Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Cuzz on May 01, 2013, 02:44:20 pm
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Studies have shown that "It depends on the board" is the most common 5-word string used on this forum, and in the vocabulary of everyone who frequents it [citation needed]. Every rule of thumb has edge-cases. But is this really true? Are there any things that should always be done regardless of the exact specific cards available?
A few to start:
-If you are ahead in VP and can end the game on your turn, do so.
-Open Potion if all cards have Potion in their cost.
-Don't open double Curse.
-Play the game according to the rules in the rulebook.
-Don't viciously insult/attack your opponent.
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-Play the game according to the rules in the rulebook.
My rulebook doesn't tell me how Black Market works. ???
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-Don't open Kings Court.
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Do open double Platinum, but only if you're cheating.
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-Play the game according to the rules in the rulebook.
My rulebook doesn't tell me how Black Market works. ???
We can get around this by defining "rulebook" as the rulebook that comes with the boxes, or the rule sheets that come with the promo cards :P
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-Ask yourself: "Is this card better than silver?"
-Don't viciously insult/attack your opponent.
Pretty sure it's a good idea to viciously attack your opponent in some kingdoms that have Torturer or Saboteur.
-Play the game according to the rules in the rulebook.
My rulebook doesn't tell me how Black Market works. ???
We can get around this by defining "rulebook" as the rulebook that comes with the boxes, or the rule sheets that come with the promo cards :P
And the blue dog ruling.
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-Open Potion if all cards have Potion in their cost.
Seems extremely dependent on the kingdom.
-Don't open Kings Court.
If you could (and in a game with enough players opening embassy t1 and enough strategic noble brigands, it's theoretically possible), I imagine that I would usually want to.
I also think you don't want to include things like 'force a win if you can' or 'follow the rules' here, because it's entirely non-specific to Dominion. Generally, it would be nicer to find positive prescriptions than negative ones, but of course both are alright.
Anyway, one of my own:
-Buy at least one card on at least one of your first two turns.
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-Open Potion if all cards have Potion in their cost.
Seems extremely dependent on the kingdom.
Well, I believe there's only one kingdom that fulfills this criterion, so "depends on the kingdom" is
.well, not wrong
.trivial?
And I'd say that it is not universally true that you would buy Potion since Big Money is always an option. Is it the best option? That's the question that makes this not so universal.
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-- Don't open Curse/Curse.
Any exceptions? I can't think of any.
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I bet Curse/Curse can ge generalized to "Don't open $0 card/$0 card."
And I bet you never want to open Estate/Duchy. (even in SR games your starting average coins/hand is less than the cost of SR, and this only hurts it more)
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If you have 5 in your opening hand, buy a card that costs at least 3.
Anyone ever opened FG/FG on 5/2? Maybe as second player?
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Well if there's a kingdom where BM+FG is best, FG/FG would be the obvious opening. Does such a board exist?
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Well if there's a kingdom where BM+FG is best, FG/FG would be the obvious opening. Does such a board exist?
The all Village kingdom is a candidate, as long as it doesn't include Worker's Village.
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Well if there's a kingdom where BM+FG is best, FG/FG would be the obvious opening. Does such a board exist?
Secret Chamber
Duchess
Perl Diver
Moat
Vagrant
Beggar
Cellar
Poor House
Embargo
Fool's Gold
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If you have 5 in your opening hand, buy a card that costs at least 3.
Anyone ever opened FG/FG on 5/2? Maybe as second player?
I've opened Squire/Chapel before. It might not have literally been a 5/2, though.
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Well if there's a kingdom where BM+FG is best, FG/FG would be the obvious opening. Does such a board exist?
Secret Chamber
Duchess
Perl Diver
Moat
Vagrant
Beggar
Cellar
Poor House
Embargo
Fool's Gold
I buy Embargo and Embargo the Fool's Gold.
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I bet Curse/Curse can ge generalized to "Don't open $0 card/$0 card."
And I bet you never want to open Estate/Duchy. (even in SR games your starting average coins/hand is less than the cost of SR, and this only hurts it more)
Estate/Duchy and Curse/Curse are both still better than the legendary Mint/Estate opening. Congratulations for your 7-card deck with two coppers as your only source of $.
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Well if there's a kingdom where BM+FG is best, FG/FG would be the obvious opening. Does such a board exist?
Secret Chamber
Duchess
Perl Diver
Moat
Vagrant
Beggar
Cellar
Poor House
Embargo
Fool's Gold
I buy Embargo and Embargo the Fool's Gold.
Okay, replace Embargo with Lighthouse
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Well if there's a kingdom where BM+FG is best, FG/FG would be the obvious opening. Does such a board exist?
Secret Chamber
Duchess
Perl Diver
Moat
Vagrant
Beggar
Cellar
Poor House
Embargo
Fool's Gold
I buy Embargo and Embargo the Fool's Gold.
Okay, replace Embargo with Lighthouse
Even though Moat is only +2 cards, I suspect BM-Moat is better than pure BM here--but only after the FGs are drained.
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Things not depending on the board:
Take your time to look at the board.
Try to have an idea of your strategy before your opening move.
Follow what your opponent is doing to have an idea of the strategy he is following.
If your plan don't work as well as expected, adapt and change it.
Keep an eye out for the endof the game (always have an idea of how nany turns are needed to empty three piles if you focus on it and same for your opponent)
Keep a count as precise as possible to the victory points for each users.
