Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Fangz on October 13, 2011, 05:04:43 am
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Let's get in early, huh. What are people's impressions so far?
Right now Border Village and Trader have appeared on Isotropic. My thoughts:
Trader: Seems to be a solid meh from me. Nothing like a way of gaining lots and lots of silvers to underline how having too many silvers kills your deck, huh? Gaining silvers instead of curses isn't too shabby, but really I'd rather not gain a card at all. Trying to play BM-Trader ended in failure - too many silvers meant reshuffles are so far in between that you never see the golds you need. The card kinda anti-synergises with itself - too many silvers means you just won't see many plays of this at all. Maybe this might work with some chapel based strategy where you don't have to worry about running out of coppers, but otherwise I can't see much use for this card.
Border village: Seems very selection dependent. It's got a good synergy with stuff like Torturer, helping you get chains out fast. But if there aren't any good $5 terminals, seems kinda wasteful. The games I played, it seemed to be pretty useless - hamlet made it redundant, since by the time we reached $6 we're doing okay for villages anyway.
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Could someone please post the card text (boardgamegeek and isotropic are blocked on my network).
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Trader - $4
Action - Reaction
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a number of Silvers equal to the cost in coins of the trashed card.
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When you would gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, instead, gain a Silver.
Border Village - $6
Action
+1 Card
+2 Actions
When you gain this, gain a card costing less than this.
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Border Village feels a lot like the Cascade mechanic from Magic:The Gathering (Bloodbraid Elf anyone?). This mechanic proved slightly broken, but it's probably safe in Dominion...
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So, I'm reading this forum since a while now. And as the new cards are spoiled, I registered and like to comment them too.
Border Village:
I like it. Many combos possible. Buy a BV, get a Council Room, Torturer, etc
If there's a Talisman in play: I buy a Border Village, gain a Smithy and gain a second one. Great! Question: 2 Bridges, Play a Talisman, buy a BV, get 2, so I get 4 Smithies, right?
If I have a Watchtower in hand or played a Royal Seal, I get BV and Smithy right on top of the deck.
And: Never swindle a Border Village! He will get an additional card.
Great with Smugglers: Gain a BV and an additional card.
Trader:
I don't like it very much. When do you want so many silvers? Only cases I see is in Gardens strategy and to gain 2 silvers early by trashing your estates. But I rather get $4 from Bishop.
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I kind of really hate Trader. The reaction could be okay against Cursors etc, but the action is terrible. Silver is the most boring card in the game, and the cards you actually want to trash don't even give you that much. So yeah. Not a fan. Hopefully the other Hinterland cards go uphill from here.
BV could be interesting.
And: Never swindle a Border Village! He will get an additional card.
Not necessarily. If the choice is a Gold, or a Village and, say, a Festival, I could see myself sometimes giving my opponent the latter. Obviously depends on what's available.
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Link to BGG preview with images from Donald X. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/710637/previews-1 (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/710637/previews-1).
The previous reaction cards were cunning in the way that they defended against most/all attacks. The trader doesn't appear to provide any defence against a militia, spy, or bureaucrat style attack. It really is all about the silver.
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Trader is a great card if there is also a remodel/upgrade kind of card in the game.
Then you can buy Trader in first 2 rounds. Use it twice and then upgrade it to something else.
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Right okay, it might be a good opener to get your economy off the ground. It might even be a good card. My objection is that it's boring.
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Some very early Simulation results (not yet published):
Trader: this is quite weak (1 Trader beats Big Money Ultimate 51-45), but very strong against Sea Hag (3 Traders beat 2 Sea Hags 60-37). Letting it trash another Trader before Copper gives slightly better results.
Border Village: I added this to an existing Torturer/Village bot and it obviously improved the bot (in the greening stage it's fun to buy Border Village/gain Duchy)
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Those are interesting. I wouldn't even say that Trader is a boring card. The end result (having a buttload of Silvers) may be boring, but the card play is kind of fascinating. Numerically, it's better than Salvager, since you can turn one Silver into three. Of course, the downside is that you're limited to just Silvers. I don't see a reason to play Trader on a Province unless you Golem-screwed yourself.
If it were the only reaction card in a curse-heavy deck, I'd buy it. After all, if you're going to clog your deck, it might as well be Silvers instead of Curses. It could be a really good counter to Mountebank. For non-Curses, the reaction is less desirable. If you have +Buy, you could buy a Copper and turn it into a Silver. This can make a Gardens deck stronger. Other than that, I don't see that portion getting much use. It'd make you feel better when you can only afford a 2-cost card, but if that Trader was a Silver instead, your buying power would have been better.
The regular action is pretty conditional. I'd definitely consider buying it if I had other trashers in my deck. Trash-for-benefit, of course would be awesome (Forge three Silvers into a Platinum? Okay).
Also, you can annoy your opponent by revealing Trader after playing Bureaucrat.
Border Village is interesting. I'd have to see it in play, but the ability to gain just about any +Cards at the same time as this makes for a ready-made combo. I can see a lot of people falling for trap where they focus on this card instead of a Gold. As pointed out, Jesters and Smugglers can make this a pretty crazy card.
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I'm guessing that this thread is probably underrating Trader. Seems like the kind of card which can speed you up a ton at the beginning, and then you don't have to play it later if you don't want to. Trader/Gardens is most likely formidable.
Border Village seems kinda whatever. Obviously a nice card when there are 5s you want, and Donald's point that it's a Village that can be benefit-trashed for unusually high gain is a good one. I'm guessing it will be a pretty weak 6. edit: Obviously it enhances engine building for things like Torturer/Rabble/Wharf, and so perhaps its meta-value (effectively making those cards stronger) makes it good, much like Fishing Village.
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I wonder if Trader/Gardens is really viable or whether the opportunity cost is too high...
You're probably better off with buying a WS/WC/IW/Gardens/Estate/Copper than a Trader at any point during your rush.
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I suppose we'll have to wait for a clarification whether you put the gained silver on top of your deck or in the discard pile when revealing a trader against a sea hag attack. If you put it on top of your deck then it's no wonder the traders can beat sea hags!
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I suppose we'll have to wait for a clarification whether you put the gained silver on top of your deck or in the discard pile when revealing a trader against a sea hag attack. If you put it on top of your deck then it's no wonder the traders can beat sea hags!
I think it's supposed to go on your deck, since it just replaces the other card. I think in the same fashion you could buy something with Royal Seal, replace it with a Silver and put it on top of your deck. Or have both this and Watchtower in hand! Your opponent plays a Witch, you reveal Trader first and WT later and get a Silver on top. :D
I think it's fun with Bureaucrat, because it's so moot. Same with Explorer.
How about having some sort of Silversmith and using Treasure Maps to gain Silvers instead of Golds? ::)
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Border Village seems like it's kind of the "okay, you overshot your $5 target by 1" consolation prize. "Here, take a Village for only $1 more!" Assuming you don't want a Gold, and in all fairness there are lots of times when I'll spend $6 on a $5 Action. It seems... fine, but probably not essential?
Could be pretty good with Remodel on the board. Spend $6, get a Border Village and a Remodel, then you've got a handy $6 target to Remodel into a Province.
Traders: I think people are perhaps underestimating it. The opportunity to slam 4 or 5 Silver at a time into your deck in the early game seems amazing. It does seem to result in your having to play Big Money, but perhaps other Hinterland cards do interesting things with Silver?
It would be interesting to see Traders on the table with Peddler. It... probably isn't good? Like, it seems hard to imagine a deck that could rapidly get Peddler, get Traders, and get Traders and Peddler in the same hand.
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No, you don't put it on top of your deck. The Silver goes into your discard pile just like any other gained card, unless you have something (like a Watchtower) that can put it elsewhere.
People who say you don't want lots of Silvers, man, that is only true (in a Province game) if you are building an engine. Trader isn't like some big sexy card or anything, but Silvers are basically pure goodness on action-poor boards without Colonies. That said I suspect that (unless Geronimoo made some error in testing Trader as an opener in his simulation) it will not be a particularly strong card unless you have plans for the reaction effect. This doesn't surprise me much since the opportunity cost is pretty high of having it in hand instead of a Silver you could have bought instead. One possible suggestion for simulation: never use it to trash Copper unless that $1 was not useful this turn.
Also anybody who says "oh, Border Village is OK I guess if there's a $5 terminal you want," are we talking about the same game? $5 terminals are like the most important class of power cards in Dominion, and even if there isn't one, there are also lots of great $4 terminals that benefit from good Village density.
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Border Village:
If there's a Talisman in play: I buy a Border Village, gain a Smithy and gain a second one. Great! Question: 2 Bridges, Play a Talisman, buy a BV, get 2, so I get 4 Smithies, right?
Why would you gain 2 Smithies in the first case? Talisman says "when you buy a card". You're not buying Smithy, so no other copy is gained. Buying implies gaining but gaining doesn't imply buying.
So in both cases I think you'd gain 1 Smithy per BV. You do get 2 BV and 2 Smithies with Talisman and 2 Bridges.
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Also anybody who says "oh, Border Village is OK I guess if there's a $5 terminal you want," are we talking about the same game? $5 terminals are like the most important class of power cards in Dominion, and even if there isn't one, there are also lots of great $4 terminals that benefit from good Village density.
It seems to me like Border Village is weirdly obviously powerful, but also inessential. By which I mean:
You're absolutely right that there are TONS of boards where if you get $6, the completely obvious thing to do will be to buy Border Village. But... that's if you get $6. It seems like you can't count on BV for all your Village needs, because it's so hard to consistently get to $6 in the early game.
Like, say BV is on the table with Mountebank and Bridge and Merchant Ship. If you get $6, you'll almost certainly forgo Gold for BV->Mountebank or Bridge or Merchant Ship, sure. But is that going to change your strategy on this board? Are you going to be comfortable buying additional terminal $4s and $5s when you actually draw $4 or $5, on the assumption that you'll have enough BVs to prevent collisions? Because it doesn't SEEM to me like that would be a good assumption to make.
It seems most likely to me that BV is going to most actually impact your STRATEGY when there's another, lower-cost Village on the table. So you know you can reliably pick up Villages if you need them, and also sneak in a bit of extra Village density when you overshoot $5.
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I suppose we'll have to wait for a clarification whether you put the gained silver on top of your deck or in the discard pile when revealing a trader against a sea hag attack. If you put it on top of your deck then it's no wonder the traders can beat sea hags!
I think it's supposed to go on your deck, since it just replaces the other card. I think in the same fashion you could buy something with Royal Seal, replace it with a Silver and put it on top of your deck. Or have both this and Watchtower in hand! Your opponent plays a Witch, you reveal Trader first and WT later and get a Silver on top. :D
Jeff Wolfe clarified this in the BGG forum thread. The gained Silver goes in your discard pile (unless something else, like a Watchtower in hand, intervenes). I guess the logic is that the Silver doesn't replace the card you gain; rather, the instruction "gain a Silver" replaces the other "gain" instruction.
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Border Village:
If there's a Talisman in play: I buy a Border Village, gain a Smithy and gain a second one. Great! Question: 2 Bridges, Play a Talisman, buy a BV, get 2, so I get 4 Smithies, right?
Why would you gain 2 Smithies in the first case? Talisman says "when you buy a card". You're not buying Smithy, so no other copy is gained. Buying implies gaining but gaining doesn't imply buying.
So in both cases I think you'd gain 1 Smithy per BV. You do get 2 BV and 2 Smithies with Talisman and 2 Bridges.
I think you're absolutely right. I hadn't the card text of Talisman right in mind.
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It seems most likely to me that BV is going to most actually impact your STRATEGY when there's another, lower-cost Village on the table. So you know you can reliably pick up Villages if you need them, and also sneak in a bit of extra Village density when you overshoot $5.
This is a plausible guess to me, though I wouldn't give it more than a 50/50 chance of being true. I will need some experience with the card to get a sense of how often it is a cornerstone of a strategy. FWIW I think when it appears with Torturer at least that no other Villages are going to be necessary.
Consider that you can potentially pursue an alternate early-game strategy for engine building, where you aim for $6 (by some means) instead of snapping up engine cards right away. I do not know without trying how strong this could be. Consider also that you can buy extra terminals with $5 or less, then gain non-terminals (or Silvers) on future Border Village buys.
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Trader can be used in interesting ways. For example, opening Trader/Chapel: trash your cards without abandon, then use Trader on Chapel; no need to spend a few turns buying a few silvers. And as Davio suggested, this could be an amazing Gardens card. Also, this is a very strong counter to Witch, in that the card can help you buy more witches (assuming you're lucky enough to get cursed with a Trader in hand)... perhaps it's the best card on the table when you open 4/3 and your opponent opens 5/2.
Border Village looks neat for building silly engines. I'd love to buy these when Wharf is in the kingdom.
Hinterlands looks like fun ;D
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My simulator plays it right: the Curse from Sea Hag is replaced by Silver which is NOT gained on top of the deck. So it really is a very strong counter against Sea Hag. Here are some end decks from the Trader strategy against Sea Hag:
Trader(Plr 1) has 44 points and took 30 turns
46 cards : [1 Copper, 21 Silver, 7 Gold, 4 Estate, 2 Duchy, 6 Province, 2 Curse, 3 Trader]
Trader(Plr 1) has 48 points and took 24 turns
41 cards : [7 Copper, 12 Silver, 5 Gold, 4 Estate, 3 Duchy, 6 Province, 1 Curse, 3 Trader]
Trader(Plr 1) has 31 points and took 31 turns
50 cards : [2 Copper, 24 Silver, 5 Gold, 3 Estate, 5 Duchy, 3 Province, 5 Curse, 3 Trader]
About 1 time in 10 the Silver pile is emptied...
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I LOVE these new cards. Big money is back in business? Is it? Maybe? Actually, Border Village maybe says no. But it maybe says yes, too - very board dependent.
And guided is totally right - silver is a great card in province games, unless you have some really elaborate engine. People get way too stuck on "Beyond Silver", which is a nice article that people take way too far, thinking that silver is actually bad for most decks. The vast majority of decks benefit from more silver, people; the issue is opportunity cost. And if you have enough silver, you don't NEED a really elaborate engine - or golds. That you necessarily need golds for BM is a myth, though getting the requisite silver density is usually not so easy.
But I want to point out something about traders nobody has yet; it combos really really well with like any source of plus buy. Woodcutter + Traders, here we go - okay, that might be a little bit of a stretch (though I imagine it outperforms just BM traders, which isn't something you can say about lots of cards together with woodcutters). Point is, every extra buy you don't use is a silver, and that's really good. Goons and Traders, yes please. Heck, market and traders is pretty salty.
