely mean you don’t hit $5 next turn.
Slogs are probably what it was meant for. It can nicely clean up a slog deck for one shuffle, which can absolutely be worth it, especially if it lets you take another swing with Mountebank or if you get to play gainers again or something.
All in all, very narrow and situational, but I mean, that’s events for you. They don’t need to be good that often.
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I find Annex to be most useful in sloggish-good stuff type decks where reliability is the limiting factor. Annex isn't the primary goal, but in the mid-to-late game, Annex can make you much more likely to kick off next turn.
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I think the Triumph discussion is going nowhere, so I was not going to reply, but...
I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who mentioned distant lands, and I didn't actually say anything about mid-game. I'm just saying the point total compares favorably in many games. I'm not even saying that it is better than distant lands (although I'm not sure that it isn't) I was just comparing it to an alt VP that is considered very good.
I do occasionally like to buy it mid game though, if I have tons of gains in a turn via Ironworks, magpie, etc. But usually I agree with you that it isn't worth it to sacrifice your next turn by having debt.
1) Distant Lands is good because you buy it midgame and get it out, deck staying stable. Any comparison with DL has to consider that or it's just silly. 2) Gazbag and Aku_chi also compared to it, so stop feeling alone. But Aku_chi brought it up to mostly agree with me.
Okay, it is fairly rare in a standard engine deck that you gain only 1 (other) card and then buy Triumph, sure. It’s not something you just casually do all the time. That is a really narrow case provided only for example to show how little Triumph has to do to be better than the gold-standard of non-Province VP, and isn’t itself a strategy. What it does show is that just getting a couple of gains allows you the flexibility of either scoring while building, or threatening a megaturn later, or both, which is very powerful.
Beyond that, if you can’t see the utility of Triumph, and you’re still stuck after looking up a couple of streams or YouTube videos where it clearly changes the pace of the game, I don’t know what else to tell you. It’s like arguing that the sky is blue.
If you go back you'll see that I do see uses for Triumph. I was simply saying that I don't see the use for it midgame after a turn with a couple of gains, and gave several reasons. So far nobody has addressed that, except Aku_chi and Chappy7 (and now you) mostly agreeing with me that you don't usually stop midgame to buy Triumph.
As I've said before, comparing it to buying Duchy only makes sense if you're actually greening, because otherwise you wouldn't buy Duchy. When you're greening and you would consider Duchy, it's because you can't afford Province. How often in those cases did you gain several cards earlier in the turn? If you gained 1 card and have $5, buying Duchy or Triumph is the same. If you have less than $5, Triumph is "strictly better" (because you can still buy it), but it means having debt for next potential Province turn. So Triumph is only good if you gained 2 cards and you have $5 but not $8. With less than $5, it's a judgment call.
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I think the Triumph discussion is going nowhere, so I was not going to reply, but...
I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who mentioned distant lands, and I didn't actually say anything about mid-game. I'm just saying the point total compares favorably in many games. I'm not even saying that it is better than distant lands (although I'm not sure that it isn't) I was just comparing it to an alt VP that is considered very good.
I do occasionally like to buy it mid game though, if I have tons of gains in a turn via Ironworks, magpie, etc. But usually I agree with you that it isn't worth it to sacrifice your next turn by having debt.
1) Distant Lands is good because you buy it midgame and get it out, deck staying stable. Any comparison with DL has to consider that or it's just silly. 2) Gazbag and Aku_chi also compared to it, so stop feeling alone. But Aku_chi brought it up to mostly agree with me.
Okay, it is fairly rare in a standard engine deck that you gain only 1 (other) card and then buy Triumph, sure. It’s not something you just casually do all the time. That is a really narrow case provided only for example to show how little Triumph has to do to be better than the gold-standard of non-Province VP, and isn’t itself a strategy. What it does show is that just getting a couple of gains allows you the flexibility of either scoring while building, or threatening a megaturn later, or both, which is very powerful.
Beyond that, if you can’t see the utility of Triumph, and you’re still stuck after looking up a couple of streams or YouTube videos where it clearly changes the pace of the game, I don’t know what else to tell you. It’s like arguing that the sky is blue.
If you go back you'll see that I do see uses for Triumph. I was simply saying that I don't see the use for it midgame after a turn with a couple of gains, and gave several reasons. So far nobody has addressed that, except Aku_chi and Chappy7 (and now you) mostly agreeing with me that you don't usually stop midgame to buy Triumph.