That is all for now.
And of course:
Don't buy that scout ;-)
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I don't think BM Fools Gold counts as pure BM. Fools Gold is a Treasure, but it's a Kingdom card all the same.
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Scout is a bad card.
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Estate/Duchy and Curse/Curse are both still better than the legendary Mint/Estate opening. Congratulations for your 7-card deck with two coppers as your only source of $.
Mint/Curse?
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Another one: relax and have fun, it's still a game after all. :)
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Well if there's a kingdom where BM+FG is best, FG/FG would be the obvious opening. Does such a board exist?
Secret Chamber
Duchess
Perl Diver
Moat
Vagrant
Beggar
Cellar
Poor House
Embargo
Fool's Gold
I buy Embargo and Embargo the Fool's Gold.
Okay, replace Embargo with Lighthouse
Even though Moat is only +2 cards, I suspect BM-Moat is better than pure BM here--but only after the FGs are drained.
But you would still open FG/FG instead of opening Moat. Ignoring the Fool's Gold would surely lose, right?
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If you have 5 in your opening hand, buy a card that costs at least 3.
Anyone ever opened FG/FG on 5/2? Maybe as second player?
I've opened Squire/Chapel before. It might not have literally been a 5/2, though.
How about Chapel / Fool's Gold ? It's the #99 best opening.
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(http://i.qkme.me/3u74hl.jpg)
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-Open Potion if all cards have Potion in their cost.
Seems extremely dependent on the kingdom.
Yeah, I was trying to come up with a general rule that would work for every example in a large set of boards without needing to know exactly what cards comprised that board. Like if we decided "always open Mint/Fool's Gold," that depends on Mint and Fool's Gold being in the kingdom obviously, but not on any other cards.
Here I neglected to notice how few kingdoms are made up of only Potion cost cards...
I also think you don't want to include things like 'force a win if you can' or 'follow the rules' here, because it's entirely non-specific to Dominion.
Yeah, those were sort of tongue in cheek, since I expect very few examples overall. Still interested in what people come up with though.
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Studies have shown that "It depends on the board" is the most common 5-word string used on this forum, and in the vocabulary of everyone who frequents it [citation needed]. Every rule of thumb has edge-cases. But is this really true? Are there any things that should always be done regardless of the exact specific cards available?
A few to start:
-If you are ahead in VP and can end the game on your turn, do so.
Not necessarily. Fool's gold to level up fairgrounds, for example, could cause you to lose despite being ahead before you end the game. I think you want "If you can end the game on your turn and win, do so"
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-If you are ahead in VP and can end the game on your turn, do so.
[Dwight]False[/Dwight]
Your opponent returned Bank to the top of his deck last turn. You can use Governor to remodel a Silver into the last Governor and 3 pile the game, but in spite of you 1 VP lead it would be a foolish move to do so.
You can modify the statement so it works, but it gets increasingly trivial.
-Open Potion if all cards have Potion in their cost.
This is depends on the kingdom because you are specifying a certain subset of possible kingdoms and saying that your rule definitely applies to those kingdoms.
Even so, you might be wrong in six player (if six player is really and truly a thing, I'm not positive it is).
-Don't open double Curse.
Maximum number of players, everyone before you purchased a Mountebank, you have a 3/4 opening and no reactions or trashing are available. You're playing with Intrigue and Dominion Base cards treasures, so the Coppers won't run out and you can actually build an engine that gets up to Provinces or even Colonies if you make sure you take on as few Coppers as possible. Enginey cards are available at a variety of costs, so no particular pile will run out, especially if some but not all players go for 6 point Fairgrounds. One of the enginey cards is a Menagerie that will greatly appreciate you minimizing your Copper intake. Duplicate curses are easier to discard.
-Play the game according to the rules in the rulebook.
That's vacuous. If you don't play the game according to the rules in the rulebook, technically speaking you are not playing Dominion at all. Depends on the kingdom is a phrase that governs different ways of playing dominion, not whether to play a game that -is- dominion at all.
-Don't viciously insult/attack your opponent.
"/" generally can be interpreted as an "or", so this is false. If Torturer is on the board, you should viciously attack your opponent. (as long as Torturer is a strong card on that board. It depends on the kingdom)
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I think WW is the only one to make a valid statement that doesn't depend on the kingdom. I'll try to think of one.
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I think WW is the only one to make a valid statement that doesn't depend on the kingdom. I'll try to think of one.
On what kingdom would you legitimately want to open Duchy/Estate?
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Perhaps WW's statement ought to be generalized into "Always purchase at least one Treasure or Action card on one of your first two turns."
Where this topic goes depends entirely on whether you actually want to look for True Dominion Advice that is always helpful (although not necessarily impervious to extreme edge casing), or if you're issuing a challenge to come up with f.DS-CertifiedTM Guaranteed-to-be-True Dominion Advice.
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I think WW is the only one to make a valid statement that doesn't depend on the kingdom. I'll try to think of one.
On what kingdom would you legitimately want to open Duchy/Estate?
Multiple players, Fairgrounds and Silk Road on the board, no 2's or 5's. An opponent added a Copper to your deck with Noble Brigand. You buy the Duchy early because you might never hit five again all game, and there's a Hovel in your hand. You buy Estate because you might never hit 2 again all game, and the best 3$ card is Menagerie.