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Traders tends to build resilient, but not powerful, decks. In my experimentation with it, the thing I've noticed the most is that it doesn't get the 4th Province all that quickly, but typically I can run 3+ $8+ turns after I've already picked up 3-4 Provinces.
So... is that useful? I mean, not if your opponent has already picked up 4 Provinces, probably. But maybe if you get into a Duchy race?
I tried some Traders/Gardens. Traders is AMAZING at making your deck big and picking up Gardens -- I clearly had a big, fast deck that got lots of Gardens really quickly. But then I ran out Gardens -- and no other pile was terribly close to being empty. I suspect that there's a viable Traders/Gardens strategy. I don't think it looks all that much like Workshop/Gardens, though. It might be Traders/Gardens/Provinces -- I generated a shocking number of $8 turns even with all 8 Gardens in my deck.
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I wonder if Trader/Gardens is really viable or whether the opportunity cost is too high...
You're probably better off with buying a WS/WC/IW/Gardens/Estate/Copper than a Trader at any point during your rush.
Man that's a lot of acronyms. Trader would definitely be worse than Ironworks, possibly worse than Workshop. I think it would smoke Woodcutter for a Gardens deck and obviously beats Estate and Copper at least at some point. Part of why I think it has potential for strength is that a) it gives you a mechanism to fill up your deck reasonably quickly with cards, b) those cards are useful for buying more Gardens, c) you are now a substantial Duchy threat. I think the dynamic of a Trader/Gardens game isn't exactly the same as a normal Gardens game, but that it could be quite strong. I also expect a VP card that depends on Treasures in deck at some point, and Trader obviously has tons of potential for that.
I also think that Trader is probably more often than not an Ambassador counter.
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+Buy and Traders together is a thing, but it doesn't excite me that much. Like, you have to have this $4 card sitting in your hand still during your buy phase, instead of having some other $3-4 card (like Silver) that you could have played for some other benefit. I don't expect planning to use Traders to convert extra buys into Silvers will be strong with any real frequency.
On another note, there are supposed to be other "when you gain this" effects in Hinterlands I think? There could be some really crazy interactions with Border Village once the rest of the cards are revealed.
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I tried some Traders/Gardens. Traders is AMAZING at making your deck big and picking up Gardens -- I clearly had a big, fast deck that got lots of Gardens really quickly. But then I ran out Gardens -- and no other pile was terribly close to being empty. I suspect that there's a viable Traders/Gardens strategy. I don't think it looks all that much like Workshop/Gardens, though. It might be Traders/Gardens/Provinces -- I generated a shocking number of $8 turns even with all 8 Gardens in my deck.
This seems really worth repeating. I haven't played with these cards yet, but I'm skeptical of early blanket statements that Trader isn't as good a Gardens enabler as Workshop because it's not as fast. But it seems plausible and even likely to me that the best way to play Trader/Gardens is not as a rush strategy.
Consider a Trader opening, rushing Gardens immediately thereafter but not otherwise rushing to end the game. Use Trader on Estates for pairs of Silver as you do so, which may keep you from clogging up much. Also use Trader on Silver for triplets of Silver to keep your deck loose. Now bide your time! Buy expensive cards when you can, mostly so you can explode your deck by hitting them with Trader later. And buy Provinces when you are able -- or, alternately, don't buy Provinces at all if you have an overwhelming majority of the Gardenses, so that the Province player can't end early and keep you from exploding your deck with Silvers with all the time you've bought yourself.
I don't know if this will really work, but it's worth exploring.
Anyway, it may well turn out that Trader doesn't make a competitive enabler for Gardens after all. But I don't think we can draw that conclusion by simply imagining how a Workshop/Gardens game would play with Trader substituted for Workshop.
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With Traders/Gardens, something to contemplate is buying Provinces and then exploding them with Traders. It's kind of like the five-card Bishop strategy: small loss of VP but your deck keeps going.
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I think it's quite possible that traders/gardens is better against a deck that's going for provinces than Workshop/Gardens while losing to Workshop/Gardens in the head-to-head. The thing in the head-to-head is that you've got to get those gardens at some point, and Workshop/Gardens is getting them so much faster than you are, so you aren't going to get many.
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This seems really worth repeating. I haven't played with these cards yet, but I'm skeptical of early blanket statements that Trader isn't as good a Gardens enabler as Workshop because it's not as fast. But it seems plausible and even likely to me that the best way to play Trader/Gardens is not as a rush strategy.
Consider a Trader opening, rushing Gardens immediately thereafter but not otherwise rushing to end the game. Use Trader on Estates for pairs of Silver as you do so, which may keep you from clogging up much. Also use Trader on Silver for triplets of Silver to keep your deck loose. Now bide your time! Buy expensive cards when you can, mostly so you can explode your deck by hitting them with Trader later. And buy Provinces when you are able -- or, alternately, don't buy Provinces at all if you have an overwhelming majority of the Gardenses, so that the Province player can't end early and keep you from exploding your deck with Silvers with all the time you've bought yourself.
I don't know if this will really work, but it's worth exploring.
Anyway, it may well turn out that Trader doesn't make a competitive enabler for Gardens after all. But I don't think we can draw that conclusion by simply imagining how a Workshop/Gardens game would play with Trader substituted for Workshop.
I bet that is at least something to defend against. If you are not combated on Gardens and Silvers, you really fastly have 8 Gardens and a ton of Silvers. Getting 8 Provinces usually takes ages, so a lot of time to get $5s (Duchies?) to trash them again. Trashing a $5 gives you a turn with at least +5 Silvers +-0card. All this Silvers will allow you to get some of the Provinces yourself, if you just split them 2-6 you're behind 24 Points on Provinces, that 3 per Garden. That's nothing when you can get +5cards a turn. If you split them 0-8 you need 60 cards, that's a lot more (how many Silvers are in the supply?)
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(how many Silvers are in the supply?)
Officially? As many as you want to put there at the beginning of the game.
On Isotropic? 40.
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BV+ Lab or Market+ Bishop would be pretty deadly I think.
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I just played my first few games with these cards and I love them.
Obviously BV is amazing in some instances, and not in others. Even if there isn't a deadly combo on there like Wharf or (gulp) Torturer, you still often end up with 6 and decide to buy the 5 dollar power attack (mountebank, witch, ghost ship). The BV is awesome here (I just used it with Ghost Ship and it really makes that card a lot more effective and less collisions with multiples in my 1 game sample anyway).
Trader is much more intriguing to me, it has the potential to totally change strategy, though I don't really know if it can do that yet. 'm waiting to hit a Duke board with it, as I would imagine it would perform very well.
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Yeah, I think Trader/Duke has a lot of potential.
Just played a Trader/Familiar/Philosopher's Stone game, that was fun.
added: One interesting thing is that an opponent's Trader makes Familiar a dead card when you have multiple in hand. That's pretty nifty.
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Hmmm...
I was playing Trader with Tournament on Isotropic, and it looked like when I used the Trader ability to replace my prize (a Duchy) with a Silver, the Silver went on top of my deck.
But, it might just be that I had a lot of Silver in my deck, and I just happened to draw a silver off the +1 card from the Tournament.
Edit: Tested again using a Chapel to trash down to a deck consisting of only Golds, Tournaments, and a Trader (no Silvers). When I used the Trader on the Tournament prize, I drew another Gold instead of the Silver, so it looks like my prior deck just had a large number of Silvers in it.
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You can add Border Village/Bishop to the list of combos.
You can either get what you want with the border village, and bishop that later, or just use it to add fuel for your bishop to eat up. Ideally, something like Bazzar/Treasury in there, so that you can get the card you want to keep, and bishop the BV.
Haven't messed around with it too much, but definitely worked in the last game I played.
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Goons and Traders, yes please.
While you may be right that people in general underrate Silver, I can say for sure I'm not going to want Traders in my Goons deck. Goons is one of the paradigmatic examples of a card that is best in no-silver decks, because the more Treasure in your deck the less often you can play those Goons and the more likely you won't see those crucial double (and triple)-Goons hits.
I'd much rather run the Pearl Divers.
---Traders would of course be crunchy with Gardens and Dukes, though.
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Goons and Traders, yes please.
While you may be right that people in general underrate Silver, I can say for sure I'm not going to want Traders in my Goons deck. Goons is one of the paradigmatic examples of a card that is best in no-silver decks, because the more Treasure in your deck the less often you can play those Goons and the more likely you won't see those crucial double (and triple)-Goons hits.
I'd much rather run the Pearl Divers.
Although I agree, at some point in Goons decks you start buying Copper with those extra buys. Mightn't you want to use those extra buys a little sooner if you could get Silvers with them instead? Or do you think maybe not?
You can add Border Village/Bishop to the list of combos.
Can't wait to try it. Surely BV/Salvager and BV/Apprentice are just as interesting. Probably everything that's great with Peddler is also great with Border Village. BV costs a little less, but with BV you can get those enablers at the same time. This card is subtly rife with strategic possibilities. It's a fantastic card to roll out first to represent Hinterlands.
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Goons and Traders, yes please.
While you may be right that people in general underrate Silver, I can say for sure I'm not going to want Traders in my Goons deck. Goons is one of the paradigmatic examples of a card that is best in no-silver decks, because the more Treasure in your deck the less often you can play those Goons and the more likely you won't see those crucial double (and triple)-Goons hits.
I'd much rather run the Pearl Divers.
If you can run the double and triple goons hits, sure. My comment was based on decks that can't do that, of which there are quite a lot. In that case, the buy, with no money (assuming coppers OR curses are left) turns into a silver-with-a-VP, a touch worse than harem, and a card that, if printed, would have to cost 5. Pretty nice.
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Love both cards, Traders has less utility obviously, but useful in a Gardens strategy I think.
The second card, is just a superb "enabler", if the primary ability fuels the card you gain when you buy, you essentially ensure an even distribution/acquisition of your engine. I think this is really going to be the marquee features of this expansion, which are cards that are over-costed for their primary ability but gain you things when you buy them (or gain other cards).
Both cards are elegant, simple and both can be seen to have obvious utility. In other words, the quality of this game continues.
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I think it's quite possible that traders/gardens is better against a deck that's going for provinces than Workshop/Gardens while losing to Workshop/Gardens in the head-to-head. The thing in the head-to-head is that you've got to get those gardens at some point, and Workshop/Gardens is getting them so much faster than you are, so you aren't going to get many.
I'm not convinced that Traders is that much slower at getting Gardens than Workshop is. What it's a lot slower at is getting Estates and Coppers.
With Workshops, you need to spend a while Workshopping more Workshops. Traders/Gardens functions pretty well based on my limited testing with just a couple of Traders in it, and it generates $4 very consistently.
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Here (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/13/game-20111013-110920-be35458b.html) is a Trader/Gardens game against a 40+. I'd actually not seen Baron/Gardens before and wondered if him going into Gardens was a reaction; it was not. He was of the opinion Baron/Gardens was stronger, but I'm skeptical. The game was close, at any rate. added: I'm not sure I want to be buying early Estates in this sort of game. I do think they have some merit in terms of Baron blocking, but as the play shows the relative strength of the Trader deck is that later on it has other things going for it, and thus assisting the rush is possibly deadly.
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Here (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/13/game-20111013-110920-be35458b.html) is a Trader/Gardens game against a 40+. I'd actually not seen Baron/Gardens before and wondered if him going into Gardens was a reaction; it was not. He was of the opinion Baron/Gardens was stronger, but I'm skeptical. The game was close, at any rate. added: I'm not sure I want to be buying early Estates in this sort of game. I do think they have some merit in terms of Baron blocking, but as the play shows the relative strength of the Trader deck is that later on it has other things going for it, and thus assisting the rush is possibly deadly.
Interesting game. I, like you, am not sure that buying early Estates is a good idea, especially with $3, though I take your point about Baron blocking.
You skipped a Copper buy at one point -- I assume that was just an oversight?
I might've been tempted to get a second Traders earlier.
But I think that what this game shows is the later-game power of Traders/Gardens:
Turns 15+, =^..^= buys/gains: Island x 4, Copper x 3, Duchy, Silver x 3.
Turns 15+, ackack buys/gains: Lighthouse, Silver x 6, Province (!!), Duchy x 5 (!!)
So, ackack gains 1 more card (well, actually the same net change, with the -1 from exploding his Traders), but his VP compared to =^..^= in the late game are completely one-sided.
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Here's a Trader game vs. double ambassador:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/13/game-20111013-121815-7ccb75be.html
(If I remember to do so, I'll change that link to the Council Room link tomorrow.)
(Yes, I'm one of those double-ambassador goofballs.)
My opening was reptilian brain at play; I hadn't really thought about the ambassador-trader interaction. I did shockingly well, I think mainly because of shuffle luck and peddler luck.
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I wish Trader was named something else, to avoid confusion with Horse Traders, especially since both are reactions.
Absolutely gorgeous artwork on the first two cards. Hinterlands definitely seems to have an interesting feel that goes beyond its "cards that do something when you buy them" theme. I don't think I've ever been so eager to try a Dominion expansion.
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It will require some updates to councilroom to be able to parse the new logs.
... mZ gains an Estate.
... ... mZ reveals a Trader to gain a Silver instead.
that instead means that the Estate gain is a lie. Bleh ;(
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I wish Trader was named something else, to avoid confusion with Horse Traders, especially since both are reactions.
Absolutely gorgeous artwork on the first two cards. Hinterlands definitely seems to have an interesting feel that goes beyond its "cards that do something when you buy them" theme. I don't think I've ever been so eager to try a Dominion expansion.
I was thinking the exact same thing BEFORE I even thought of Horse Traders. Specifically, because I still confuse Trading Post and Trade Route in conversation sometimes. So this makes the fourth, not third, card with "Trade" in its name. Ah well.
Totally agree with you on the artwork and the interesting feel. Hinterlands has me stoked.
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I corrected it just as you were posting :P
Another question...is it better to trash a Silver and gain 3, or trash a Copper and gain a Silver during your Buy Phase (in the early game)?
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I corrected it just as you were posting :P
Another question...is it better to trash a Silver and gain 3, or trash a Copper and gain a Silver during your Buy Phase?
Depends on what you would buy instead and what your deck looks like, I imagine. I suspect that usually, trash silver=>+3 silver is better, though.
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Trader would be good with trade route and also for grand markets. I think it will end up being useful.
Edit: I'm just going to find more uses, but it's also nice for early estate/hoard.
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Another question...is it better to trash a Silver and gain 3, or trash a Copper and gain a Silver during your Buy Phase (in the early game)?
So, you're saying, if you have Silver, Copper x2, Trader, and you've been Cutpursed so that's it, is it better to Trade the Silver or one of the Coppers, stipulating that there's nothing to buy at $2 or $4, and you'll buy Silver with $3?