As I've said before, comparing it to buying Duchy only makes sense if you're actually greening, because otherwise you wouldn't buy Duchy. When you're greening and you would consider Duchy, it's because you can't afford Province. How often in those cases did you gain several cards earlier in the turn? If you gained 1 card and have $5, buying Duchy or Triumph is the same. If you have less than $5, Triumph is "strictly better" (because you can still buy it), but it means having debt for next potential Province turn. So Triumph is only good if you gained 2 cards and you have $5 but not $8. With less than $5, it's a judgment call.
Man, I was not necessarily trying to disagree with you, just discussing. Anyway, I buy triumph usually just one or two times, towards the end of the game. When I do buy it mid game, I usually have a good way to use or trash the estates, so it still is kinda similar to distant lands. You get roughly 4 points out of it, and you can get rid of the estate.
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1) Distant Lands is good because you buy it midgame and get it out, deck staying stable. Any comparison with DL has to consider that or it's just silly. 2) Gazbag and Aku_chi also compared to it, so stop feeling alone. But Aku_chi brought it up to mostly agree with me.
Not infrequently, Triumph can do the Distant Lands thing better than Distant Lands. But, Triumph is even better if you defer greening, so in practice you rarely take the Distant Lands approach to greening with Triumph.
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1) Distant Lands is good because you buy it midgame and get it out, deck staying stable. Any comparison with DL has to consider that or it's just silly. 2) Gazbag and Aku_chi also compared to it, so stop feeling alone. But Aku_chi brought it up to mostly agree with me.
I pretty much agree with what Aku_Chi said regarding this in his last post: Midgame Triumph is better than midgame Distant Lands with enough support, but in those games it's usually better to delay Triumph and keep building towards even bigger Triumphs. I was comparing Triumph to Distant Lands in my previous post as Distant Lands is widely considered to be a strong card, I wasn't saying that is the best use of Triumph, I should have made that clear.
As I've said before, comparing it to buying Duchy only makes sense if you're actually greening, because otherwise you wouldn't buy Duchy. When you're greening and you would consider Duchy, it's because you can't afford Province. How often in those cases did you gain several cards earlier in the turn? If you gained 1 card and have $5, buying Duchy or Triumph is the same. If you have less than $5, Triumph is "strictly better" (because you can still buy it), but it means having debt for next potential Province turn. So Triumph is only good if you gained 2 cards and you have $5 but not $8. With less than $5, it's a judgment call.
I disagree completely about the part where you only buy Duchy if you can't afford Province. In a big money game that's true for the most part but in most games there are countless endgame situations where you buy Duchies over Provinces - generally if you need to score points but lowering the Provinces let your opponent end the game. Also you seem to saying that having the option to buy it with less than $5 isn't good because the debt carries over or something, but giving the option to do that is good regardless of whether it's the correct thing to do in a given situation.
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The primary reason you get triumph mid game is if the estates are going to run out. You can even pile estates and get like two triumphs in order to ensure that you get the vp tokens.
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With trashers to get rid of the curses and an extra buy Ritual is great for trashing Colonies, Provinces, and late game Platinums for VP tokens. In particular, removing green cards from your deck without losing VP.
I've done this with Bishop vs. Estates, Duchies, and Provinces. With Provinces, if the game has a ways to go I've found it worth it to lose a net of 1 pt to improve my deck efficiency.
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Also you seem to saying that having the option to buy it with less than $5 isn't good because the debt carries over or something, but giving the option to do that is good regardless of whether it's the correct thing to do in a given situation.
I was totally not saying that having the option to do something is bad. I was totally saying that it's usually bad to do it, so the fact that you have that option is only marginally relevant.
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Also you seem to saying that having the option to buy it with less than $5 isn't good because the debt carries over or something, but giving the option to do that is good regardless of whether it's the correct thing to do in a given situation.
I was totally not saying that having the option to do something is bad. I was totally saying that it's usually bad to do it, so the fact that you have that option is only marginally relevant.
So Triumph is only good if you gained 2 cards and you have $5 but not $8. With less than $5, it's a judgment call.
Hmmmmm... Well the fact that you can buy cards for a pileout and then buy Triumph for $0 or buy 2 Triumphs when you have $5 is one of the best things about it, so now I disagree with you even more!