Convinced?
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WW's statement also depends on the board, because it's not always true. What if you opened $2/$0 without $2 kingdom cards? Then you often don't want to buy anything.
Now try to figure out yourself how it is possible to open $2/$0 ;) (yes, it involves a 6 player game with Noble Brigand, and it's even possible if you always choose to take curses with torturer).
I'm not sure if in the example popsofctown opening double curse is optimal strategy, since just 2 curses won't help you so much against - say - 5 mountebanks, so you'll be taking copper anyway, and a province-reaching engine won't be viable. But maybe some better example can be thought of if you open $2/$0.
I'm almost sure that the extension of michaeljb that you shouldn't open with two $0 cards is wrong, though. When you open $2/$0 opening double copper might be optimal strategy...
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Where this topic goes depends entirely on whether you actually want to look for True Dominion Advice that is always helpful (although not necessarily impervious to extreme edge casing), or if you're issuing a challenge to come up with f.DS-CertifiedTM Guaranteed-to-be-True Dominion Advice.
I think we're looking for the latter.
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I think WW is the only one to make a valid statement that doesn't depend on the kingdom. I'll try to think of one.
On what kingdom would you legitimately want to open Duchy/Estate?
Multiple players, Fairgrounds and Silk Road on the board, no 2's or 5's. An opponent added a Copper to your deck with Noble Brigand. You buy the Duchy early because you might never hit five again all game, and there's a Hovel in your hand. You buy Estate because you might never hit 2 again all game, and the best 3$ card is Menagerie.
Convinced?
Well if you're planning on never hitting $5 again, Fairgrounds don't matter (and if they did maybe you'd want to hang on to Hovel). The fact that it's a Shelters game would probably discourage Silk Road, and if Menagerie is the "best" $3, that's another reason why Silk Road probably isn't the way to go--you probably want to do some sort of engine with Menagerie if it is better than Silver. Also buying Silver instead of Duchy improves your odds of hitting $5 again...
No :P
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I think WW is the only one to make a valid statement that doesn't depend on the kingdom. I'll try to think of one.
On what kingdom would you legitimately want to open Duchy/Estate?
Multiple players, Fairgrounds and Silk Road on the board, no 2's or 5's. An opponent added a Copper to your deck with Noble Brigand. You buy the Duchy early because you might never hit five again all game, and there's a Hovel in your hand. You buy Estate because you might never hit 2 again all game, and the best 3$ card is Menagerie.
Convinced?
No, I'm not. Ignoring that you're buying Estate, not Duchy, with a Hovel in hand, your chances of hitting $4 for SRs plummets (average hand goes from $3.6 to $3.3). Going Silver/Estate takes you from $3.6 to $3.75, increasing your chance of hitting $4 for SR or possibly $5 for a Duchy later. It also makes it possible to get a Fairgrounds later on--you must have a Silver at some point to do that. Both Duchy and Silver increase your immediate chances of activating Menagerie and both increase your Fairgrounds value.
Opening Estate/Noble Brigand only increases your average purchasing power by a little bit, but it gives you a chance of stealing Silvers from your opponents.
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WW's statement also depends on the board, because it's not always true. What if you opened $2/$0 without $2 kingdom cards? Then you often don't want to buy anything.
Now try to figure out yourself how it is possible to open $2/$0 ;) (yes, it involves a 6 player game with Noble Brigand, and it's even possible if you always choose to take curses with torturer).
I'm not sure if in the example popsofctown opening double curse is optimal strategy, since just 2 curses won't help you so much against - say - 5 mountebanks, so you'll be taking copper anyway, and a province-reaching engine won't be viable. But maybe some better example can be thought of if you open $2/$0.
I'm almost sure that the extension of michaeljb that you shouldn't open with two $0 cards is wrong, though. When you open $2/$0 opening double copper might be optimal strategy...
Opening $2/$0 -- Something with Noble Brigand and IGG. In which case, you definitely would want to do Copper/Copper...
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Which is worse, Mint/Curse or the 10 Mandarin "opening"?
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Whatever is the best "pure" BM strategy doesn't depend on the kingdom.
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Whatever is the best "pure" BM strategy doesn't depend on the kingdom.
Edge case: Platinum and Colony
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Don't play cards randomly. Look at you hand and decide which cards to play and in what order.
This may sound stupid but I do know card games where you can pick cards randomly and still have a moderate success rate. This can include not even looking at your cards and just playing them blindly.
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Whatever is the best "pure" BM strategy doesn't depend on the kingdom.
It absolutely does - is there a reason I need to go for all 8 provinces, or 4, or 5, or 6, or what? How long do I build up? Because you can't play even "pure BM" in a box.
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Whatever is the best "pure" BM strategy doesn't depend on the kingdom.
It absolutely does - is there a reason I need to go for all 8 provinces, or 4, or 5, or 6, or what? How long do I build up? Because you can't play even "pure BM" in a box.
Sorry, I was meaning in a mirror game - basically what BMU tries to be.
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I think WW is the only one to make a valid statement that doesn't depend on the kingdom. I'll try to think of one.
On what kingdom would you legitimately want to open Duchy/Estate?
Multiple players, Fairgrounds and Silk Road on the board, no 2's or 5's. An opponent added a Copper to your deck with Noble Brigand. You buy the Duchy early because you might never hit five again all game, and there's a Hovel in your hand. You buy Estate because you might never hit 2 again all game, and the best 3$ card is Menagerie.