Well, post turn:
If you Trade the Silver, you have 3 Silver, 2 Copper.
If you Trade a Copper, you have 3 Silver (the one you started with, the one you bought, and the one you Traded), 1 Copper.
EDIT: Wait. Duh. In my mind, you can Trade a Copper for a Silver, but actually no, only for the reactive use. So Situation 2 is 2 Silver, 1 Copper. Is 3 Silver, 2 Copper better than 2 Silver, 1 Copper? I suspect that 2 Silver, 1 Copper is usually but not always better, especially when we stipulate a deck that has an easy time gaining Silver.
So, Trading the Copper is presumably better in most decks, Trading the Silver is better if you're trying to expand your deck a la Gardens. (Especially since in the case of Gardens, you'd probably also buy a Copper, so you'd have one more card besides that).
But... it seems like a rare scenario. That 5th card really matters! If it's a Copper, you've got the possibility of a $5 buy. If it's a Silver, you've got the possibility of a $6 buy, or a $4 + Trade a Silver for 3 more Silvers, or a $5 + Trade a Copper for nothing. If it's an Estate, it seems like it's almost a no-brainer to Trade the Estate instead of any of your money. If it's an Action, well, you're probably set up for something decent?
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If you play Trader to trash a Copper, it is no longer in hand to turn the new Copper you gain into Silver. So unless I'm misunderstanding something, that's not an option.
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If you play Trader to trash a Copper, it is no longer in hand to turn the new Copper you gain into Silver. So unless I'm misunderstanding something, that's not an option.
Yeah, I edited. I was thinking you could use the Action part of Trader to turn a Copper into a Silver, but obviously you can't. What can I say? It's a new card, I haven't fully internalized it!
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Sure. Not trying to single you out, since it had gone a few posts I figured it was worth mentioning.
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No, you don't put it on top of your deck. The Silver goes into your discard pile just like any other gained card, unless you have something (like a Watchtower) that can put it elsewhere.
People who say you don't want lots of Silvers, man, that is only true (in a Province game) if you are building an engine. Trader isn't like some big sexy card or anything, but Silvers are basically pure goodness on action-poor boards without Colonies. That said I suspect that (unless Geronimoo made some error in testing Trader as an opener in his simulation) it will not be a particularly strong card unless you have plans for the reaction effect. This doesn't surprise me much since the opportunity cost is pretty high of having it in hand instead of a Silver you could have bought instead. One possible suggestion for simulation: never use it to trash Copper unless that $1 was not useful this turn.
Also anybody who says "oh, Border Village is OK I guess if there's a $5 terminal you want," are we talking about the same game? $5 terminals are like the most important class of power cards in Dominion, and even if there isn't one, there are also lots of great $4 terminals that benefit from good Village density.
Well, I haven't really managed to make trader-BM work. The problem is this: silvers are good and all, but the main thing that gets you those Provinces early are golds. The price you pay in slowing down when those golds enter your hand can be quite fatal. If you are just trying to dilute everything down with silvers... well, that works long term, but it's very slow. In addition, you'll only likely get to play traders twice or three times, because of how fast your deck inflates, and using traders for the action effect defeats the reaction effect because the density of your cards becomes too small. (And ironically, if you are reliant on each of your hands having a trader in it, having a deck be predominantly silvers and coppers makes it damn hard to get $8 out of the remainder.)
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Possible issue with Trader.
Turn 1 - Buy Trader.
Turn 2 - Do nothing.
Turn 3 - Buy Curse. Reveal Trader. Gain Silver. Reveal Trader. Gain Silver. Reveal Trader. Gain Silver. Reveal Trader. Repeat until Silver pile is depleted.
I think we need a ruling on this Donald.
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Possible issue with Trader.
Turn 1 - Buy Trader.
Turn 2 - Do nothing.
Turn 3 - Buy Curse. Reveal Trader. Gain Silver. Reveal Trader. Gain Silver. Reveal Trader. Gain Silver. Reveal Trader. Repeat until Silver pile is depleted.
I think we need a ruling on this Donald.
You instead gain a silver. You aren't trashing the card.
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Donald addresses this in his preview blurb here: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/710637/previews-1
The idea is that the reaction is when you WOULD gain a card, you gain a Silver instead. The card you would have gained doesn't go anywhere or get trashed or anything. There's still an infinite loop possible here, just as there is with all reaction cards (except Watchtower?), but it doesn't deplete any piles. It goes basically like this:
Buy Curse. Reveal Trader to gain Silver instead of Curse. Reveal Trader to gain Silver instead of Silver. Reveal Trader to gain Silver instead of Silver. Reveal Trader to gain Silver instead of Silver. [etc]
...but the only card that actually gets gained is the Silver you get on the final reveal of the Trader.
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Possible issue with Trader.
Turn 1 - Buy Trader.
Turn 2 - Do nothing.
Turn 3 - Buy Curse. Reveal Trader. Gain Silver. Reveal Trader. Gain Silver. Reveal Trader. Gain Silver. Reveal Trader. Repeat until Silver pile is depleted.
I think we need a ruling on this Donald.
From the copy:
"It doesn't matter how many Traders you reveal how many times, you still just get one Silver instead of the original card."
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Got it, thanks guys.
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Well, I haven't really managed to make trader-BM work. The problem is this: silvers are good and all, but the main thing that gets you those Provinces early are golds. The price you pay in slowing down when those golds enter your hand can be quite fatal. If you are just trying to dilute everything down with silvers... well, that works long term, but it's very slow. In addition, you'll only likely get to play traders twice or three times, because of how fast your deck inflates, and using traders for the action effect defeats the reaction effect because the density of your cards becomes too small. (And ironically, if you are reliant on each of your hands having a trader in it, having a deck be predominantly silvers and coppers makes it damn hard to get $8 out of the remainder.)
This is believable. My only real objection is to the notion that somehow Silver is a bad card you never want lots of. Sometimes lots of Silvers is great!
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I played a series of games using the two new cards this morning. In my experience it is Trader that can radically alter the landscape of a Dominion game. It has a cascading effect that can pretty quickly allow a player to gain the density of silver to work the Province pile. Four and five Silver hands become quite common. I lost one game using this strategy against a dedicated Possession deck simply because he used my hands more often than I did. The other time I used this strat I won.
The Border Village is good, but like someone said before, it is a $1 Village added to the cost of a $5 card. In this sense I suppose it can be compared to Peddler, in that it is a card that can be bought cheaper than the stated cost and can therefor be trashed for a greater benefit or simply used as an engine card.
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I also tried a gardens-trader strat several times in solitaire mode and I have doubts that it is fast enough for a strict Garden victory.
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I guess one of the weaknesses of it, is you are always looking to 3-pile with Gardens and gaining Silver doesn't really help you achieve that.
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...The idea is that the reaction is when you WOULD gain a card, you gain a Silver instead. The card you would have gained doesn't go anywhere or get trashed or anything. There's still an infinite loop possible here, just as there is with all reaction cards (except Watchtower?), but it doesn't deplete any piles. It goes basically like this:...
Off topic but I don't believe there is an infinite loop associated with Horse Traders.
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I guess one of the weaknesses of it, is you are always looking to 3-pile with Gardens and gaining Silver doesn't really help you achieve that.
It's entirely possible to run out the Silver pile with Trader.
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I guess one of the weaknesses of it, is you are always looking to 3-pile with Gardens and gaining Silver doesn't really help you achieve that.
But who says that you're "always looking to 3-pile with Gardens"? That's how Workshop/Gardens works. But that's because Workshop/Gardens is a terrible, terrible deck by about turn 11, really only capable of generating $2 or so with actual Treasure.
Whereas Trader/Gardens is, in my tests, routinely capable of reaching $8 by the mid-teens.
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Trader/Gardens definitely seems like a slower non-rush strategy to me. Look to eventually run out the Silvers, score 5+ points per Gardens, and pick up some Provinces and Duchies, which should be doable even without any Golds. Dunno if it will actually work in practice though.
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I think it's quite possible that traders/gardens is better against a deck that's going for provinces than Workshop/Gardens while losing to Workshop/Gardens in the head-to-head. The thing in the head-to-head is that you've got to get those gardens at some point, and Workshop/Gardens is getting them so much faster than you are, so you aren't going to get many.
I'm not convinced that Traders is that much slower at getting Gardens than Workshop is. What it's a lot slower at is getting Estates and Coppers.
With Workshops, you need to spend a while Workshopping more Workshops. Traders/Gardens functions pretty well based on my limited testing with just a couple of Traders in it, and it generates $4 very consistently.
Yes, but that "a while" isn't very long at all. 3 turns total, really, especially as you should gardens earlier in the mirror matchup than you otherwise would. If workshop doesn't get gardens significantly faster than buying them, you should basically never play it as a deck. I expect that a typical Workshop/Gardens should win the race against Trader/Gardens 6/2ish.
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3-piling with Gardens can make sense on some boards, as you can make it happen faster than your opponent gets provinces.
With Woodcutter and Pawn on the board with Trader, it seemed like I could 3-pile fairly fast on a very recent solo run.
Other boards, yeah, you are not looking to 3-pile.
I wasn't sure how many Traders I needed, I'll try again see what the threshold is. But if there are cheap +buys (like Woodshop and Pawn), Traders seems quite useful.
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Yes, but that "a while" isn't very long at all. 3 turns total, really, especially as you should gardens earlier in the mirror matchup than you otherwise would. If workshop doesn't get gardens significantly faster than buying them, you should basically never play it as a deck. I expect that a typical Workshop/Gardens should win the race against Trader/Gardens 6/2ish.
Well, I just played 4 games each with Workshop/Gardens and Trader/Gardens. Here are my results:
Game 1, W/G: 4th Garden turn 7. 5th Garden turn 8, 6th Garden turn 9, 7th Garden turn 11, 8th Garden turn 12.
Game 2, W/G: 4th Garden turn 9. 5th Garden turn 10, 6th Garden turn 13, 7th Garden turn 14, 8th Garden turn 15.
Game 3, W/G: 4th Garden turn 8. 5th Garden turn 9. 6th Garden turn 10. 7th Garden turn 11, 8th Garden turn 13.
Game 4, W/G: 4th Garden turn 8. 5th Garden turn 11. 6th Garden turn 12. 7th Garden turn 13, 8th Garden turn 14.
(Game 2 was appallingly unlucky).
Game 1, T/G: 4th Garden turn 6. 5th Garden turn 7. 6th Garden turn 8. 7th Garden turn 11. 8th Garden turn 13.
Game 2, T/G: 4th Garden turn 7. 5th Garden turn 8. 6th Garden turn 9. 7th Garden turn 10. 8th Garden turn 12.
Game 3, T/G: 4th Garden turn 9. 5th Garden turn 11. 6th Garden turn 12. 7th Garden turn 13. 8th Garden turn 14.
Game 4, T/G: 4th Garden turn 7. 5th Garden turn 8. 6th Garden turn 9. 7th Garden turn 11. 8th Garden turn 12.
(Game 1 was appallingly lucky).
Now, that ain't science. But it suggests to me that hoping for a 6/2 split for the Workshop deck is aspirational rather than common. I think a 5/3 split will be much more likely.
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You can indeed run out of Silver, actually it screwed me up, I was only on 5 gardens when I ended the game:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/13/game-20111013-143355-c0368db8.html
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Anyone want to test out Trader/Embargo opening? I banned myself from playing for the semester.
On a big money Kingdom and your opponent doesn't open trader you should be set.
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Yes, but that "a while" isn't very long at all. 3 turns total, really, especially as you should gardens earlier in the mirror matchup than you otherwise would. If workshop doesn't get gardens significantly faster than buying them, you should basically never play it as a deck. I expect that a typical Workshop/Gardens should win the race against Trader/Gardens 6/2ish.
Well, I just played 4 games each with Workshop/Gardens and Trader/Gardens. Here are my results:
Game 1, W/G: 4th Garden turn 7. 5th Garden turn 8, 6th Garden turn 9, 7th Garden turn 11, 8th Garden turn 12.
Game 2, W/G: 4th Garden turn 9. 5th Garden turn 10, 6th Garden turn 13, 7th Garden turn 14, 8th Garden turn 15.
Game 3, W/G: 4th Garden turn 8. 5th Garden turn 9. 6th Garden turn 10. 7th Garden turn 11, 8th Garden turn 13.
Game 4, W/G: 4th Garden turn 8. 5th Garden turn 11. 6th Garden turn 12. 7th Garden turn 13, 8th Garden turn 14.
(Game 2 was appallingly unlucky).
Game 1, T/G: 4th Garden turn 6. 5th Garden turn 7. 6th Garden turn 8. 7th Garden turn 11. 8th Garden turn 13.
Game 2, T/G: 4th Garden turn 7. 5th Garden turn 8. 6th Garden turn 9. 7th Garden turn 10. 8th Garden turn 12.
Game 3, T/G: 4th Garden turn 9. 5th Garden turn 11. 6th Garden turn 12. 7th Garden turn 13. 8th Garden turn 14.
Game 4, T/G: 4th Garden turn 7. 5th Garden turn 8. 6th Garden turn 9. 7th Garden turn 11. 8th Garden turn 12.
(Game 1 was appallingly lucky).
Now, that ain't science. But it suggests to me that hoping for a 6/2 split for the Workshop deck is aspirational rather than common. I think a 5/3 split will be much more likely.
I'm not sure how you're playing the W/G, unless you got lots of 5/2 starts. Because I get
Game 1 2 3 4 5
4th Garden 6 6 6 5 6
5th 7 7 8 6 7
6th 8 9 10 9 9
7th 10 10 14 10 11
8th 13 12 15 11 12
On the other hand, what really surprises me is how fast you can scarf those gardens with T/G. My gut was wrong here if you aren't regularly getting absurdly lucky in your 4. Yeah, wow. That makes it look like T/G is super, super strong. Maybe even almost I/G strong, 'cept you're probably better to get some Ironworks first and then maybe back into Traders.
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Trader/Embargo is cute, I'm just not sure how strong it is. Your opponent will often have a Silver from the opening buy and can purchase a Trader themselves on turns 3-5 if they haven't already, and then your advantage is going to be quite modest.
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I suspect Ironworks/Gardens would still beat Trader/Gardens because Ironworks pushes the pace so hard. But in general I think the question of which is best isn't very important, because it's going to be pretty infrequent. The more important message is that Trader is a strong enabler of Gardens. I think it's a quite strong 4.
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Anyone want to test out Trader/Embargo opening? I banned myself from playing for the semester.
On a big money Kingdom and your opponent doesn't open trader you should be set.