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Hmmmmm... Well the fact that you can buy cards for a pileout and then buy Triumph for $0 or buy 2 Triumphs when you have $5 is one of the best things about it, so now I disagree with you even more!
This is getting tiresome. If you really think I was saying that you should avoid debt on your last turn, no wonder you disagree. I just replied to Chris Is Me, explaining that I'm not saying that I don't see uses for Triumph at all, but that I'm talking about specific situations. That's all I've been saying this whole thread, except for the original post.
See here. (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17973.msg735624#msg735624) Chappy7 then argues against that post.
See here. (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17973.msg735889#msg735889) Quote: "It's exactly this kind of situation that I don't get, when you only gain a few cards and then buy Triumph midgame."
I get that people are busy with their lives and don't want to invest a lot of time going back and seeing what someone is actually saying on a message board beyond the very last post, but that kind of means you're wasting that person's time instead (and everybody else's, posting pointless arguments.)
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Uh, Jeebus. Triumph is really really good. Maybe try buying it man. It's like pretty neat.
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To get back to being constructive...
I've been hung up on some people saying that Triumph is good after gaining one or two cards midgame, which I still don't get. After gaining 2 cards, it's the same VP as Distant Lands, yes, but that includes keeping the Estate, which is very unlike Distant Lands.
However, if you gain 3 cards (not less) and then buy Triumph, you'll earn 4 VP after trashing the Estate. In that situation, it's comparable to Distant Lands. It costs the same (but Triumph's payment plan is better); for Distant Lands you need an action to play it, and for the Estate you need a trashing option; for both you need to get through your deck fast. The situation where you gain that many cards each turn on a regular basis and want to get Triumph points before the end of the game, still has to be a lot less common than situations where you want Distant Lands midgame though.
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The presence of Triumph has a significant impact on the way you build your deck / when you start greening. You'll have a hard time to get away with gaining 1 Province per turn, especially if you start too early, because you'll need 6-7 Provinces to beat an opponent who builds a lot and takes Triumph points.
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Hmmmmm... Well the fact that you can buy cards for a pileout and then buy Triumph for $0 or buy 2 Triumphs when you have $5 is one of the best things about it, so now I disagree with you even more!
This is getting tiresome. If you really think I was saying that you should avoid debt on your last turn, no wonder you disagree. I just replied to Chris Is Me, explaining that I'm not saying that I don't see uses for Triumph at all, but that I'm talking about specific situations. That's all I've been saying this whole thread, except for the original post.
See here. (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17973.msg735624#msg735624) Chappy7 then argues against that post.
See here. (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17973.msg735889#msg735889) Quote: "It's exactly this kind of situation that I don't get, when you only gain a few cards and then buy Triumph midgame."
I get that people are busy with their lives and don't want to invest a lot of time going back and seeing what someone is actually saying on a message board beyond the very last post, but that kind of means you're wasting that person's time instead (and everybody else's, posting pointless arguments.)
I've reread all of my posts and they seem reasonable enough to me, I'm sorry if you feel like I've wasted your time but if you didn't want to discuss this then I just don't get why you posted the topic to a discussion forum in the first place. You mentioned my name in the post so I assumed you would appreciate some further input, I won't involve myself next time.
Obviously the pileout example was a bit extreme, but my point still stands, what you said in the part I quoted was saying that it was only good if you don't let debt carry over, which is silly. If that isn't what you meant then we have no disagreement there, no problem.
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I've reread all of my posts and they seem reasonable enough to me, I'm sorry if you feel like I've wasted your time but if you didn't want to discuss this then I just don't get why you posted the topic to a discussion forum in the first place. You mentioned my name in the post so I assumed you would appreciate some further input, I won't involve myself next time.
Obviously the pileout example was a bit extreme, but my point still stands, what you said in the part I quoted was saying that it was only good if you don't let debt carry over, which is silly. If that isn't what you meant then we have no disagreement there, no problem.
I can only assume that you re-read your own posts but not mine - since the only time I've ever talked about avoiding carrying debt over, was with reference to midgame Triumphs after a couple of gains. I've even explicitly stated several times that I totally get ending the game with Triumph for a lot of VP, so obviously that was never part of what I've been discussing that I don't get. I also want to introduce you to the concept of "context". Just because you can quote me saying something, doesn't mean that I mean that as a universal truth.