Convinced?
Well if you're planning on never hitting $5 again, Fairgrounds don't matter (and if they did maybe you'd want to hang on to Hovel). The fact that it's a Shelters game would probably discourage Silk Road, and if Menagerie is the "best" $3, that's another reason why Silk Road probably isn't the way to go--you probably want to do some sort of engine with Menagerie if it is better than Silver. Also buying Silver instead of Duchy improves your odds of hitting $5 again...
No :P
I wasn't clear about this:
I meant you might never hit exactly 5$ again. If you hit more than 5$, you want Fairgrounds or maybe your singleton copy of Gold.
It's pretty unlikely that you go over and under 5$ but never hit it on the nose again, but I was just tossing that up as a nudge.
Silk Road is not a strategy here, of course not, but you can pick up a single copy of Silk Roads as a janky Tunnel or Duchy and the extra Estate helps out with that (Silk Road has a unique name, so it is a good late game fueler for Fairgrounds).
You want some kind of quirky Menagerie thing so you can get up to 6$ for the Fairgrounds.
Lastly, no one seemed to notice that I cheated, you can't buy a Duchy and trash a Hovel. The Hovel will have to go out with the Estate I guess.
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Lastly, no one seemed to notice that I cheated, you can't buy a Duchy and trash a Hovel. The Hovel will have to go out with the Estate I guess.
I noticed, and someone did point it out. Kirian, I think.
Edit: Yes, in post 37.
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Opening $2/$0 -- Something with Noble Brigand and IGG. In which case, you definitely would want to do Copper/Copper...
I'm not sure how you would get $0 in your hand with only Noble Brigand and IGG on the board. As far as I can see, it requires at least 8 opponents to not get a single copper in your hand. But still, in a 6 player game, 2 of them opening NB (Noble Brigand) and 3 of them IGG (you're last), it is possible to open $2/$1, which would indeed justify a copper/copper opening.
Also, in a three player game it's possible to open $2/$2 when both your opponents open NB.
My solution was that one of your opponents opened NB, and 3 other Cutpurse. Then they all get lucky and get a cutpurse in their second hand (EDIT: and you get unlucky by getting 2 estates in your second hand again), and play it, so you lose all your copper before your second turn. In that case, extra copper might be not so hot, so opening nothing/nothing can be optimal strategy.
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Things that don't depend on the board?
--my results (loss) in games against WW
--the blue dog
--always buy Cheesemaker
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Another thing that doesn't depend on the board:
If you're playing in a game in a tournament setting, it might be in your best interest to try to win, get second/third or last, depending on the current standings.
So: "if you can end the game and be sure of winning, you should do so" isn't always right.
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- Never buy all 10 Villages (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weO-3cWqV0A) before buying any other Kingdom cards.
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-Open Potion if all cards have Potion in their cost.
Without fan cards there is only one Kingdom with 10 Potion cost cards, so it's a very specific rule.
I guess you'd start with Potion/Silver there, to get Familiar for a start.
If you allow some fan cards in the mix I think it's very possible that you'd start with Silver/Silver instead.
No reason to get Potion for University that can't gain any card, Possession that you won't afford for a long time anyway, Golem, Scrying Pool and Vinyeards when you don't really have any useful actions anyway, etc., so if the rest of the cards are as unexciting in this context, will it be straight money?
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-Open Potion if all cards have Potion in their cost.
Without fan cards there is only one Kingdom with 10 Potion cost cards, so it's a very specific rule.
I guess you'd start with Potion/Silver there, to get Familiar for a start.
If you allow some fan cards in the mix I think it's very possible that you'd start with Silver/Silver instead.
No reason to get Potion for University that can't gain any card, Possession that you won't afford for a long time anyway, Golem, Scrying Pool and Vinyeards when you don't really have any useful actions anyway, etc., so if the rest of the cards are as unexciting in this context, will it be straight money?
We have to restrict the discussion to official cards. There could be ten fan cards that all cost 10P and say "+1$", theoretically.
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You want some kind of quirky Menagerie thing so you can get up to 6$ for the Fairgrounds.
Sure, but if you're going to make FG your strategy, you need at least one Silver in your deck, and you'd much rather have that Silver earlier than later. Opening Duchy/Estate decreases your chances of getting to cash consistently.
That said, this does bring up an interesting thought: Consider a 5/2 opening with Shelters. If there are no $2 actions on the board, Estate is the correct purchase, yes?
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- Never buy all 10 Villages (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weO-3cWqV0A) before buying any other Kingdom cards.
edge case: Border Village [or second buy->gain]. Edit: except of course Village is vanilla Village. But then it depends on the board...
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Another one: relax and have fun, it's still a game after all. :)
Depends on the tournament prize.
(Not the card Tournament, like actually playing in a Dominion tournament with a good prize).
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Another one: relax and have fun, it's still a game after all. :)
Depends on the tournament prize.
(Not the card Tournament, like actually playing in a Dominion tournament with a good prize).
(http://www.invirtuo.cc/img/Scan0002.jpg)
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That said, this does bring up an interesting thought: Consider a 5/2 opening with Shelters. If there are no $2 actions on the board, Estate is the correct purchase, yes?
Purchasing nothing lets you trash your Hovel when you buy a Province later, instead of expanding your deck then.