What's your thought? Embargo Silver and Embargo Trader so that your opponent can't just mirror you? I suspect it's not likely enough that you'll get your Embargos before your opponent sneaks in enough Silver to get to Gold. And if necessary, he can suck up one Curse to get Trader even after you've Embargoed it.
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I'm not sure how you're playing the W/G, unless you got lots of 5/2 starts. Because I get
Hmm. So, start Workshop/Workshop, what do you get with your first $4 or Workshop? A third Workshop or Gardens? I was going third Workshop, which may well explain it.
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The goal of the Workshop/Gardens script is to get 3 Workshops before turn 5. If you think you can probably get a Gardens at turn 3 and a Workshop at turn 4, you should take the Gardens at turn 3.
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Just won my first real game with Hinterlands cards, both Traders and Border Village were on the board.
I wound up 3-piling Great Hall, Border Village and Dutchies to win, essentially gaining a Dutchy with each Border Village buy. It wasn't a clean game, I made mistakes, but Traders not only kept my deck trim of copper, it also got the Estates out of my hand for Silver. I could have done better, but the cards were useful, and a lot of fun.
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I just won a game against Hobbinton that ended with "Torturers, Curses, and Border Villages are all gone". You can probably guess how it went.
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The goal of the Workshop/Gardens script is to get 3 Workshops before turn 5. If you think you can probably get a Gardens at turn 3 and a Workshop at turn 4, you should take the Gardens at turn 3.
I find that this is only true if your opponent is not likely to take any gardens themselves. If they are gardening too, you really need to push the pace on the gardens, so I only get 2 workshops before racing for gardens, stopping for the 3rd workshop only if I get $3.
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I'm beginning to think that there will be some very fast province rushes with border villages. There are already some strong existing strategies where you would overbuy a key 5 cost card. Adding a bonus border village into the deck could be a tiny advantage or a massive acceleration, depending upon the kingdom cards you're using.
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I played a game with Envoy and Trader this morning. Normally I'm not a big fan of Envoy, but with Traders stuffing my hand with Silvers, my hand was very uniform. I can vouch that this combo works very well. It helps to have something in the Village family available so you can play them both in the same turn.
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Zaphod is right it works really well, I can consume all 8 Provinces in
24 22 turns and 5 Provinces lickety-split. If you have a cheap +2 action village-type, with Envoy and Trader, its a really nice engine.
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I think presence of Trader makes Saboteur worse.
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Also, the presence of Trader makes ambassador much, much worse.
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Anyone want to test out Trader/Embargo opening? I banned myself from playing for the semester.
On a big money Kingdom and your opponent doesn't open trader you should be set.
What's your thought? Embargo Silver and Embargo Trader so that your opponent can't just mirror you? I suspect it's not likely enough that you'll get your Embargos before your opponent sneaks in enough Silver to get to Gold. And if necessary, he can suck up one Curse to get Trader even after you've Embargoed it.
The idea is that the embargo helps you get more silvers.
edit: Bah, actually it would probably be easier to just use hamlet or pawn.
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Trader feels like a decent enabler for Dukes, simply because the mass of silver in your deck lets you reliably hit $5 fairly often. I can gain 8 Duchies by around Turn 15 or 16, which is only slightly slower than Horse Traders. While Horse Traders is more resilient against discard-from-hand attacks, Traders is better against cursing attacks.
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The next two (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/711061/previews-2) are up: Nomad Camp and Fool's Gold.
Nomad Camp is nice and straightforward but, man, Fool's Gold has me absolutely flummoxed thinking about it- first thought has me comparing it with Venture and thinking they're best in similar situations, and perhaps together? All I can say for sure is that we now officially have our first Reaction that's useless against every single attack!
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As mentioned, Nomad Camp can be used for a quick $5 on turn 2 if you're lucky enough to open 4/3.
But then there's always a 60%* chance that you'll be stuck with $4. Still, +Buys cards can always come in handy when you're playing some BMU strat with something like Banks. In those cases, you'd rather have picked up a +Buy early, because you don't like spending $12 on a simple Woodcutter.
*3 remaining Coppers in 5 unknown cards, chance of having Copper on the bottom = 3/5
Fool's Gold's reaction is kind of lame, there may well have been better possibilities for this reaction, but there are more reactions in the set IIRC so we'll wait and see. It definitely offers a strategy to be build around it, since two of them together will always deliver a solid $5.
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As mentioned, Nomad Camp can be used for a quick $5 on turn 2 if you're lucky enough to open 4/3.
But then there's always a 60%* chance that you'll be stuck with $4. Still, +Buys cards can always come in handy when you're playing some BMU strat with something like Banks. In those cases, you'd rather have picked up a +Buy early, because you don't like spending $12 on a simple Woodcutter.
*3 remaining Coppers in 5 unknown cards, chance of having Copper on the bottom = 3/5
Fool's Gold's reaction is kind of lame, there may well have been better possibilities for this reaction, but there are more reactions in the set IIRC so we'll wait and see. It definitely offers a strategy to be build around it, since two of them together will always deliver a solid $5.
There are three Reactions and we've already seen two. I agree that the reaction on Fool's Gold is pretty lame- having a reaction to your opponents buying good stuff is a great idea, but this just seems like such a narrow implementation of that idea.
Hopefully the Victory-Reaction will be more exciting. If it is a Victory-Reaction, of course. :P
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At first sight, I thought Nomad Camp is boring, it's an instant Woodcutter, but like Donald X. pointed out, the opening can change. I don't like that there can be a luck-based difference between 4-3 and 3-4 openings now. But it adds an interesting effect to the first two turns. If the effect is interesting in the mid- or end-game has to be tested, I suppose.
Fool's Gold is now the first Treasure-Reaction card. It supports the Chapel strategy, because now you can have Chapel & 3x Fool's Gold instead of Chapel & 3x Silver.
And you're ready for Provinces. Later it can be changed into real gold. It also interacts well with Tactician or good engines. But if you have good running engines you likely don't need Fool's Gold anymore.
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But if you have good running engines you likely don't need Fool's Gold anymore.
That's not quite true. Say you're building an engine with build-in +buy, but not much build-in money. At least not enough to go double-Province. Say Fishing Village-Wharf/Council Room. That's not even an extreme case, as FV gives some money, but you wont push it anyway near the $16. Now Fool's Gold comes in extremely handy. For $6, you can pick up 3 of them in one turn, increasing your economy for $9, so you given you had $7 before in the deck(5xFV+Silver, 5xFishing Village + Fool's Gold), you now are at $16 and ready for double Province. Just with Golds, that would have cost you 3 turns. (7->10->13(15 with Silver)->16).
So for engines the good thing about the Fool's Gold is not so much it's power, it will seldomly be much more worth than a Gold, but its price, so you can pick them up quite quickly if you have the buys.
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I like Fool's Gold a lot, actually. I see the reaction effect as a self-haven in the late stages of the game. At $2, I can see the stack disappearing very quickly, for both strategically wise and unwise reasons.
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I also somewhat expect a VP card based on either Treasure as a whole or Copper/Silver.
Bank Teller
$6
Worth 2 VP for every 10 Treasures in your deck.
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Fool's Gold is a very interesting concept. Some analysis:
- Chapel/BM probably got a lot faster (like possibly dominating strategy) if Fool's Gold is out. Chapel/Fool's Gold and not buying any treasure but FG is going to be fast fast fast, I think. If you're doing nothing but buying Green, 2 FG get you a Duchy, 3 get you a Province, just like regular Gold. But you can get them in your deck much quicker.
- Talisman/FG is also potentially interesting, though unlikely to be sufficient on its own without help. Chapel still seems best, but any sort of big draw, +buy engine can also expect to do very well with FG.
- FG seems like Native Village in that it's a card that can be very good if you build your deck around it and terrible as a casual acquisition. added: That said, because the card benefits so hugely from density, FG might end up being a lot like Minion - if your opponent starts pounding the pile, you might have to as well. A deck with only 5 treasures probably isn't going to hold up very well for a green rush.
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Fool's gold seems to have a very appropriate name. When played well it will be fantastic. If anything goes wrong it will be an elusive waste of time.
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Geronimoo, can you test how well Chapel/only Fool's Gold does in your simulator?
I don't know what's better, fast trashing only or buying a Fool's Gold with 2 Coppers, 2 Estates and Chapel.
I suspect this to be very strong. How would this compete with Mountebank + Big Money?
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Fool's Gold is great. Such a simple idea, and yet so full of possibilities (and hazards).
I can't help thinking that if it had been proposed as a fan card, the universal reaction would be that it was priced too low. But it goes to show how inexact a science the whole pricing thing is. I love that we can trust that these cards have been tested so exhaustively and that they're basically the best incarnation of their ideas possible.
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I can't help thinking that if it had been proposed as a fan card, the universal reaction would be that it was priced too low.
My reaction was similar but opposite: I thought $4 was too much. Although I suppose it's comparable to Treasure Maps, they can be pretty hard to match up, and you only need to do it once. And I suppose even when you do get two FGs together, they're only worth a little more than two Silvers. Although, of course, $5 is "a lot more" than $4.
I suspect Nomad Camp might cause a little AP if you open $4. Do I buy a NC in the hope that I might get a $5, but of course it's more likely that I'll get another $4, in which case I've essentially opened Woodcutter/$4. And then you have a Copper holding back your opening buys a little.
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Sorry for the double-post, but I just realised something: is Fool's Gold the only card in the game that can get you a turn 3 Province after opening with 2 of them?
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Hehehe, Fool's Gold.
I wonder what the average value of it is when used. Probably closer to $2 than $3, which makes it more like a Silver than Gold and makes the price more accurate.
I don't like the reaction part which is a lot less useful in Colony games.
I must say, I played a solitaire game with FG/Chapel and Worker's Village and cleared the Provinces in 17 turns. I think such a card with +Buy is pretty nice to have with FGs.
Much like Bank you have either underkill (only 1 worth $1) or overkill (4 worth $13 total), so you really have to make the most of the situations in which you are able to line them up nicely.
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Sorry for the double-post, but I just realised something: is Fool's Gold the only card in the game that can get you a turn 3 Province after opening with 2 of them?
The "2 of them" seems like a pretty artificial restriction to an already sort of goofy category, but yes, since you're eliminating the 4s with this requirement, it is.
Simulating Chapel/FG is going to take a bit of changing to the standard Big Money rules. I'm inclined to think you should be going balls to the wall for 5+ Provinces and thus starting to buy Duchies somewhat later. Buying no treasure but Fool's Gold seems best if this is your plan, and so for a long time any <8 turn should be spent on FG, I think.
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I think the focus here should be on Chapel/FG with a +buy. I'm not gonna feel too great about spending ~$5 on a $2 card all the time, even if it is the best choice. Buying 2 FGs a turn is where it's at.
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If you can do it, sure. It's really not necessary, though. I've just played 3 test games on Isotropic, which while it isn't much of a sample, demonstrates just how fast this is. 4 Provinces in 12-14 turns seems about right. added: One of those was a Talisman game, I opened Talisman/Chapel instead of FG/Chapel. The Chapeling luck wasn't that great in that game, but I think that when that is possible it's probably good. Woodcutter might be a tough call, if you want one I think you want it reasonably late so that you don't have Chapel inefficiency.
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Sorry for the double-post, but I just realised something: is Fool's Gold the only card in the game that can get you a turn 3 Province after opening with 2 of them?
The "2 of them" seems like a pretty artificial restriction to an already sort of goofy category, but yes, since you're eliminating the 4s with this requirement, it is.
True, and I'm certainly not recommending it. I just remember Donald pointed out I think 3 cards that could get you a turn 3 Province opening X/Silver (one of which was Smithy), and I thought this was some interesting trivia.
More pointlessness, but I think there are very few $4 or even $5 cost cards that could get you a turn 3 Province if you somehow managed two open with two of them. In fact, the only other cards I can think of that could do this are Gold itself and Expand (and, of course, Platinum. And Contraband if your opponent allows it).
I think the focus here should be on Chapel/FG with a +buy. I'm not gonna feel too great about spending ~$5 on a $2 card all the time, even if it is the best choice. Buying 2 FGs a turn is where it's at.
With a Watchtower in hand or a Royal Seal in play... :D
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More pointlessness, but I think there are very few $4 or even $5 cost cards that could get you a turn 3 Province if you somehow managed two open with two of them. In fact, the only other cards I can think of that could do this are Gold itself and Expand (and, of course, Platinum. And Contraband if your opponent allows it).
Bank, Grand Market, Possession
and double-Forge could get you a Colony, but no Province...
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The next two (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/711061/previews-2) are up: Nomad Camp and Fool's Gold.
Could some kind soul post the text of these cards? BGG is blocked where I am. Sad panda am I.
Also sad because I thought I posted this an hour ago, but I apparently did not click the right button. Dumb panda am I.
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Could some kind soul post the text of these cards? BGG is blocked where I am. Sad panda am I.
Also sad because I thought I posted this an hour ago, but I apparently did not click the right button. Dumb panda am I.
Not the exact text, but the idea:
Nomad's Camp, $4: action, +2 +1 buy. When gained, put on top of the deck.
Fool's Gold, $2: treasure/reaction. First one played in a turn is worth $1, all subsequent ones are worth $4. As a Reaction, you may trash it when your opponent buys a Province and top deck a Gold.
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So I played a test Chapel/FG 2p game (not on this account), and it's definitely interesting. I think the key question is how to balance early trashing with making sure you get your share of the Fool's Gold, as falling substantially behind in that is really bad. I won 5/3 Provinces in 17 turns with only 4 FG, but it was a Tournament game which gave me some options and my opponent converted half of his FG to Gold, which we decided was probably a mistake.
It's a very polarized card, which as DG says invites room for misapplication. But generally I think it's going to be pretty obvious when it works and when it doesn't, so it seems likely either both players will ignore it or go for it. I'm generally apprehensive about that sort of card, but we'll see how this one holds up.
added: I really like this model of leaking the cards out two at a time.
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It'll be interesting to see how Nomad's Camp affects gardens games. It should be faster than just woodcutter/gardens but how much I'm not sure. The higher price tag will interfere somewhat. And I imagine the 4/3 vs 3/4 opening will have a huge effect on chance to win.
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One observation about Fool's Gold's reaction is that sometimes you might want to convert them to Golds even if you had a good Fool's Gold deck going. The reason is that as you green, the Fool's Golds will start to get spaced out and connect up less often. At a certain point, it might be a lot better just to have a Gold instead. In particular, that tipping point will likely occur around when your opponents are buying Provinces also.