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At least we can all agree that annex sucks
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Is Annex a viable alternative for a Duchy buy? Like, if one person never buys Annex, and another player always buys an Annex when he would otherwise buy a Duchy, how would they compare? Are those five reshuffled cards worth the extra $3 debt you wouldn't get with a Duchy? You would probably only buy a Duchy when greening, which is when the effect is more useful.
I might try this the next time Annex is on the table.
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Is Annex a viable alternative for a Duchy buy? Like, if one person never buys Annex, and another player always buys an Annex when he would otherwise buy a Duchy, how would they compare? Are those five reshuffled cards worth the extra $3 debt you wouldn't get with a Duchy? You would probably only buy a Duchy when greening, which is when the effect is more useful.
I might try this the next time Annex is on the table.
The person who always buys Duchy over Annex has a very major advantage over the person who always buys Annex over Duchy.
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Duchy is for catching up, Annex is for holding leads.
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Duchy is for catching up, Annex is for holding leads.
That's not accurate either, most of the time you don't want Annex even when you're in the lead. This is the case where Annex is good:
You need to have a thick deck and you need to have not drawn it last turn and you need to have not drawn it this turn and you need to have good cards in your discard pile that are so much better than the average card left in your deck that you're fine with having to pay a bunch of debt and you need to not have more than 5 cards that you don't want to shuffle in and you need to want to buy a Duchy. Basically you have to be playing some kind of big money with a lot of Curses/Ruins in your deck and you need to draw your cards in exactly the right order at exactly the right time and then it's a good event to buy.
That, or it needs to be your last turn and you need to have a spare buy.
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Is Annex a viable alternative for a Duchy buy? Like, if one person never buys Annex, and another player always buys an Annex when he would otherwise buy a Duchy, how would they compare? Are those five reshuffled cards worth the extra $3 debt you wouldn't get with a Duchy? You would probably only buy a Duchy when greening, which is when the effect is more useful.
I might try this the next time Annex is on the table.
The person who always buys Duchy over Annex has a very major advantage over the person who always buys Annex over Duchy.
And by “very major advantage”, you of course mean “3 Debt”, which is all things considered not that much? Like you usually just buy the Duchy, but a less extreme version of the hyperbolic best-case You outlined happens pretty routinely in slogs or no-thinning BM games.
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Is Annex a viable alternative for a Duchy buy? Like, if one person never buys Annex, and another player always buys an Annex when he would otherwise buy a Duchy, how would they compare? Are those five reshuffled cards worth the extra $3 debt you wouldn't get with a Duchy? You would probably only buy a Duchy when greening, which is when the effect is more useful.
I might try this the next time Annex is on the table.
The person who always buys Duchy over Annex has a very major advantage over the person who always buys Annex over Duchy.
And by “very major advantage”, you of course mean “3 Debt”, which is all things considered not that much? Like you usually just buy the Duchy, but a less extreme version of the hyperbolic best-case You outlined happens pretty routinely in slogs or no-thinning BM games.
Three debt is the difference between being able to buy a Province next turn and being able to buy a Duchy next turn, which is pretty often the difference between winning and losing. So all things considered, it is that much.
In slogs and no-thinning BM games, you still need to draw your deck in the right order at the right time. That, and it needs to be a slog or no-thinning BM kingdom in the first place, which are not that common. Almost all of the Annexes I have bought this year (which is not very many, I think 4 or 5) were due to either Rebuild or Possession, and I can only think of one game where I actually bought Annex just because it was better than Duchy.
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For one thing, it’s not always 3 Debt - you can buy Annex on $6 or $7, even $8 sometimes.
In slogs and no-thinning BM games, you still need to draw your deck in the right order at the right time.
If only some aspect of Annex would help you do this in order to more reliably spike 8+ hands in the following 1-2 turns...
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In slogs and no-thinning BM games, you still need to draw your deck in the right order at the right time.
If only some aspect of Annex would help you do this in order to more reliably spike 8+ hands in the following 1-2 turns...
Indeed. To bad no aspect of Annex helps you do that because it's never worth it to buy Annex until you already drew your cards in the right order at the right time, outside of edge cases such as Possession and Rebuild.
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I'm also one who struggles to see why Triumph is so good. It seems like you need a lot of things in place for it to work. You need a deck that can gain a bunch of cards in a single turn, and then you need to deal with the Estate. I doesn't seem like something that's always going to be good.