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That said, this does bring up an interesting thought: Consider a 5/2 opening with Shelters. If there are no $2 actions on the board, Estate is the correct purchase, yes?
Purchasing nothing lets you trash your Hovel when you buy a Province later, instead of expanding your deck then.
We had this discussion back when DA came out, and I think the consensus was: It depends on the board.
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I read the thread title and I thought it would include good generic advice about Dominion without getting bogged down in discussion of edge cases.
...what was I thinking?!
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If you have 5 in your opening hand, buy a card that costs at least 3.
Anyone ever opened FG/FG on 5/2? Maybe as second player?
FG/Chapel.
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So, in order to get a 2/0 opening in a 5-player game, you have to have 5 players, with you being last, Noble Brigand and Cutpurse on the board, your first opponent open Noble Brigand, the next three open Cutpurse, you start with a $2 hand, have all the cutpurses get drawn t2 and played, with you having drawn 2 estates as the next two cards. If we spot you the kingdom and that all of your opponents are playing this way, the chances of everyone drawing these hands is... 1 in 217,728. Pre-post edit: I suppose player 2 can buy noble brigand instead of cutpurse and this makes things much more likely; however I also didn't take into account the possibility that NB flips double estate for some of the opponents. Well, I'm too lazy to fix it now.
Regardless, you certainly want to buy something here anyway. Probably copper, though maybe a t1 estate. Anyway, this leads to the case where you want to open duchy/estate: You're last in a, I don't know, 20 player game. They're opening noble brigand and cutpurse everywhere. Piles are obviously going to run in about 3 seconds. You'll probably never really have much money - silver will get NBed away 20 times, and copper will get cutpursed down. There's no decent cheap virtual coin or draw, and cultist is on board, so you can run out the ruins fairly comfortably. The points here almost ensure you victory, as everyone else races to get $2 enough to get second. Also, they increase your chance of getting gifted copper by NB. Heck, this could maybe even turn into an argument for estate/estate, if you get 2/5 and cutpursed down off the 5 to a 2 or something.
I am otherwise not convinced for these openings, and especially not for curse/curse.
Oh, and for 2/2 opening from 5/2, apart from estate/estate as mentioned above, what about chapel/squire with like familiar or goons on board?
However, I think I may have thought of some others (edge case me braaaahhhh):
-Never open Duke
-Never willingly trash every card in your deck.
-Never spend $5 on a turn one feast
-Never open Village/Village (the specific card, not the type)
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Oh, and for 2/2 opening from 5/2, apart from estate/estate as mentioned above, what about chapel/squire with like familiar or goons on board?
I've opened Squire/Chapel before. It might not have literally been a 5/2, though.
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-Never spend $5 on a turn one feast
What if you're first and have a 5/2 open, but there is no $5 that you want right now (e.g. because the only $5 card is Duchy), yet there are a plethora of $4 cards, the relative strengths of which highly depend on how your opponent decides to play (ala Rock-Paper-Scissors). Might it not then be good to get the Feast, hoping that your opponent reveals his plan so that you can get the dominating card rather than the dominated?
Now I have no idea whether such a kingdom actually exists, and whether the advantage you gain outweighs the disadvantage of a slower start, and whether silver is not always the better buy in such a situation (it probably is), but it is not a priori clear that it's completely impossible to occur, so this may depend on the board :P
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Wouldn't it be better to say you want Feast to help you make a Rogue/Graverobber loop or something?
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Or what about this: kingdom is Mint/Feast/Gardens/Hamlet and no other cards of note.
You have a 5/2 opening and decide to go for Gardens (intending to empty the Gardens, Hamlets and Estates). You'd like to have a Mint (you're happy to copy a Copper for the cards and to maintain some economy in the face of greening, and the occasional free Silver makes it even better) but you hate to trash 5 Coppers, so you open Feast/Hamlet.
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Or what about this: kingdom is Mint/Feast/Gardens/Hamlet and no other cards of note.
You have a 5/2 opening and decide to go for Gardens (intending to empty the Gardens, Hamlets and Estates). You'd like to have a Mint (you're happy to copy a Copper for the cards and to maintain some economy in the face of greening, and the occasional free Silver makes it even better) but you hate to trash 5 Coppers, so you open Feast/Hamlet.
Ehhh.. I mean it's cute, but no way it's even remotely competitive.
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Is BM without support really faster?
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Is BM without support really faster?
Mint is not at all a good Gardens support. Better to spam Hamlet +buy to get extra copper.
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Is BM without support really faster?
Mint is not at all a good Gardens support. Better to spam Hamlet +buy to get extra copper.
But that's a paradigm you've developed based on 90% of the time not being able to acquire a Mint without trashing. Gainers that gain 5's are usually remodel variants which are their own problem for a Gardens deck.
I think I agree that the presence of Hamlet might cause outshinery issues, though. Might be better to pick a different helper. Cellar with some nice 3's and 4's maybe.
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-Never spend $5 on a turn one feast
What if you're first and have a 5/2 open, but there is no $5 that you want right now (e.g. because the only $5 card is Duchy), yet there are a plethora of $4 cards, the relative strengths of which highly depend on how your opponent decides to play (ala Rock-Paper-Scissors). Might it not then be good to get the Feast, hoping that your opponent reveals his plan so that you can get the dominating card rather than the dominated?