The top-decking part is important, because it might well be the last turn or two of the game. You draw a hand of all green and a single Fool's Gold. Either way, this hand is a bust, but if someone buys a Province you may have rescued your next turn from the same fate.
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Someone on the BGG forums brought up an interesting idea: a Mint/Fool's Gold opening. Normally Mint openings are bad, but with Fool's Gold, you want to trash heavily and fast, and:
(1) The Fool's Gold is effectively a Copper for the moment, so you're down to $3 in your deck total, not $2.
(2) More Fool's Golds only cost $2. Big difference from having to build back up to Silvers, which cost $3.
(3) You can Mint your Fool's Gold as part of your effort to rebuild your economy.
Thoughts?
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Someone on the BGG forums brought up an interesting idea: a Mint/Fool's Gold opening. Normally Mint openings are bad, but with Fool's Gold, you want to trash heavily and fast, and:
(1) The Fool's Gold is effectively a Copper for the moment, so you're down to $3 in your deck total, not $2.
(2) More Fool's Golds only cost $2. Big difference from having to build back up to Silvers, which cost $3.
(3) You can Mint your Fool's Gold as part of your effort to rebuild your economy.
Thoughts?
Yes, Mint/FG is probably very very strong.
added: Converting FG's in a devoted FG deck is very likely a bad idea. The Golds are better if you have other treasure floating around, but the only thing different that happens with Gold vs. FG in terms of number of treasures needed in hand to do something is that you can buy Estates. For that modest gain, you are really crapping on the value of the remaining FG's in your deck.
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Now that you mention Mint, rinkworks, opening Fool's Gold/Mine could be great.
But this sounds all too good - a 2$-card that synergizes great with itself and good with many other cards (especially trashers). Would be interesting to know why it was priced so low. Maybe some kind of chapel-like argument?
Or to see how wrong we, especially I, are, by thinking how this and that would work..
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Only guessing here, but I suspect two things: One, that the gameplay value is more interesting if you can pick them up with extra Buys; two, that you really have to work to get three or more in your hand at the same time, which, despite the modest bump over Silver when you have two, is really probably where a Fool's Gold strategy starts to pay off.
That said, I would not be surprised to discover that Fool's Gold becomes the new second-best $2 card.
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But this sounds all too good - a 2$-card that synergizes great with itself and good with many other cards (especially trashers). Would be interesting to know why it was priced so low. Maybe some kind of chapel-like argument?
The argument for Chapel is especially that it can be so cheap because you anyway will only buy 1 of it usually, even if it would cost 0. Don't see that it works here.
I think we all think to much on the best-cases. You draw your whole deck, you trashed your whole deck, you have +buys. In a "usual" deck it will not be very strong, it is not very strong at the start, which takes a lot issue out of the whole pricing-debate, esp. if it's $2 or $3 or $4. And there are lots of decks where you don't want an expensive copper...
But I also think that it is probably one of the cards with more variance, in the sense of how it value differ depending on the board. It may be a lot weaker than say Pearl Diver, and it may be a lot stronger than say Hamlet...
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Ah-ha, yes! With Fool's Gold/Mint I think we finally have the very first actually-strong Mint opening :) There have been some marginally-sort-of-OK-I-guess-if-there-are-no-good-5s-available Mint openings explored in the past (Mint/Secret Chamber, Mint/Embargo), but I think Mint/Fool's Gold is genuinely strong.
Nomad Camp's ability to mess with opening strategy completely blows my mind, though I suspect it will introduce a lot of variance when starting deck order is not constrained to be identical between players. Nomad Camp/Treasury (for example) could be stupidly strong, while the other player gets stuck with a 4/2+2 or 3/4 opening even if they had 4/3 if they didn't get the $5 at turn 2 (since failure to convert the Nomad Camp into something awesome at turn 2 downgrades it into a $3 value Woodcutter).
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Not a huge fan of either card unveiled today, although both are well designed.
I see Fool's Gold as mostly cumbersome, two of them gets you one past two Silver and you can't Mine them into gold. If you could trash for a Gold on other types of VP purchases, I'd be very intrigued, but cards that require two or three in your hand to really pull off, generally don't enthuse me much. I think once again the preview put two cards together that complement each other well, Nomad can be used to keep your deck full of Fool's Gold on the second buy.
Nomad seems fun as a buy in the first turn on a 4/3 split, as it bumps you to 5 on the second turn, which as we all know is really useful. Other than though, I don't see it as compelling, gaining it late in the game via a Feast or something might be useful when you are staring at 13+, and can draw it right into your hand. I see the card's utility as narrow, but when the circumstance is there, its a compelling card.
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I will say that on reflection Nomad Camp interests me as an endgame card as well. There are many situations where you'd love to have a top-decked Woodcutter for $4 in the final turns of the game.
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Fool's Gold + Council Room deck... wouldn't it be a good strategy?
And if you can add Border Village... (and gain more Fool's Gold and Council Rooms...)
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I hope this expansion has some important $3 cards. Recently it seems $3 is the price where, excluding the few really useful cards at $3, a card is too weak (read: boring) to be priced at $4 but not so strong that opening 5/2 is a disadvantage. I take this back, my memory of $3 cards is patchy.
Fool's Gold definitely has an allure, but there are certainly flaws with it. Drawing a Fool's Gold alone in the late-game is worse than drawing a lone gold in the late-game, as doing so reduces the likelihood of getting 2 Fool's Golds together. The chance of trashing it for a gold helps this card, but as we learned from playing Tournament games this occurrence is hardly a reliable one (and, of course, trashing one makes any other Fool's Gold in your deck weaker). Might be interesting in a tournament game where Province buys are plentiful and early.
Nomad Camp is interesting, but you need to remember that it is still a Woodcutter at its heard. Now Woodcutter isn't necessarily a bad card; just downright inconvenient at times. The ability to buy a $5 on turn 2 is nice (especially in a Mountebank/Witch game), but I suspect that the card would have better use if there are strong $2 and $3 cards on the board (similar to one instance where Contraband is useful). It *might* be useful in the end-game if you want to buy a tie-breaking estate, but if you're at the point where you're buying estates it'd probably be more useful to buy the estate outright than go through a Nomad Camp to do it.
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Fool's Gold + Council Room deck... wouldn't it be a good strategy?
And if you can add Border Village... (and gain more Fool's Gold and Council Rooms...)
Funny you say this, my first and only game so far with Fool's Gold I did Fool's Gold/Council Room. It worked quite well, though it didn't feel crazy good. The other guy didn't have a plan beyond big money and still got 3 of the provinces.
I think the key to Fool's Gold is something with +card and +buy. So Market, Council Room, Worker's Village yes. Woodcutter, Laboratory, Salvager no. Undecided on Herbalist. That would be interesting..
Side note: I have serious thematic problems with this card. Why would people NOT be tricked the first time and then tricked every time after? Maybe rename it "propaganda" :P
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Think you guys are getting carried away with Fool's Gold? The card has 'Fools' in the name, after all. If that's not Game Designer speak for "be damned careful", I don't know what is.
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Yeah seems to me Fool's Gold is compelling when you pick it up cheap on a second buy. I'll solo some games with it, see if I like it.
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I like the cards, but the names are frustrating me. Nomad Camp sounds like it should be a village. Traders is a boring name and, as mentioned already, is easly confused with the other cards with trade in their name.
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Trader is a great, fun card, that can really change how you manage a board. It isn't always the right choice, but at times it can feed your deck. It's probably my favorite of the 4 released so far, just because its so interesting mechanically. Border Village is also awesome to use.
Fool's Gold is my least favorite so far, but I'm going to try and find ways to make it useful.
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Seems to me that Fool's Gold is quite usually just very very weak. On the right niche of boards it can be good, but it needs heavy trashing and isn't even all THAT fast with it, or some big draw engine, in which case there are usually better payloads. I'm also pretty me on Nomad Camp - woodcutter isn't that great a 3, topdecking shouldn't make it all that strong as a 4. Of course it couldn't be a 3, because then the openings would be REALLY messed up, but there you go.
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On the right niche of boards it can be good, but it needs heavy trashing and isn't even all THAT fast with it
It is weak most of the time, but what 1 action money strategies beat uncontested Chapel/FG? There are certainly engine decks that will be possible that will do better, but I think Chapel/FG will often be the strongest thing on a board.
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Having played with the cards we've had so far, I think this is the most eccentric expansion yet. It is definitely a thinking person's expansion that rewards the most experienced players more than any other set.
Now, I'm just waiting on the inevitiable "When you buy this, each other player gains a Curse" card.
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Chapel + Fool's Gold: I can get 5 Provinces by turn 15, (4 Provinces at 14) and all 8 Provinces by Turn
21 20, which comes in slightly better than an Envoy/Traders deck, but not by a whole lot.
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Instead of chapel, try remake + fools gold + warehouse + any supporting card. There should be plenty of good results from that.
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Having played with the cards we've had so far, I think this is the most eccentric expansion yet. It is definitely a thinking person's expansion that rewards the most experienced players more than any other set.
I agree with you. On the other hand, I wonder if the cards in these previews are purposely picked to be the ones that are the most game-warping. After all, if there's a vanilla card in the set, it's unlikely to make as intriguing a preview. But so far we've seen just four cards, which have included a new type combo, two new reaction cues, and the first card ever to muck with the opening turns. Maybe they're all wild like that, but probably not.
I suspect, however, that even if most of the remaining "when you gain" cards aren't as exotic, they will still amount to just what you say: an eccentric, game-changing expansion that requires some extra skill to play well. All in all, I'm super impressed and excited about what I've seen so far.
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Now that you mention Mint, rinkworks, opening Fool's Gold/Mine could be great.
But this sounds all too good - a 2$-card that synergizes great with itself and good with many other cards (especially trashers). Would be interesting to know why it was priced so low. Maybe some kind of chapel-like argument?
Or to see how wrong we, especially I, are, by thinking how this and that would work..
I think the reason it's $2 is that it would be terrible at $3. If you can't get multiples of them per turn or get them easily with extra buys, there is no way to get enough of them fast enough. Buying 1 at a time is just weighing down your deck with what are essentially coppers. At $2, the ability to get a bunch at once in some circumstances makes it an interesting card.
Regarding Nomad, I don't think it really breaks the whole opening thing that much, since the way I see it is that most of the time you won't want to buy it. It is, after all, a woodcutter. Sure it CAN get you to $5 before the first reshuffle, but only does so 40% of the time! More often, you will just find yourself with $4 and 2 buys on your next turn, so either you get another $3 or $4 card (in which case it's just like opening woodcutter/something) or you get 2 $2 cards. Probably for some of the elite $5 cards it's worth the risk given there aren't any particularly good opening options and/or you wouldn't mind getting 2 $2 cards (hamlets, lighthouses). It's also probably decent in general if you're trying to rush down some $2 piles, either because hamlet is the only village or because you're going vineyards or gardens or something. I think the more common use of it is going to be in the late game. You can build up an engine without (enough) +buy, and then add it in and start using it right away.
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Instead of chapel, try remake + fools gold + warehouse + any supporting card. There should be plenty of good results from that.
I made this work more effectively than Chapel at times, but other times I couldn't. It had more variance to it, than Chapel. Key issue seems to be ensuring you have two cards you want to trash, which Warehouse didn't always ensure, while Chapel is a little more graceful. Although its terminal it can trash from one to four. You want a draw of 3 Fool's Gold consistently in a Province game. Warehouse+Fool's Gold+Remake stays strong late in the game, but Chapel can stay fairly consistent, especially on that grab for four provinces.
I'll play with it more, but Warehouse will stump you, it can provide choices of a +5 buy, or trashing one card you want trashed and maybe one you don't. It works sometimes beautifully and other times provided choices with Remake that slowed you down. I'll work on it some more.
Steward works fairly well as well, slower than Chapel obviously, but can give you a little more dexterity later in the game.
Fool's Gold is a fun card, now that I've played with more, I like it. I'll try Mine+Fool's Gold, see how it goes.
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I just got crushed in a game where my opponent opened Mint/Fool's Gold...
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So far, my favorite combo of cards for Fool's Gold is Wharf/Chapel/Fool's Gold.
The additional cards and buys let you snap up a lot of Fool's Gold pretty quickly, Chapel trims out the cak then lies dead. I reached 4 Provinces in turn 11, and had all 8 Provinces purchased by turn 15.
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Think you guys are getting carried away with Fool's Gold? The card has 'Fools' in the name, after all. If that's not Game Designer speak for "be damned careful", I don't know what is.
Well, it requires some planning ahead, sure. You can't just pick some up at a convenient time and think "meh, I'll see if I can use it". You have to work hard to push the average value of FG above Silver to near Gold status.
I would very much love to see a report of Councilroom data telling us the average value of FGs that were in player's hands.
Having played with the cards we've had so far, I think this is the most eccentric expansion yet. It is definitely a thinking person's expansion that rewards the most experienced players more than any other set.
Now, I'm just waiting on the inevitiable "When you buy this, each other player gains a Curse" card.
That's the only way to do it, an "on gain" would be absolutely awful.
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Obviously there are many more cards to come, and none of us have played this set much, but all in all I get the distinct sense that the power level of these cards has been dialed down from the past few expansions, back to more of where we were at with base/Intrigue. Fool's Gold in particular is looking like a trap card most of the time, and Trader changes the game a bunch but in the absence of specific triggers I tend to take a really dim view of pile-o-Silver strategies (of course Hinterlands may end up having a bunch of those triggers). Border Village is, of course, conventionally strong, but really all the $6 cards are save Adventurer and the overrated Harem. Nomad Camp is cute (though I don't get the name); need to play with it more to see if its opening potential is actually good or just annoyingly swingy.
BTW, I like how they phrased Border Village to prevent Bridge shenanigans.
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In this game (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/14/game-20111014-113509-325ebe5e.html) I found Fool's Gold makes a very good Remodel target for Copper.
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I have a feeling I'll be buying Nomad Camps at times. I can think of a lot of games where I did not get a +buy early, mid game I didn't want to buy down to get the +buy, then late game as I look at a $25 hand I realize that it's too late to pick up a +buy because I'll never get around to drawing it. Top-decking changes that.
And for the fools gold, it sets up a few possibilities. But it seems they need an all in strategy buying as many fools golds as possible. There will be a few fast combos with it, but I don't see it in any 2-card combo that will beat the standard workshop/gardens.
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I think you just have to be careful with Fool's Gold. It's not a one trick pony in itself, it needs support!
I find that you often either undershoot your target or overshoot it, with no middle ground.
Without any form of +Buys, that overshooting doesn't do you any good.