True, but how many cards are always good? When it is good, it's something that you shouldn't ignore. But it's not Chapel or anything.
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Is Annex a viable alternative for a Duchy buy? Like, if one person never buys Annex, and another player always buys an Annex when he would otherwise buy a Duchy, how would they compare? Are those five reshuffled cards worth the extra $3 debt you wouldn't get with a Duchy? You would probably only buy a Duchy when greening, which is when the effect is more useful.
I might try this the next time Annex is on the table.
The person who always buys Duchy over Annex has a very major advantage over the person who always buys Annex over Duchy.
And by “very major advantage”, you of course mean “3 Debt”, which is all things considered not that much? Like you usually just buy the Duchy, but a less extreme version of the hyperbolic best-case You outlined happens pretty routinely in slogs or no-thinning BM games.
Three debt is the difference between being able to buy a Province next turn and being able to buy a Duchy next turn, which is pretty often the difference between winning and losing. So all things considered, it is that much.
But how much debt is the 'shuffle up to 5 cards from your discard pile into your deck' worth? How much of the $3 debt you get can you pay off with those five shuffled cards?
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But how much debt is the 'shuffle up to 5 cards from your discard pile into your deck' worth? How much of the $3 debt you get can you pay off with those five shuffled cards?
(Annex has you pick up to five cards to leave in your discard pile. And shuffle the rest into your deck. You mentioned Dutch cards in another thread, so I'm wondering if there's a mistranslation.)
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I'm thinking that Annex would be more interesting if you could leave any amount of cards in your discard pile.
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But how much debt is the 'shuffle up to 5 cards from your discard pile into your deck' worth? How much of the $3 debt you get can you pay off with those five shuffled cards?
(Annex has you pick up to five cards to leave in your discard pile. And shuffle the rest into your deck. You mentioned Dutch cards in another thread, so I'm wondering if there's a mistranslation.)
Nah, it's translated right but I remembered it wrong. The actual version sounds worse though.
Still, how much is that effect worth compared to the $3 debt?
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Nah, it's translated right but I remembered it wrong. The actual version sounds worse though.
Still, how much is that effect worth compared to the $3 debt?
It obviously depends on what cards you are shuffling in and what you're leaving out. Basically, if buying Annex improves your next expected hand by (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png), it's worth paying (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f5/Debt3.png/18px-Debt3.png) for the effect. If it doesn't, it's not. Even if you would break even in two or three turns, that's not good enough because it's a critical stage of the game and you can't afford to fall behind, even if it's just in the short term.
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Nah, it's translated right but I remembered it wrong. The actual version sounds worse though.
Still, how much is that effect worth compared to the $3 debt?
It obviously depends on what cards you are shuffling in and what you're leaving out. Basically, if buying Annex improves your next expected hand by (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png), it's worth paying (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f5/Debt3.png/18px-Debt3.png) for the effect. If it doesn't, it's not. Even if you would break even in two or three turns, that's not good enough because it's a critical stage of the game and you can't afford to fall behind, even if it's just in the short term.
I am pretty sure annex helps you stay in the game because it makes you not miss duchy.
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Nah, it's translated right but I remembered it wrong. The actual version sounds worse though.
Still, how much is that effect worth compared to the $3 debt?
It obviously depends on what cards you are shuffling in and what you're leaving out. Basically, if buying Annex improves your next expected hand by (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png), it's worth paying (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f5/Debt3.png/18px-Debt3.png) for the effect. If it doesn't, it's not. Even if you would break even in two or three turns, that's not good enough because it's a critical stage of the game and you can't afford to fall behind, even if it's just in the short term.
I am pretty sure annex helps you stay in the game because it makes you not miss duchy.
It makes you not miss Duchy only if it improves your next expected hand by more coins than you have to take debt.
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I think the idea behind Annex is to help with Penultimate Province situations where you still have $8 to spend. Does that seem accurate?
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I think the idea behind Annex is to help with Penultimate Province situations where you still have $8 to spend. Does that seem accurate?
The idea was just, here's a nice place for this deck-stacking effect, and also to have an Event that gains a Duchy.
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For what it's worth, I recently played a game where I bought Annex a few times. I think it was sort of sloggy and had Groundskeeper. It seemed pretty effective.
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another use for annex is avoiding sea hag/haunted woods penalties