Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Puzzles and Challenges => Solo Challenges => Topic started by: jonaskoelker on December 18, 2017, 05:36:38 pm
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Here's the challenge: empty the Copper pile into your deck as fast as possible.
Normal mode: you have to gain a Copper n times, where n is the number of Copper in the pile at the start of the game, and the pile must be empty.
Hard mode: all the Copper must be in your deck (deck includes hand and discard pile).
You pick the kingdom, including Shelters and Colonies (if you have at least one Dark Ages/Prosperity card), and 0-2 events/landmarks. Assume perfect shuffle luck.
Bonus points if you don't use an infinite combo, i.e. if there exists some n such that in the turn where you satisfy the ordinary win condition, you couldn't satisfy the same condition if the Copper pile started with n Coppers.
Example solutions:
- Buy Copper every turn. This takes 53 turns. (Hard mode)
- Banquet for a Copper every turn. This takes 18 turns. (Hard mode)
- Turn 1 Alms for a Villa, buy King's Court off 5xCopper, Villa, Baker token. Turn 2 buy Beggar. Turn 3 through 8: King's Court a Beggar, gaining 9 Copper and buying Donate, trashing everything except King's Court and Beggar. (Normal mode)
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Counting House/Travelling Fair was the first thing that came to mind when I read the challenge, so I tried to optimize it. Adding Banquet and Bank makes it fairly easy to drain the coppers by turn 5 as long as you open 5/2 even without the baker token or any additional events like borrow. I won't post the full solution here but here is an example of what I did: Game ID 20850529.
About the challenge generally, I only think that non-infinite solutions are interesting, since there are well known ways to do this turn 1 if infinite loops are allowed.
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I did it in 4 turns (Turns 15-18 of #20857415). Turns out nasmith99 had the same basic idea.
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I need only 3 turns and an old old card I like.
Kingdom: Lurker, Develop, Watchtower, Coppersmith, Fortress, Villa, Band of Misfits, Counting House, Border Village, King's Court
Events: Advance, Travelling Fair
Hand: 4 Coppers, Necropolis
Deck: 2 Coppers, Overgrown Estate, Hovel, Copper
Turn 1
play 4 Coppers
buy Travelling Fair, Lurker(topdeck)
buy Advance to trash Necropolis to gain Border Village(topdeck), Develop(topdeck)
Hand: Develop, Border Village, Lurker, 2 Coppers
Deck: Overgrown Estate, Hovel, Copper
Discard: 4 Coppers
Turn 2
play Lurker to trash Fortress
play Develop to trash Border Village to gain King's Court, Band of Misfits
play 2 Coppers
buy Travelling Fair
buy Advance to trash Fortress to gain Border Village(topdeck), Fortress(topdeck)
buy Advance to trash Fortress to gain Border Village(topdeck), Counting House(topdeck)
Hand: Counting House, Border Village, Fortress, Border Village, Band of Misfits
Deck: King's Court, Overgrown Estate, Hovel, Copper
Discard: 6 Coppers, Lurker, Develop, Fortress
Turn 3
play Border Village to draw King's Court
play Border Village to draw Overgrown Estate
play King's Court to play Band of Misfits(as Coppersmith) 3 times
play Counting House to put 6 Coppers in hand
play 6 Coppers (1 Act, $24, 1 Buy, 53 Coppers left)
Hand: Fortress, Overgrown Estate
Deck: Hovel, Copper
buy Travelling Fair 12 times
buy 7 Coppers
buy Advance to trash Fortress to gain Develop(topdeck)
buy Advance to trash Fortress to gain Border Village(topdeck), Watchtower(topdeck)
buy Advance to trash Fortress to gain Border Village(topdeck), Fortress(topdeck)
buy Advance to trash Fortress to gain Border Village(topdeck), Counting House(topdeck)
buy Advance to trash Fortress to gain Watchtower(topdeck)
buy Advance to trash Fortress to gain Villa
play Villa
play Fortress to draw Watchtower
play Watchtower to draw Counting House, Border Village, Fortress, Border Village, Watchtower
play Border Village to draw Border Village
play Border Village to draw Develop
play Develop to trash Border Village to gain Band of Misfits, King's Court
play Watchtower to draw King's Court, Band of Misfits, Hovel
play King's Court to play Band of Misfits(as Coppersmith) 3 times
play Counting House to put 7 Coppers in hand
play 7 Coppers (1 Act, $50, 1 Buy, 46 Coppers left)
Hand: Fortress, Overgrown Estate, Hovel
Deck: Copper
buy Travelling Fair 25 times
buy 21 Coppers
buy Advance to trash Fortress to gain Develop(topdeck)
buy Advance to trash Fortress to gain Border Village(topdeck), Watchtower(topdeck)
buy Advance to trash Fortress to gain Border Village(topdeck), Counting House(topdeck)
buy Advance to trash Fortress to gain Watchtower(topdeck)
buy Advance to trash Fortress to gain Villa
play Villa
play Fortress to draw Watchtower
play Watchtower to draw Counting House, Border Village, Watchtower, Border Village
play Border Village to draw Develop
play Develop to trash Border Village to gain Band of Misfits, King's Court
play Watchtower to draw King's Court, Band of Misfits, Copper
play King's Court to play Band of Misfits(as Coppersmith) 3 times
play Counting House to put 21 Coppers in hand
play 22 Coppers (0 Act, $221, 1 Buy, 25 Coppers left)
buy Travelling Fair 48 times
buy 25 Coppers, 8 Provinces, 8 Duchies, 8 Estates
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While impressive, you can't do it online which was the whole purpose of this Solo Challenge forum section. Very cool anyways.
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I need only 3 turns and an old old card I like.
Kingdom: Lurker, Develop, Watchtower, Coppersmith, Fortress, Villa, Band of Misfits, Counting House, Border Village, King's Court
Events: Advance, Travelling Fair
[...]
buy 25 Coppers, 8 Provinces, 8 Duchies, 8 Estates
Nice finish. You didn't trash any coppers so this is hard mode.
As far as I can tell you can't go infinite: you can never take cards out of play, you can never make money without playing a card and you never get more buys without either playing a card or spending money (on Traveling Fair). So when all the cards are in play, all the money is spent and you have used all your buys you can do nothing more, and every move gets you closer to that endpoint. So there's a finite upper limit on how many cards you play, how much money you make and how many buys you have, and you can't gain Copper without either playing a card or spending a buy. (You can gain a Copper with your Border Village, but you can only gain Border Village by buying it or playing Lurker or Develop.)
So the best known solution in the category 1st-edition-cards/hard/bonus is 3 turns. Well done.
(Also, hi, I'm back from my f.ds hiatus.)
nasmith99 and qvist, since I don't have a ShuffleIT subscription, would you mind sharing the general idea of your solutions?