Here's a nice sample game: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/14/game-20111014-142236-a49b7aae.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/14/game-20111014-142236-a49b7aae.html)
My opponent went full on FG and I just played a more conventional game based on some decent action cards. I wanted Goons to snag a few FGs from him. I did turn them into Gold near the end, because with my low density, it made a lot more sense. I didn't want a Ghost Ship which could have enabled him to line up his FGs better.
He had multiple turns in which he had $10+ due to his FGs, but still he could only buy 1 Province everytime.
If I tally up his FG's worths, he played 13 FG's for $1 and 11 FG's for $4 for an average worth of $2.375 per FG, which makes it closer to Silver than to its namesake.
That's somewhat in the range I expect it to be and with a more evenly balanced FG split and such games without much draw, this could be even lower.
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I lost a real head-to-head game with Fool's Gold. I was simply relying on it too much. We both reached for the card, both wound up with 4 and getting 3 out of 4 into your hand in a deck with no trashing (and not a lot of card draw), made Fool's Gold a real lag.
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Trader is a great, fun card, that can really change how you manage a board. It isn't always the right choice, but at times it can feed your deck. It's probably my favorite of the 4 released so far, just because its so interesting mechanically. Border Village is also awesome to use.
Fool's Gold is my least favorite so far, but I'm going to try and find ways to make it useful.
I like the ways Trader can interact with your own Silver lining expansion. It certainly brings a new dynamic to a lot of your new cards.
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I like the ways Trader can interact with your own Silver lining expansion. It certainly brings a new dynamic to a lot of your new cards.
That's really nice of you to say! Yeah, I like how Silver is kind of a "default" card to gain on a lot of gainers. I think at times, Silver is an undervalued card. I sometimes realize one of the reasons I lose a match, is because I reached for another 4-point action card, when really what I needed was a Silver.
Traders is tricky though, it wants card draw, but it is also one of the best defenses against Witch attacks ever made.
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Quarry + Talisman is even more amusing when you add Border Village.
You play a Talisman, a Quarry, and 2 Coppers.
You buy a Border Village.
... You gain another Border Village.
... ... You gain a Laboratory.
... You gain a Laboratory.
The only downside is that quarry makes border village worth 4 & talisman/quarry costs remain 4 ... so you can't gain more talismans/quarries from border village. This is a pretty minor drawback though, since those cards only cost $4.
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Two quick thoughts about Fool's Gold:
1. Adventurer loves Fool's Gold.
2. Thematically I can only hope there's an attack card in Hinterlands that requires opponents to trash a Gold and gain a Fool's Gold.
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So... I still don't think Fool's Gold is all that great on average, BUT I just played a game where I got a 5/2 open and council room and tactician were both on the board. 7 provinces in 11 turns. But that's a great board with a great draw.
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In <a href="http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/14/game-20111014-113509-325ebe5e.html">this game</a> I found Fool's Gold makes a very good Remodel target for Copper.
Remodel/Fool's Gold has some potential as a combo...Remodel Coppers into Fool's Gold, convert them to Gold when your opponent buys a Province, Remodel the Gold into a Province.
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Third of the previews are out at bgg (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/711443/previews-3).
Mandarin - $5
Action
+$3
Put a card from your hand on top of your deck.
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When you gain this, put all treasures you have in play on top of your deck in any order.
Crossroads - $2
Action
Reveal your hand. +1 Card per Victory card revealed. If this is the first time you played a Crossroads this turn, +3 Actions.
Donald suggests some hijinks with Mandarin like buying a bunch with a 5/2, as the opening coppers have to be placed back on deck. Interesting to see how opening Mandarin/Fool's Gold/(another $5 card) plays out. Crossroads seems interesting as the only +3 Actions card (excepting fishing villages), but it's only redeemable as a village once. Donald called it a cellar for victory cards that leaves them in your hand; it might be decent in gardens decks because they are filled with junk, or possibly in Duke/Duchy games, or possibly as a neat card for late game drawing with an extra $2 and an extra buy.
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Crossroads is neat. +3 Actions! But only once. I'm willing to bet it's more situational than it looks, but sometimes it's going to be incredible.
Mandarin... what? Really? The when-gain condition looks like it's going to be a huge disadvantage most of the time (yay, I'm going to slow my deck down Ghost Ship-style for terminal treasure!), and the Courtyard effect ain't no great shakes either. Maybe it has combo potential I'm not seeing, but man this card looks Explorer-level bad on so many levels. Opening Mandarin on a 5/2 seems to me that it just has to always be a recipe for losing, because then you're a full turn behind the opening reshuffle: if there's another good $5 you want, why not just get it and play it faster?
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I think Mandarin is going to be a high-skill card. Very easy to use in a counter-productive way, but powerful when used with some insight.
I don't know how powerful Crossroads is, but it is FUN! Definitely has the potential to shake up the common strategies.
Here's a game with Mandarin and Crossroads (and Harem). http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/15/game-20111015-003946-c9907aaa.html
I happened to get a 2/5 opening, so I opened Crossroads/Mandarin mostly just to play out Donald's little scenario. Anyway, my plan was to grab a few crossroads and as many Harems as I could get. Unfortunately I kept hitting $5, so I just started grabbing duchies instead. Would you believe that turned out to be a winning strategy? I don't know that Mandarin helped all that much, although it was my primary source of money early on, and I did use it to put green cards back on my deck for the crossroads. Like I said...fun.
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Mandarin could make for a wicked opener, if another good 5-coin card like Laboratory is in the set. Like Courtyard, it would be useful in some sets where you really want two cards to show up in the same hand, as you can push one card from this hand to the next. I can see situations where you might buy it just to use the acquisition power, perhaps to carry that Platinum over to the next hand, or to make those Coppers miss the next shuffle.
Crossroads looks like a card that works with a deck bloated with Victory cards, or with Victory cards in the kingdom (especially Nobles). You may want to go for Duchies earlier than usual if you have a few of these. Gardens and Dukes would no longer get in your way. Playing multiple Crossroads in the same turn, using the same Victory cards to draw more cards, is intriguing. No doubt the card's rules for + actions is there in part to keep you from buying out the stack and drawing your entire hand every turn.
Both of these probably have to be played a few times before we can understand their true power. It's remarkable that, after so many expansions, Dominion can continue to redefine how we look at the game. I guess that's why it's so much fun.
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Crossroads seems to require carefully balancing your mix of Crossroads, victory cards, and treasure, but it's remarkably effective when you do.
By spamming Crossroads, I just won a Colony game where my opponent got 8 of the Grand Markets.
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Crossroads+Great Hall is downright filthy.
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In general, I love how these cards are expanding the space of possible openings. I can't wait to see a new version of CouncilRoom's best/worst openings list, with "opening" redefined to mean "everything you buy before your first shuffle". If it weren't too early to have enough data, I'd be tweaking and running it already.
I particularly would enjoy seeing how the Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/City opening stacks up on the list. Probably on the "worst openings" side, but I want to believe.
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Bgg:
salty53 wrote:
One use for Mandarin I would really like to pull off at some point: having the same Treasure card generate coin multiple times in one turn.
"Horn of Plenty, gain Border Village, gain Mandarin, stack Horn of Plenty. Venture, Horn of Plenty, gain Border Village, gain Mandarin, stack Venture and Horn of Plenty. Venture, Venture, Horn of Plenty, gain Border Village, gain Mandarin, stack 2 Ventures and Horn of Plenty. Venture, Venture, Venture, Horn of Plenty..."
This is not efficient at all and would definitely not be worth setting up. It still sounds really cool.
FTFY
Just to add another level of unlikely ridiculousness...
this would be insane if one also had diadem and a bunch of actions.
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Hm, Crossroads with Nobles and Great Halls is crazy, but as tllloyd's game proves, it works well with normal Victory Cards, too. Just look at turn 17:
— tlloyd's turn 17 —
tlloyd plays a Crossroads.
... tlloyd reveals an Estate, 2 Duchies, and a Crossroads.
... drawing 3 cards and getting +3 actions.
tlloyd plays a Crossroads.
... tlloyd reveals an Estate, a Crossroads, 2 Duchies, and 2 Coppers.
... drawing 3 cards.
tlloyd plays a Crossroads.
... tlloyd reveals an Estate, a Crossroads, a Province, 2 Duchies, and 3 Coppers.
... (tlloyd reshuffles.)
... drawing 4 cards.
tlloyd plays a Crossroads.
... tlloyd reveals 2 Estates, a Mandarin, a Province, 3 Duchies, and 4 Coppers.
... drawing 6 cards.
So, it looks like there are many cards which are mediocre in many situations but can go totally crazy given the right circumstances and a good player jugding them right.
Looks promising.
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Crossroads-Torturer is a nice combo.
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First, for those who don't know (I didn't, and I've been studying Mandarin), from Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese#Name)
The English word "mandarin" (from Portuguese mandarim, from Malay, from Hindi mantri, from Sanskrit mantrin, meaning "minister or counselor"), originally meant an official of the Chinese empire. As their home dialects were varied and often mutually unintelligible, these officials communicated using a koiné based on various northern dialects. When Jesuit missionaries learned this standard language in the 16th century, they called it Mandarin, from its Chinese name Guānhuà (官话/官話), or "language of the officials".
So it's essentially a Chinese bureaucrat, which is a good fit for the card considering you're putting treasures on top of your deck (albeit your own treasures). This card would be amazing in a deck with Minion, a Village and some form of +Buy... but I suspect there will be difficulty in getting all the parts to work together quickly enough. Border Village will speed up development of such a deck tremendously (and perhaps that +buy can be from a Nomad Camp). I love how it messes with the 5/2 opening. The "put a card back on top of the deck" ability is genuinely useful when your Mandarins start clashing. I'm still not quite sure what to make of it.
I initially misread Crossroads; I thought it said that you had to discard the victory cards, and thought it was meh. Since you don't discard them, it looks like quite the game-warping card, as it promotes buying points earlier. This might be the card Baron needed, as taking that Estate doesn't seem so bad and it helps guarantee the card hits an Estate. Matches well with Tournament/Followers or really any card that intends on doing stuff with the Victory cards in your hand.
I definitely agree with Axe Knight now; this really is looking more and more like the thinking-person's expansion.
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I think Crossroads/Baron has some serious potential. Even if you draw the infamous Baron, Copper x4 hand on turn three, play the Baron to gain an estate, then buy two more crossroads or estates.
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So if you have $10 and 2 buys, you can use Mandarin to put your Treasurers on top of your deck and then buy a Mint without the trashing penalty?
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Ironworks/Great Hall/Crossroads: Um, yes please.
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Yeah seems to me Great Hall and Crossroads work well together. Also any Gardens deck really benefits from Crossroads and Border Village. I am curious what alternate victory conditions are unveiled.
Mandarin is cool, it is strongest during certain windows. One gold, one silver and the rest is cak, means a purchase of Mandarin ensures a Province next round, as well as replacing one of your "next turn" cards back on top.
These cards are fun, well done.
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I particularly would enjoy seeing how the Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/City opening stacks up on the list. Probably on the "worst openings" side, but I want to believe.
Sounds terrible, though Mandarin looks awesome in a Scrying Pool deck. Well, having Mandarins looks awesome. Buying them seems like a bit of a bear.
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These cards are so fun! (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/15/game-20111015-120430-9c9a5599.html)
So many great synergies.
— johnstuartkill's turn 8 —
johnstuartkill plays a Witch.
... drawing 2 cards.
... def gains a Curse.
... ... def reveals a Trader to gain a Silver instead.
... ... def gains a Silver.
... ... ... revealing a Watchtower.
... ... ... putting the Silver on the deck.
or
def plays an Upgrade.
... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action.
... trashing a Witch.
... gaining a Border Village.
... ... revealing a Watchtower.
... ... putting the Border Village on the deck.
... ... gaining a Salvager.
... ... ... revealing a Watchtower.
... ... ... putting the Salvager on the deck.
def plays a Watchtower.
... drawing 3 cards.
and so on.
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Border Village + Apothecary will make for a really interesting engine deck. While Border Village is obviously useful for engines, it's hard to both get the critical density of actions you need for the engine (which is usually done with trashing). Apothecary, however, gets you the critical density (by sucking up your Coppers) while actually improving your buying power. So, I expect to see some wicked-fast engine building when that combo is on the table.
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So, if a player buys a Mandarin and a Mint in the same turn, does he choose whether his treasure cards are trashed or placed atop the draw pile? I assume it's all or nothing...he couldn't choose to trash his Coppers and put his Gold on the draw pile. Perhaps it's a matter of which card he buys first?
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Good question. I think it's a matter of order.
If he buys a Mint first, he trashes his treasure cards and has no cards to put on his deck as he buys a Mandarin.
If he buys a Mandarin first, he puts his treasure cards on top of his deck and can trash no cards as he buys a Mint.
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Perhaps it's a matter of which card he buys first?
Well, traditionally you resolve effects in the order they actually occur, so yes perhaps :P
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the 10 Mandarin stack might work in a Vineyard deck, since it would get you all those actions and you could also return Potions to the top of the deck. Sounds pretty gimmicky, but it could be a neat spoiler strategy.
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So, I don't think this is fantastic, but I found this setup pretty amusing -
0. Board contains Contraband, Mandarin, Border Village, and is a Prosperity game.
1. Somehow get a hand containing 17 or more money from treasures from at most five cards, one of which must be Contraband. (e.g. three Platinum and a Contraband)
2. Buy Colony and Mandarin, use Mandarin to put all the money you need back onto the deck.
3. If your opponent banned Colony, instead get Province
4. If your opponent banned Mandarin, instead get Border Village... then use it to gain a Mandarin, which lets you put your money back onto the deck.
Pretty simple, stable setup for a guaranteed Province or Colony buy per turn that never stops. Crumbles if your opponent plays something that makes you discard, though.
Also, I think all of these "when you gain this card" effects will be very entertaining with Masquerade.
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I don't think so. With masquerade, I'm pretty sure you don't "gain" a card, it's just passed to you. (nor is it "trashed").
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Double Tactician could be quite fun with Crossroads, particularly if there's a victory-action or victory-treasure card in play.
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How would mandarin interact with royal seal? It seems both card texts should trigger simultaneously on gaining of the mandarin.
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The Mandarin seems like another cunningly designed card. At the time when you want to buy a rich action card, you often don't want to put treasures on top of your deck. At the time when you want to put treasures on top of your deck, you often don't want to be buying action cards.
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You know what's not very good? The Fool's Gold in the Black Market deck.
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I feel so dirty... I just won a game by opening Duchy/Crossroads :-\
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You know what's not very good? The Fool's Gold in the Black Market deck.
Still better than the Treasure Map in the Black Market deck.
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You know what's not very good? The Fool's Gold in the Black Market deck.