Now I have no idea whether such a kingdom actually exists, and whether the advantage you gain outweighs the disadvantage of a slower start, and whether silver is not always the better buy in such a situation (it probably is), but it is not a priori clear that it's completely impossible to occur, so this may depend on the board :P
I bet you could also build a nice Rube Goldberg machine with Market Square to pick up some golds.
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Or what about this: kingdom is Mint/Feast/Gardens/Hamlet and no other cards of note.
You have a 5/2 opening and decide to go for Gardens (intending to empty the Gardens, Hamlets and Estates). You'd like to have a Mint (you're happy to copy a Copper for the cards and to maintain some economy in the face of greening, and the occasional free Silver makes it even better) but you hate to trash 5 Coppers, so you open Feast/Hamlet.
Ehhh.. I mean it's cute, but no way it's even remotely competitive.
What if Mint was the only $5 card, there were no gardens and you were going to do some weird Coppersmith strategy? Anyway that could actually be feasible?
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Is BM without support really faster?
Mint is not at all a good Gardens support. Better to spam Hamlet +buy to get extra copper.
But that's a paradigm you've developed based on 90% of the time not being able to acquire a Mint without trashing. Gainers that gain 5's are usually remodel variants which are their own problem for a Gardens deck.
I think I agree that the presence of Hamlet might cause outshinery issues, though. Might be better to pick a different helper. Cellar with some nice 3's and 4's maybe.
That's the point though. If there was an easy way to get Mint without trashing, then maybe it would work. But it's not going to be helpful enough to Feast->Mint for Gardens, especially if +Buy is available. Maybe if there was no +Buy? Mint is still probably not good enough as Gardens support, especially given you'd need two reshuffles before you could gain multiple cards a turn... and then you would only be able to do that once per turn, unless you Feasted multiple Mints or had Throne Room or something. But there are too many hoops here.
Or what about this: kingdom is Mint/Feast/Gardens/Hamlet and no other cards of note.
You have a 5/2 opening and decide to go for Gardens (intending to empty the Gardens, Hamlets and Estates). You'd like to have a Mint (you're happy to copy a Copper for the cards and to maintain some economy in the face of greening, and the occasional free Silver makes it even better) but you hate to trash 5 Coppers, so you open Feast/Hamlet.
Ehhh.. I mean it's cute, but no way it's even remotely competitive.
What if Mint was the only $5 card, there were no gardens and you were going to do some weird Coppersmith strategy? Anyway that could actually be feasible?
Unlikely.
The thing is, Feast->Mint is jumping through hoops to gain Mint without trashing your Treasure. I could see that as possible late in the game, when you want to Mint Plats and you've already rid yourself of Coppers/weak treasures. But as an opener?
OK, weird Coppersmith strategy... well, why do you want Mint at all? To get more Copper? That won't work. For Coppersmith to be viable, you would need:
- a way to draw lots of Copper in hand
- probably a way to play multiple Coppersmiths
- +Buy to make use of all your money
The last point is the killer here. If you have +Buy, then you can easily gain more Copper without going to the trouble of Feasting a Mint (which just has huge opportunity cost). If you don't have +Buy, then Coppersmith is unlikely to be worth it.
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-- Don't open Curse/Curse.
Any exceptions? I can't think of any.
(http://t.qkme.me/3u8dwj.jpg)
There's always an exception. Sometimes, that exception is insanity wolf.
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Is BM without support really faster?
Mint is not at all a good Gardens support. Better to spam Hamlet +buy to get extra copper.
But that's a paradigm you've developed based on 90% of the time not being able to acquire a Mint without trashing. Gainers that gain 5's are usually remodel variants which are their own problem for a Gardens deck.
I think I agree that the presence of Hamlet might cause outshinery issues, though. Might be better to pick a different helper. Cellar with some nice 3's and 4's maybe.
That's the point though. If there was an easy way to get Mint without trashing, then maybe it would work. But it's not going to be helpful enough to Feast->Mint for Gardens, especially if +Buy is available. Maybe if there was no +Buy? Mint is still probably not good enough as Gardens support, especially given you'd need two reshuffles before you could gain multiple cards a turn... and then you would only be able to do that once per turn, unless you Feasted multiple Mints or had Throne Room or something. But there are too many hoops here.
Or what about this: kingdom is Mint/Feast/Gardens/Hamlet and no other cards of note.
You have a 5/2 opening and decide to go for Gardens (intending to empty the Gardens, Hamlets and Estates). You'd like to have a Mint (you're happy to copy a Copper for the cards and to maintain some economy in the face of greening, and the occasional free Silver makes it even better) but you hate to trash 5 Coppers, so you open Feast/Hamlet.
Ehhh.. I mean it's cute, but no way it's even remotely competitive.
What if Mint was the only $5 card, there were no gardens and you were going to do some weird Coppersmith strategy? Anyway that could actually be feasible?
Unlikely.
The thing is, Feast->Mint is jumping through hoops to gain Mint without trashing your Treasure. I could see that as possible late in the game, when you want to Mint Plats and you've already rid yourself of Coppers/weak treasures. But as an opener?
OK, weird Coppersmith strategy... well, why do you want Mint at all? To get more Copper? That won't work. For Coppersmith to be viable, you would need:
- a way to draw lots of Copper in hand
- probably a way to play multiple Coppersmiths
- +Buy to make use of all your money
The last point is the killer here. If you have +Buy, then you can easily gain more Copper without going to the trouble of Feasting a Mint (which just has huge opportunity cost). If you don't have +Buy, then Coppersmith is unlikely to be worth it.