At least it can eventually be trashed into a Gold.
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How would mandarin interact with royal seal? It seems both card texts should trigger simultaneously on gaining of the mandarin.
I think this was spelled out in the Seaside rulebook (clarifying Durations), maybe earlier: if two things try to happen in the same time, you get to choose the order. Things trying to happen to multiple players at the same time happen in turn order.
edit: To directly answer your specific case, the Treasures and Mandarin will both end up on top your deck, with the Mandarin either on the very top, or just under the returned Treasures, your choice.
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remodelling border villages into provinces is strong werk
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Crossroads: this thing either falls flat on its face or explodes a deck; it goes back and forth from turn to turn. A crazy dirty engine card for 2. Like, omg. When was the last time anyone was upset that they didn't have a handful of green? This card is a game-changer. I really don't understand how it made it in... like Chapel it is cost 2 so it is readily available for everyone?
Mandarin: we will be discovering new uses for this card for months. I might compare it to Horse Traders or Courtyard, but in my secret heart it reminds me most of Apothecary: a swiss army knife that is both subtle and powerful in combos and by itself.
Fool's Gold: board dependent but situationally awesome, this is what i would consider a more typical Dominion card. Like HoPlenty, I see myself losing many games in the future to this card by failing to recognize its usefulness until it is too late.
Border Village: the most meh of the set so far by my lights. It is a pretty good card but its usefulness is in facilitating other good cards and will be strengthened or weakened by which power cards each Kingdom includes.
Trader: this card suffers from the Bureaucrat affliction: it never improves the hand it turns up in. Furthermore, when dealing with Silver it is not good to effectively have a three card hand down the stretch, so it wastes a spot in many late hands. The effing thing reminds you of this by offering to trade you a Silver for whatever mediocre card you managed to buy. If playing Trader is part of the plan than throw any idea about an engine into the Wishing Well, unless you can really get a tight engine going and use it strictly to trash copper. In this role it is much much worse than Salvager, which can and does end games very quickly. It is a good counter to opponents fiddling with your deck. This card is not Bureaucrat, it is his paranoid and short-sighted fraternal twin. But here is a hint for you intermediate players: sometimes Bureaucrat is a really good choice.
Nomad Camp: an improved Woodcutter. It will have its uses and be okay when it is needed. The chance to game a cheap $5 second turn buy adds some more variance to the game but it is made up for by the topdeck ability I guess.
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How would mandarin interact with royal seal? It seems both card texts should trigger simultaneously on gaining of the mandarin.
I think this was spelled out in the Seaside rulebook (clarifying Durations), maybe earlier: if two things try to happen in the same time, you get to choose the order. Things trying to happen to multiple players at the same time happen in turn order.
edit: To directly answer your specific case, the Treasures and Mandarin will both end up on top your deck, with the Mandarin either on the very top, or just under the returned Treasures, your choice.
Hmm. If you resolve royal seal first, mandarin goes on top of your deck, then the treasures go on top, because mandarin's card text just says when gained. But if you resolve mandarin first, treasures go on top of the deck and when you go to resolve royal seal's text, it is no longer in play, so would mandarin not go on top then?
If you do get to choose the order of resolution, then I feel the two options would be mandarin goes on top, treasures go on top of that; or treasures go on top, mandarin goes to discard.
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No. Once effects have been activated, they WILL occur. So when Royal Seal is in play and you buy a Mandarin, you have activated 2 effects:
1. Royal Seal gives you the option of putting Mandarin on top of your deck.
2. Mandarin puts your in-play treasures on top of your deck.
These effects both want to happen at the same time, so the player chooses the order. If you choose to do them in order 1-2, you first MAY put Mandarin on top of your deck, and then MUST put your in-play treasures on top of your deck. If you choose to do them in order 2-1 you first MUST put your in-play treasures on top of your deck, and then MAY put Mandarin on top of your deck. You do not go back between these effects to "check" that the other one still applies before activating it. It has already activated and is waiting in a queue for its effects to occur.
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2nding TINAS, who has it exactly right.
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OK that makes sense. Thanks guys.
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I'm sure this is an obvious observation, but Nomad Camp is awesome in games with gainers and non-terminal drawing. Need a buy this turn? Ironworks, Village, hey what do you know—it's a +buy!
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Maybe I'm misreading it but crossroads looks too strong.. practically strictly better than cellar!
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Maybe I'm misreading it but crossroads looks too strong.. practically strictly better than cellar!
It's not strictly better than Cellar. I'd much prefer a draw of Cellar and four coppers than a Crossroads and four coppers. In a deck where you're not loading-up on victory points, without a supporting card to help with draws, it'll probably average out to be +1 card, +3 actions most of the time. Crossroads only gets really good when you hit a critical mass of VP, but if your deck is dense in VP cards, then you also have a better chance of drawing VP cards when you play a Crossroads. Crossroads requires a better balance of card types, whereas most any deck can improve with a Cellar.
Now in a deck with Great Halls, Nobles, or Harems, Crossroads is a no-brainer.
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crossroads is unusual in that it shares its name with a bone thugs n' harmony hit and i have no idea how to play with it. it seems to combo with many things. even scout.
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@ehunt: that is by far and away the best connection I have ever seen. But actually, a great song, a great group, a great game, a great card. My compliments to you. Maybe this will help to encourage my brother, a big fan of Bone Thugs, to play more often.
+1
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Okay, I have just played my first game with Crossroads (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/16/game-20111016-222601-410ab410.html), and I must say... tentatively... a bit... overpowered? (Resisting the urge to say the 'B' word.) Okay so this game had Baron, and more importantly, I suppose, Harem. Also Tactician, which helped kick-start some massive turns. I'm talking playing Crossroads for seven cards. Seven. And it's either a mega-Village or the first three are non-terminals. The only other drawer of that magnitude (that I can think of) is Apprentice, and it costs you big time to do it. Okay, it probably helped that my opponent let me buy 7 Harems (and congratulated me for thinking to buy them).
I think it's also worth noting that Chapel was on the board, and went unbought. I think a Chapel deck would have been destroyed in this game.
Okay, so I suppose for me to get a more balanced view of this card, I'll have to play some games with it where it's not the clearly dominant strategy. It will be interesting how it goes without something like Harem to boost it. But, in my only experience with it, it far outclassed "the most powerful Dominion card relative to its cost" (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=85.0) (or would have if either of us had bought it).
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More previews are out here (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/712180/previews-4).
Ill-Gotten Gains - $5
Treasure
$1
When you play this, you may gain a Copper, putting it in your hand.
---
When you gain this, each other player gains a Curse.
Develop - $3
Action
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly $1 more than it and a card costing exactly $1 less than it, in either order, putting them on top of your deck.
Develop looks like a fun card to open with, simply for the early silver top-deck. It's interesting to note that if you open 3/4 and the opening buys collide on Turn 3, you can trash the $4 and topdeck a $5 card and another Develop for a guaranteed Topdeck Gold after Turn 4. I have no clue how Ill-Gotten gains will end up playing out. The played effect might be useful in the late game or in Gardens games if you ever hit $5,
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Two more cards! :D Finally! Sunday was rough...
Also, ninja'd! I was just about to post the two cards. :P
I think the name IGG will take some getting used to. It seems too long and awkward to me. The card itself is kind of cool, but probably something you want to get rid of if you can.
I like the new twist Develop puts on Remodelling. It seems worthy of more than $3 to me, possibly on a similar power level to Remodel and Remake. But what do I know?
Anyway, they both seem fun.
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New Cards! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D => Linky link: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/712180/previews-4 (http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/712180/previews-4)
The Curse-on-Gain is out, aaaargh!!!!
Edit: Someone posted the cards while I compiled this message, so I removed them.
First thoughts: A Curse-on-gain, aaaargh! And it says that you may gain a Copper. I think every Curse-on-gain is somewhat nerfed due to the fact that they're one-shots. And how many IGGs do you want just to hamper your opponents? This is a $5-cost, so do you want this over a Witch which you can use over and over? I wonder...
Develop still works well with your coppers and Estates, since you don't get anything back from Coppers (as you most often want) and you can still grab Silver/Nothing or Village/Nothing from your Estates. Still, it's a one-card trashing terminal and Steward trashes two for its $3, so there. In the higher echelons, this +1/-1 trashing works even weirder, since if you use it on a $5, you could grab a Gold, but then you have to grab a $4 which could be a useless terminal. And using it on a Platinum lets you grab a Province (having to put it on deck), but not something better. I could see it getting used on $7s like a no longer needed Forge -> Province + Gold, but when would you buy this card?
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Just played a game (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/17/game-20111017-010121-cc58797d.html) with IGG and Remake. Something to watch out for: the game can end really suddenly if everyone goes for IGG. If it's the only Curser and there's no Traders or Ambassador, the IGGs and Curses will run out together. I wasn't paying attention and I bought a Bank er depleting the 2nd and 3rd piles. Luckily I had managed to get rid of one more Curse than my opponent, and I won by a point.
So it seems pretty interesting. I wonder how it will stack up against more traditional Cursers, and whether it will still be worth it with no trash-for-benefit cards.
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Ill-Gotten Gains seems like a steep price to pay just to give a Curse, unless there's a trash-for-benefit card available, but I haven't played with it yet so I can't be sure. Gardeners are licking their chops hoping to see this card and Gardens in the same set. Actually, Gardens would combo with many of the Hinterlands cards we've seen so far.
Develop seems like a weak opener, but it might be a good finisher. Trashing a Bank to gain a Province and a Harem near the end of a game wouldn't suck.
Hmm, just throwing this out there...you Develop your IGG, gaining a Traders and a Border Village, putting them both on top of your deck...when you gain Border Village, you also gain another IGG, giving your opponent another Curse...next turn you can use Traders to trash Border Village for six Silvers, to keep the Curses from taking over your deck. I imagine strategies like that will come out of the woodwork as we play with these cards. Should be fun.
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Hmm, just throwing this out there...you Develop your IGG, gaining a Traders and a Border Village, putting them both on top of your deck...when you gain Border Village, you also gain another IGG, giving your opponent another Curse...next turn you can use Traders to trash Border Village for six Silvers, to keep the Curses from taking over your deck. I imagine strategies like that will come out of the woodwork as we play with these cards. Should be fun.
Check out the Game Reports subforum ;)
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Ill-Gotten Gains/Counting House/Coppersmith anyone?
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Ill-Gotten Gains/Counting House/Coppersmith anyone?
Was also thinking of it, but basically every +buy is a "free Copper", and they all tend not to activate Counting House or Coppersmith easily. Of course, that's now an additional +1Coin, but I'm skeptical...
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Ill-Gotten Gains/Counting House/Coppersmith anyone?
I think it'd work better as a combo with apothecary and bank.
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Ill-Gotten Gains/Gardens = sick.... very very sick
I did a few simulations and it even beats some of the most powerful engines (whereas Workshop/Gardens doesn't)
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At first I thought develop might work well in a gardens deck, but after some play testing I'm not so sure anymore. In theory, you mass develops and then develop them into gardens and estates. But the engine really seems to stall out once develops stop colliding. And you have no economy to finish off the gardens pile quickly enough.
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I think the real value of develop is the fact that your new cards are top decked, instead of sent to the discard pile. This means developing for victory cards is possibly poor. Instead, it works awesomely with tournament - if you know you haven't drawn a province so your province is likely to come up, a develop can ensure you have one in your next turn. I suspect it also works really well with treasure map. And in a possession game, developing a $5 gives a gold and a potion, making for a very likely possession in the next hand.
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Actually, Gardens would combo with many of the Hinterlands cards we've seen so far.
I seem to recall that Donald said that Gardens was originally going to be in a later expansion but got moved to the base set because it went over really well.
Could this be the expansion that gave birth to Gardens?
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Actually, Gardens would combo with many of the Hinterlands cards we've seen so far.
I seem to recall that Donald said that Gardens was originally going to be in a later expansion but got moved to the base set because it went over really well.
Could this be the expansion that gave birth to Gardens?
Gardens and Vineyard swapped places at one point. I always thought "Gardens was in a later expansion" referred to that.
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From what I see so far, playing a straight Hinterlands kingdom is going to be crazy fun.
There will be so many creative and complex interactions between the cards that some crazy scenarios will play out. But just as with Dominion before Hinterlands, actually pulling the crazy hinterlands combos together for a win against an opponent who simply plays big money + 1 of the best kingdom card may prove difficult for many players.
Things are getting strange enough though that I worry a little bit that another KC/Masq type lock-down will be found.
And for Mandarin: Play treasure, use a Horn of Plenty to gain the Mandarin or gain Border Village to a Mandarin (Quarry can help a lot), buy victory card, repeat every turn. Yea, it's too many cards. But I think people will find several other ways to pull something similar to this off.
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In comparison to other $5 attacks, how powerful is Ill-Gotten Gains? I assume it's worse than a Witch, but is it better than a Jester? Do I want to spam it or should I stop after getting 2-4?
It just seems like such an odd card to me -- sure they're getting a curse, but I'm ending up with a copper or a silver that requires me to grab a copper.
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In comparison to other $5 attacks, how powerful is Ill-Gotten Gains? I assume it's worse than a Witch, but is it better than a Jester? Do I want to spam it or should I stop after getting 2-4?
It just seems like such an odd card to me -- sure they're getting a curse, but I'm ending up with a copper or a silver that requires me to grab a copper.
It's a completely different card and I don't really think you can compare it to "other" $5 attack cards (other in quotes because IGG is not an attack card). Situations where I would consider IGG include games with trash-for-benefit, other Copper strategies, Gardens etc.
I played a game earlier in which I went for IGG and then used them to buy Mints later on to get rid of them. I was planning to use the Mints to gain more IGGs later on but I didn't get the chance because Sea Hag was also out and curses ran out (it would have been best to ignore IGG completely as Sea Hag was out but it was a case of oooh shiny). Minting them away is generally easier than Coppers as if you fall just short, you can take an extra Copper to get up to $5 and then get rid of that too.
I wouldn't put IGG among the greatest $5 cards in existence but it's definitely usable in a number of situations and you have to keep an eye on what your opponent is doing when it's around.
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It would seem the German Rulebook has leaked containing images of all of the new cards and card FAQs. All we need now is for a German-speaker to translate it:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/712339/spoiler-german-rules-online
http://www.hans-im-glueck.de/fileadmin/data_archive/Spiele/Dominion/D_hinterland_regel_klein.pdf
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Okay, so I suppose for me to get a more balanced view of this card, I'll have to play some games with it where it's not the clearly dominant strategy. It will be interesting how it goes without something like Harem to boost it. But, in my only experience with it, it far outclassed "the most powerful Dominion card relative to its cost" (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=85.0) (or would have if either of us had bought it).
My wife and I played 3 games over the weekend with our cards by having two of the cards stand in for Crossroads and Nomad Camp. The deck also included Watchtower, Menagerie, Bishop, Farming Village, Mountebank, Jester, Counting House, and Hoard. Because I wanted to trash Estates, Duchies and even some Provinces with Bishop, Crossroads too often appeared with no green cards in my hand. Three actions are great, but you need action cards to play with them. So if I couldn't use it to draw with, and I didn't have another drawing card in hand, the extra actions got wasted. I am sure that it is much more powerful if there are hybrid victory cards in the deck, but not so much with this deck I played.
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I played my first Crossroads/Nobles game today (plus Market and Coppersmith), and it was just filthily good. Fun! ;D
This expansion is shaping up to create a massive, seismic shift in Dominion strategy. A total shake-up of everything we know, way beyond what even Prosperity did. I'm in awe.
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It would seem the German Rulebook has leaked containing images of all of the new cards and card FAQs. All we need now is for a German-speaker to translate it:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/712339/spoiler-german-rules-online
http://www.hans-im-glueck.de/fileadmin/data_archive/Spiele/Dominion/D_hinterland_regel_klein.pdf
Even though I speak a little German (being Dutch means being able to speak 4 languages), I won't do this, out of respect for Donald.
But of course I'm too curious to not have a look myself. ;D
Edit: Took a quick look and decided: I'll just wait for the regular preview updates, this makes it a lot more manageable for me with my limited time and the excitement is better. :)
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Ill Gotten Gains is interesting, but seems limited. $5 for a one-off curser that hurts your deck (gives you a Copper) and with a special ability that most decks don't want (gain more Copper) is... something that will be awesome with a few strategies, and otherwise not-very-good.
But Develop is fascinating. It's a trasher that adds cards to your deck (potentially). Might actually be a trasher that's good with Gardens (trash a Workshop or Woodcutter, gain a Gardens and an Estate?). Probably not, really, but interesting, considering that like every other card in Hinterlands combos well with Gardens.
Develop + Border Village: Develop a $5 card, gain a Border Village, regain your $5 card, also gain a $4 card. Put your new Border Village on the top of your deck with your $4 card (Smithy? Envoy?). Seems nice.
Develop is going to be VERY different on the various boards, with a "hole" in the price structure changing it dramatically (if there are no $4 cards, for example). I suspect that it's super-powerful if there are $3 and $5 cards that combo well together, so that you can Develop $4 cards into that 3/5 combo and play that combo the next turn. So, like, if there are Village/Council Rooms on the board, for example.
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Develop is going to be VERY different on the various boards, with a "hole" in the price structure changing it dramatically (if there are no $4 cards, for example). I suspect that it's super-powerful if there are $3 and $5 cards that combo well together, so that you can Develop $4 cards into that 3/5 combo and play that combo the next turn. So, like, if there are Village/Council Rooms on the board, for example.
Also good in Colony games if you manage to crab quick province. You can turn it into a platinum and something 7$ ( if there's any). So Baron/Coppersmith and Develop sounds like an interesting opening with the right circumstances.
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Also good in Colony games if you manage to crab quick province. You can turn it into a platinum and something 7$ ( if there's any). So Baron/Coppersmith and Develop sounds like an interesting opening with the right circumstances.
The existence of King's Court seems, to me, like a very big deal with Develop. Are there any other $7's? At any rate, the ability to both Develop Golds or other $6's into King's Court, and to Develop King's Courts into Provinces, and, potentially, Develop Provinces (or Peddlers) into King's Courts and Platinums, are probably game-changing.
If there's no KC (or other $7), then I'm a little dubious that you really want to mess around too much with Developing things that cost $6+.
EDIT: I probably should have been more explicit: if KC and Develop are on the board, then the ability to Develop a Gold into KC/Any $5 Action and be guaranteed to play KC and that $5 Action on the next turn seems game-changing to me.
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Ill Gotten Gains is interesting, but seems limited. $5 for a one-off curser that hurts your deck (gives you a Copper) and with a special ability that most decks don't want (gain more Copper) is... something that will be awesome with a few strategies, and otherwise not-very-good.
But Develop is fascinating. It's a trasher that adds cards to your deck (potentially). Might actually be a trasher that's good with Gardens (trash a Workshop or Woodcutter, gain a Gardens and an Estate?). Probably not, really, but interesting, considering that like every other card in Hinterlands combos well with Gardens.
Develop + Border Village: Develop a $5 card, gain a Border Village, regain your $5 card, also gain a $4 card. Put your new Border Village on the top of your deck with your $4 card (Smithy? Envoy?). Seems nice.
Develop is going to be VERY different on the various boards, with a "hole" in the price structure changing it dramatically (if there are no $4 cards, for example). I suspect that it's super-powerful if there are $3 and $5 cards that combo well together, so that you can Develop $4 cards into that 3/5 combo and play that combo the next turn. So, like, if there are Village/Council Rooms on the board, for example.
The 4 hole seems critical, and the 7 hole very nice - it's like a hoard almost there, gain province and gold, both topdecked. But if you're swapping that 5 (Ill Gotten Gains is great there) for a 4 and border village, even better than smithy or envoy is a trash-for-benefit. So remodel and salvager and bishop and trader, eat your hearts out.
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Not having played it, it's hard to know, but I'm thinking that IGG will only be of interest in a limited number of situations: no better cursers and/or good ways to exploit extra copper. Outside of that, it's hard to see the use, especially at $5.
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Just a quick note: I would like to ask any posters NOT to spoil any cards from the leaked German rules before they have been posted by Donald X. himself as official previews on these BGG forums: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/1066342/dominion-hinterlands/news (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/1066342/dominion-hinterlands/news).
Some of us like the way they are released now.
Having 2 released at a time lets us discuss them in an organized manner.
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Postulate: Hinterlands cards make Trash-for-benefit cards better.
Hinterlands seems to include a plethora of cards that allow you to increase deck-size overall faster than the usual "buy 1 card per turn" paradigm (cards that we know of now that can do that: Border Village, Trader, Develop, Ill Gotten Gains, and Nomad Camp gives you +buy). Trader and Develop in particular are going to result in a lot of mediocre cards (Silvers, $3s, and $2s), that will be good fuel for, say, Apprentices or other TfB. But, hey, while you might ordinarily flinch at feeding a $6 card into a TfB, why not a $6 Village that you got by overpaying for a $5 Action that you REALLY wanted? Okay, the Coppers from IGG are unlikely to result in wildly useful TfB, but maybe if you're playing a Hinterlands heavy deck, you traded them for Silvers.
Develop being both TfB and deck-size increasing is, if my postulate is correct, slightly insane.
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Postulate: Hinterlands cards make Trash-for-benefit cards better.
Hinterlands seems to include a plethora of cards that allow you to increase deck-size overall faster than the usual "buy 1 card per turn" paradigm (cards that we know of now that can do that: Border Village, Trader, Develop, Ill Gotten Gains, and Nomad Camp gives you +buy). Trader and Develop in particular are going to result in a lot of mediocre cards (Silvers, $3s, and $2s), that will be good fuel for, say, Apprentices or other TfB. But, hey, while you might ordinarily flinch at feeding a $6 card into a TfB, why not a $6 Village that you got by overpaying for a $5 Action that you REALLY wanted? Okay, the Coppers from IGG are unlikely to result in wildly useful TfB, but maybe if you're playing a Hinterlands heavy deck, you traded them for Silvers.
Develop being both TfB and deck-size increasing is, if my postulate is correct, slightly insane.
Pretty sure you mean hypothesis here /nitpick
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Can't translate German, but clearly on the German PDF of spoilers there are VP cards that gain points on the aggregation of certain cards in this set as well, so yeah, Hinterlands really complements Gardens well and in some cases complements Duke/Dutchy well too. In general, wide decks seem to be part of the "theme" of the expansion.
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Donald X has spoiled the whole expansion in English to avoid people mistranslating the German text:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/7670107#7670107
Are we still not allowed to talk about them here, Davio?
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Donald X has spoiled the whole expansion in English to avoid people mistranslating the German text:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/7670107#7670107
Are we still not allowed to talk about them here, Davio?
Looks like I was separate-thread ninja'd. I just made another thread about it. I guess discussing it there keeps this one spoiler-free.
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Just played a IGG/Counting House deck. It works (I was up against remake/Wharf on a colony board, I also had goons help, and there were crossroads. It was fairly close, though we likely both misplayed).
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I'm curious, WW, how did the Crossroads play in that deck?
I played a board with crossroads a couple of days ago, and without victory cards in the kingdom I found them to rarely draw me more than 1 card, but there's an excellent chance I played the card incorrectly.
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Well, didn't help me much, one or two could probably have really helped my opponent chain for the 3 actions. Nobody was going to have many green in their hand until quite late.
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remodelling border villages into provinces is strong werk
For that fraction of a percent of the time that Border Village, Hunting Party, and Bishop are all on the same board, playing a bunch of HPs, bishop-trashing a BV, then buying a BV (and gaining another HP) is quite fun.
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Donald X has spoiled the whole expansion in English to avoid people mistranslating the German text:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/7670107#7670107
Are we still not allowed to talk about them here, Davio?
Looks like I was separate-thread ninja'd. I just made another thread about it. I guess discussing it there keeps this one spoiler-free.
I kinda prefer that thread was never made. It fragments the discussion unnecessarily and now people don't focus and discuss the same cards any more. :(
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Come on over and discuss the same cards, then. Thus far the discussion seems pretty focused.
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Donald X has spoiled the whole expansion in English to avoid people mistranslating the German text:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/7670107#7670107
Are we still not allowed to talk about them here, Davio?
Well, if he's no longer releasing separate previews, I see nothing wrong with discussing them here. But then again, there's the other thread.
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I had a pretty exciting game with Crossroads, Vault, Dukes and Colonies. I sprang to an early lead with 7x7 dukes and duchies, but the other guy kept chasing me to a 99/101 score with 4 empty VP stacks. It was pretty intense. It's not up on CR yet, though.
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Tunnel + Hamlet, man.
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Farmland just trashed a province (with nothing to gain). You gotta watch that sucker. Or I'm just too impatient a player. I gotta slow down and read.
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Tunnel is way too good.. $3 for 2 VP is great all by itself and now there's a perfect combo with any discard effect ever!
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I actually got more golds out of my opponent playing Tribute in the game with the hamlets. I guess he didn't mind either since the card was victory and reaction... I think. I've played so much new stuff today, I'm kind of getting confused.
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Tribute doesn't give a bonus for Reaction-type cards, if that's what you meant to imply.
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Hinterlands is hard, I have yet to run a board with Hinterland cards to my satisfaction, even when I win, I find I make a lot of mistakes. It's a very tricky expansion I think.
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I hate this set... now there are a few cards that I like (crossroads!) and it's nice in the sense that there's a lot of manipulation that can be done with all the discarding, deck re-stacking, re-ordering and such... but there's just so much small text on all of these cards and all these choices make the games take a really long time... plus I think that while they give a sophisticated player lots of options, they'll probably create a wider gulf between the know-it-all who has studied and mastered the set and a relatively newer player... the learning curve feels a lot steeper than it did for any other set...
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Just so we're clear, you hate this set because the complex cards require a bit more text and it's more rewarding to players who actively try to improve their game. I mean, I guess I agree, but if you feel like the game here is too complex, remember that this is the 7th version. If you want you can stick to the earlier versions.
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He has a point, though. I love this set precisely because it has so much potential, so many as-yet undiscovered interactions, so many ways for a good player to take advantage of the subtleties of the set. Lots to think about on every turn -- not even the opening turns are mechanical any more. (Or at least I think that's how I feel, until I play enough games to feel otherwise.) And I'd guess most of the people on this forum feel the same way.
But some of us also play the game with more casual friends, for whom "everyone takes a few minutes every turn thinking about all the possibilities" + "many interactions that require that I know and appreciate the nuances of not only this set but other sets" = learning curve is too steep, thanks but I'd rather play something else.
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To borrow a term from Magic, complexity creep.
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Is it really that big of a deal, though?
What casual player is going to end up getting all the way up to the 7th expansion while still staying casual?
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Oh, I definitely agree that Hinterlands is really geared towards experienced players only in a way that surpasses even Alchemy. The cards are more complex than what we've seen before, and incredibly non-obvious in their strengths and weaknesses, and while many of us (myself included) here love and want that stuff, I don't blame more casual players for being turned off.
So, complexity creep for sure, and that's only natural. But, interestingly, not power creep: I'm seeing a lot of situational cards and very few if any must-buys. Cornucopia was actually an incredibly powerful set of cards, with fully half the set absolutely elite and the other half still pretty good, and Prosperity and Seaside were both also much much stronger than the base set. By contrast, it really seems that Hinterlands has dialed the power level down several notches: even the vaunted Crossroads is, I bet, going to very often be a bad buy.
Given how strong the past few sets have been, I think this is absolutely the right thing for the game, by the way.
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Farmland just trashed a province (with nothing to gain). You gotta watch that sucker. Or I'm just too impatient a player. I gotta slow down and read.
Use Farmland to trash another Farmland getting a province. Usefull in sets where it's difficult to get up to 8.
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Buy Farmland when you're Possessing your opponent ;)
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Thoughts: I think my rating's going to tank while I experiment while the new cards, but it's going to be a whole lot of fun in the process ;D
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^ this for sure. Mine's already on its way down. So many shinies, must buy! Must buy! Oh wait...it's turn 20 already? Oops. gg.
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Thoughts: I think my rating's going to tank while I experiment while the new cards, but it's going to be a whole lot of fun in the process ;D
Me too. I may lose by opening Farming Village/Tunnel, but at least I'll lose in style! (I did lose. It was close, though!)
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I seem to remember that after cornucopia my ranking went down because I didn't get to play with the cards until everyone else had a week's practice. At the moment my ranking is going up, probably by my ignoring these fancy new cards.
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I seem to remember that after cornucopia my ranking went down because I didn't get to play with the cards until everyone else had a week's practice. At the moment my ranking is going up, probably by my ignoring these fancy new cards.
I think this is good evidence that Cornucopia had a lot of strong cards that you really want to integrate into your strategies ASAP whereas Hinterlands has a lot of trap cards that you can do very well avoiding. :P
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I just want to echo that Hinterlands seems like a set designed for serious Dominion players rather than casual gamers. I don't have a problem with that—all of the expansions before this, with the possible exception of Alchemy—are relatively easy to figure out for a casual player. But, I would not recommend this set to someone right now until they are very familiar with the earlier sets and want another dimension of challenge.