Thrones Feast to get two, then keep throning Mint for more coppers/silvers? If you can line then up, that gets you more cards than +buy.
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Is BM without support really faster?
Mint is not at all a good Gardens support. Better to spam Hamlet +buy to get extra copper.
But that's a paradigm you've developed based on 90% of the time not being able to acquire a Mint without trashing. Gainers that gain 5's are usually remodel variants which are their own problem for a Gardens deck.
I think I agree that the presence of Hamlet might cause outshinery issues, though. Might be better to pick a different helper. Cellar with some nice 3's and 4's maybe.
That's the point though. If there was an easy way to get Mint without trashing, then maybe it would work. But it's not going to be helpful enough to Feast->Mint for Gardens, especially if +Buy is available. Maybe if there was no +Buy? Mint is still probably not good enough as Gardens support, especially given you'd need two reshuffles before you could gain multiple cards a turn... and then you would only be able to do that once per turn, unless you Feasted multiple Mints or had Throne Room or something. But there are too many hoops here.
Or what about this: kingdom is Mint/Feast/Gardens/Hamlet and no other cards of note.
You have a 5/2 opening and decide to go for Gardens (intending to empty the Gardens, Hamlets and Estates). You'd like to have a Mint (you're happy to copy a Copper for the cards and to maintain some economy in the face of greening, and the occasional free Silver makes it even better) but you hate to trash 5 Coppers, so you open Feast/Hamlet.
Ehhh.. I mean it's cute, but no way it's even remotely competitive.
What if Mint was the only $5 card, there were no gardens and you were going to do some weird Coppersmith strategy? Anyway that could actually be feasible?
Unlikely.
The thing is, Feast->Mint is jumping through hoops to gain Mint without trashing your Treasure. I could see that as possible late in the game, when you want to Mint Plats and you've already rid yourself of Coppers/weak treasures. But as an opener?
OK, weird Coppersmith strategy... well, why do you want Mint at all? To get more Copper? That won't work. For Coppersmith to be viable, you would need:
- a way to draw lots of Copper in hand
- probably a way to play multiple Coppersmiths
- +Buy to make use of all your money
The last point is the killer here. If you have +Buy, then you can easily gain more Copper without going to the trouble of Feasting a Mint (which just has huge opportunity cost). If you don't have +Buy, then Coppersmith is unlikely to be worth it.
Thrones Feast to get two, then keep throning Mint for more coppers/silvers? If you can line then up, that gets you more cards than +buy.
No reason to buy the feast before TR there. But more to the point, it doesn't actually get you more cards than +buy, because you just throne the +buy all the time.
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Is BM without support really faster?
Mint is not at all a good Gardens support. Better to spam Hamlet +buy to get extra copper.
But that's a paradigm you've developed based on 90% of the time not being able to acquire a Mint without trashing. Gainers that gain 5's are usually remodel variants which are their own problem for a Gardens deck.
I think I agree that the presence of Hamlet might cause outshinery issues, though. Might be better to pick a different helper. Cellar with some nice 3's and 4's maybe.
That's the point though. If there was an easy way to get Mint without trashing, then maybe it would work. But it's not going to be helpful enough to Feast->Mint for Gardens, especially if +Buy is available. Maybe if there was no +Buy? Mint is still probably not good enough as Gardens support, especially given you'd need two reshuffles before you could gain multiple cards a turn... and then you would only be able to do that once per turn, unless you Feasted multiple Mints or had Throne Room or something. But there are too many hoops here.
Or what about this: kingdom is Mint/Feast/Gardens/Hamlet and no other cards of note.
You have a 5/2 opening and decide to go for Gardens (intending to empty the Gardens, Hamlets and Estates). You'd like to have a Mint (you're happy to copy a Copper for the cards and to maintain some economy in the face of greening, and the occasional free Silver makes it even better) but you hate to trash 5 Coppers, so you open Feast/Hamlet.
Ehhh.. I mean it's cute, but no way it's even remotely competitive.
What if Mint was the only $5 card, there were no gardens and you were going to do some weird Coppersmith strategy? Anyway that could actually be feasible?
Unlikely.
The thing is, Feast->Mint is jumping through hoops to gain Mint without trashing your Treasure. I could see that as possible late in the game, when you want to Mint Plats and you've already rid yourself of Coppers/weak treasures. But as an opener?
OK, weird Coppersmith strategy... well, why do you want Mint at all? To get more Copper? That won't work. For Coppersmith to be viable, you would need:
- a way to draw lots of Copper in hand
- probably a way to play multiple Coppersmiths
- +Buy to make use of all your money
The last point is the killer here. If you have +Buy, then you can easily gain more Copper without going to the trouble of Feasting a Mint (which just has huge opportunity cost). If you don't have +Buy, then Coppersmith is unlikely to be worth it.
Thrones Feast to get two, then keep throning Mint for more coppers/silvers? If you can line then up, that gets you more cards than +buy.
No reason to buy the feast before TR there. But more to the point, it doesn't actually get you more cards than +buy, because you just throne the +buy all the time.
If you are opening 4-silver, I don't think it matters which you buy first, but I see your point.
Is there a time when you prefer TR-Mint with silver in hand to TR-+buy with silver in hand? Imagine its these terribad kingdoms. I.e. you throne the +buy but all it does is get you 2 coppers in addition to your regular buy--the Mint got you 2 silvers plus regular buy.
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Thrones Feast to get two, then keep throning Mint for more coppers/silvers? If you can line then up, that gets you more cards than +buy.
Because you can open Throne Room/Feast... I don't know if it would be worth it if you had to wait that long to get the mints...
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no, you can't
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I think sudgy was being sarcastic
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I think sudgy was being sarcastic
I think it was just a typo.
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I think sudgy was being sarcastic
I think it was just a typo.
I was sarcastic. Maybe I should have thrown in a "definitely"...
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Thrones Feast to get two, then keep throning Mint for more coppers/silvers? If you can line then up, that gets you more cards than +buy.
Lining up TR-Feast has the same odds as lining up two Treasure Maps, so not a great thing to be basing your Gardens strategy on. And in that case, would you still open Feast? Maybe, I guess...
The other thing is, if you successfully TR-Mint a couple times, you won't be able to keep doing it. The extra Coppers and Silvers will make it harder to collide them; your TRs will be dead often.
Is there a time when you prefer TR-Mint with silver in hand to TR-+buy with silver in hand? Imagine its these terribad kingdoms. I.e. you throne the +buy but all it does is get you 2 coppers in addition to your regular buy--the Mint got you 2 silvers plus regular buy.
It would depend on the +Buy card, but if it would get you no extra money (i.e. you would only buy Coppers) then yeah, Mint would be better (barring edge cases like Counting House). But the benefits of Mint would not outweigh the opportunity cost of getting that Mint in the first place, I think. I would much rather open the +Buy card and get to use it after the first reshuffle than have to Feast for a Mint that I won't get to use until after the second reshuffle at the earliest.
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-- Don't open Curse/Curse.
Any exceptions? I can't think of any.
(http://t.qkme.me/3u8dwj.jpg)
There's always an exception. Sometimes, that exception is insanity wolf.
Kirian called me an insane wolf.
I'd like to report him to the moderator for making a slur, where's the button for that.
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Has there ever been a kingdom empirically shown to have second-player advantage? I think this may be one of the things that don't depend on the board.
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Has there ever been a kingdom empirically shown to have second-player advantage? I think this may be one of the things that don't depend on the board.
A board where BM-Noble brigand is best has a slight 2nd player advantage, by my research, though I could be missing something of course. I assume it's possible to engineer a kingdom to have this be the best strategy, though obviously it would be difficult.
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A board with nine victory kingdom cards and smuggler?
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Kingdoms with Rock-Paper-Scissors strategy, where p2 can pick the winner.
I remember a thread about when there is p2 advantage. Hm...
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Has there ever been a kingdom empirically shown to have second-player advantage? I think this may be one of the things that don't depend on the board.
A board where BM-Noble brigand is best has a slight 2nd player advantage, by my research, though I could be missing something of course. I assume it's possible to engineer a kingdom to have this be the best strategy, though obviously it would be difficult.
Transmute, University, Scout, Fairgrounds, Counting House, Coppersmith, Outpost, Possession, Chancellor, Noble Brigand?
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Do not forget University into Scout and Counting House (after you trashed some Copper with Transmute).
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Remember, I asked for proof ;-/
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Remember, I asked for proof ;-/
WW is saying that he used bots to determine that NB-BM is 2nd player advantage. That is proof. It is pretty certain that NB dominates -some- board, even if it's not mine. I really don't see how you play anything else on mine
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Has there ever been a kingdom empirically shown to have second-player advantage? I think this may be one of the things that don't depend on the board.
A board where BM-Noble brigand is best has a slight 2nd player advantage, by my research, though I could be missing something of course. I assume it's possible to engineer a kingdom to have this be the best strategy, though obviously it would be difficult.
Transmute, University, Scout, Fairgrounds, Counting House, Coppersmith, Outpost, Possession, Chancellor, Noble Brigand?
Late to the party, but the usual way to force BigMoney is filling it with Villages.
Save bets are Village, Worker's Village, Walled Village, Farming Village, Throne Room, Quarry
Quite save is e.g. Native Village, Scout, Golem
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-If you are ahead in VP and can end the game on your turn, do so.
One of my Go teachers taught me a wonderful edge case for this one: if you have the opportunity to crush your opponent, do so - you'll have the psychological advantage for the next game.
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-Open Potion if all cards have Potion in their cost.
This is depends on the kingdom because you are specifying a certain subset of possible kingdoms and saying that your rule definitely applies to those kingdoms.
Even so, you might be wrong in six player (if six player is really and truly a thing, I'm not positive it is).
[Dwight]False.[/Dwight] (Thanks for the template!)
In standard logic, a conditional statement is always true when its condition is false. In other words, "If X, then Y" is true when both X and Y are true, and when X is false regardless of Y. So in this case, "Open Potion if all cards have Potion in their cost" is true when there is a non-Potion card in the game, so its dependence on the board relies only on it being true in the circumstance that all the cards are Potion-cost and you *shouldn't* open Potion, which as you point out may or may not be true depending on the number of players and probably requires further investigation.
That said, statements of "If X, then Y" not depending on the board is probably on the edge of cheating for the purposes of this list.