Dominion Strategy Forum

Archive => Archive => Dominion: Guilds Previews => Topic started by: Just a Rube on June 03, 2013, 09:11:58 pm

Title: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Just a Rube on June 03, 2013, 09:11:58 pm
So, now that we can open 5/3, how does that affect other cards? And when would you prefer 6/2 or 4/4?

A few thoughts, to start off:
-Mint. It's biggest problem as an opener is that you trash all your copper, and now you only have $2 left in your deck. Now you can open mint/silver (or something morally equivalent).

-Goons obviously wants to open 6/2 or 6/- if there is even decent support for it.

-If you're going Courtyard Big Money, do you want to open Courtyard-Gold, or is it better to save the token for later? Or even open Courtyard-Baker?

-Potion and another $4 (or save the coin so you guarantee to get that familiar)

What do you guys think?
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Robz888 on June 03, 2013, 09:15:29 pm
Yeah, that starting coin is going to be a game changer.

Think of all the weird double $4 openings you can do now, like double TMap, or double Young Witch, or double Sea Hag, or true double Jack right from the get go!
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: ashersky on June 03, 2013, 09:23:00 pm
Yeah, that starting coin is going to be a game changer.

Think of all the weird double $4 openings you can do now, like double TMap, or double Young Witch, or double Sea Hag, or true double Jack right from the get go!

You forgot Double Scout.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: ftl on June 03, 2013, 09:55:47 pm
I bet with familiar, you want to keep the token in case you get that 2p hand.

Double treasure map is probably still going to be bad. Because now it'll compete with the $5s. Will probably get a boost compared to like smithy-BM or something, but not against anything that's actually good.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Titandrake on June 03, 2013, 09:56:56 pm
Games with Witch/Mountebank/other power $5 will have less opening luck, because you can always get 5/3
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: popsofctown on June 03, 2013, 11:28:38 pm
Yeah, that starting coin is going to be a game changer.

Think of all the weird double $4 openings you can do now, like double TMap, or double Young Witch, or double Sea Hag, or true double Jack right from the get go!
I would think Jack/Silver outperforms Jack/Jack, because the Jacks can collide and draw eachother.  And saving the coin for later means you can turn a 5$ Silver purchase into a Gold, which helps out a ton. 
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Fabian on June 03, 2013, 11:31:12 pm
Yeah sign me up for Jack/Silver over Jack/Jack for sure. I even get an extra coin token for that first annoying $5 hand? Good stuff.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Robz888 on June 04, 2013, 12:16:16 am
Yeah, I don't actually think Jack/Jack would be so hot. Well, maybe if your opponent is really going heavy for cursers or something.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Davio on June 04, 2013, 03:00:16 am
At first I thought: Whew, equality, you can finally match someone's lucky 5/2 with your own, but then I read the Goons post.

Luckily, most nasty attacks are costed $5 instead of $6.

How about Treasure Map/Treasure Map? New nombo of the day or actually good? ;D
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: heatthespurs on June 04, 2013, 04:03:27 am
How about Treasure Map/Treasure Map? New nombo of the day or actually good? ;D

The chance of hitting your two (non-drawing) openings together in Turn 3 or 4 is around 30%? (forget the exact figures...) So meaning you could in general have roughly one-third chance of getting 4 Golds by 2nd reshuffle. Seems too good to simply ignore...

That said, opening 4/4 also means skipping a 5-cost card as opening. So maybe the 5-cost card available defines whether it worths taking the risk of going TM/TM. Wharf/Fishing Village? umum....
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Davio on June 04, 2013, 07:09:46 am
But the ramifications of hitting a T3/T4 TM/TM are pretty big if you're going BM after that.
In some cases, it could definitely be worth the gamble.

Say you're playing a high rated opponent, take the swinginess of TM/TM and hope it pays off. :)
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: GendoIkari on June 04, 2013, 10:09:59 am
I definitely don't like that TM/TM is available now. The thing is, at 30.3%, it's not likely to be the optimal move, because twice as often as not, you've basically opened Curse/Curse. But a low-skilled player has that option, and if he does get his 30% luck, then suddenly he has a deck that will be very hard to beat. I'd be interested to see how fast a deck that gains 4 Golds turn 3 can get 5 Provinces. Probably really fast. Which means that you can end up in a situation where a low-skilled player has a 30.3% chance of beating a much better player without any actual skill needed.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: gman314 on June 04, 2013, 12:21:14 pm
Yes, a weaker player can win 30.3% of the time on the occasional board with both Baker and Treasure Map, but there are already more common boards where the approach is sufficiently obvious and P1 has just over 50% chance of winning regardless of skill difference. I don't think it breaks things too much.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: jomini on June 04, 2013, 12:26:07 pm
I imagine Tmap/Tmap will be fairly dominant in 4 player, 30% is better than equal skill at the "optimal" strategy. Of course like a lot of 4er, this makes things go crazy if other people join in (e.g. the old Moat is a better opening than Witch in 4er if everyone else has gone Witch).

In any event, suppose you only hit Tmap/Tmap on T7, is that really bad? I mean you are pretty close to even odds by T7. If you buy a province on T8 and a province every other turn from then gets you to 4 provinces on T14 and I imagine you have a duchy or two as well at that point. Having any remotely useful enabler is going to make this a pretty potent opening - say you just bought Tmap/Tmap and then Market squares until you hit. You might get a bonus gold when you trash the Tmaps and you might be able to buy Province/Duchy or Province/power 5 on your 4 gold turn. If you do slip behind a province, you can get to double duchy pretty easy there.


A few openings I expect to see:
Chapel/Hoard. Yeah using Hoard to buy an estate/gold is pretty bad ... but not when you are doing it on T3 and trashing 3 Estates as well.

Attack/Sage. Fast cycling, punishing deck destruction. Mountebank is of course preferred.

Scavenger/Attack. Lower odds of collisions and you can just keep pounding with 4 coin attacks like Militia and Hag. Scav/Scav might also be worth it - you can get a really reliable setup without having to skip out on buying economy.
Scav/Potion can be just nasty - letting you quickly cycle in the potion cost card or reusing the potion.

Hunting Party/Attack may be pretty nice. Swindler would be particularly nasty, but even Oracle or Urchin can be a quick setup for a punishing deck.

Workshop/power 5. Normally workshop is a terrible opening with strong 5's out - too hard to hit 5 reliably, but this may well enable you to stock up on easy villages while still hammering with a big attack. Engine builder's delight there.

Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Awaclus on June 04, 2013, 12:35:14 pm
If you play against a noob, you can just tell them how bad tm/tm is, and they'll ignore it. At least if they know how good you are.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Orange on June 04, 2013, 12:46:52 pm
Yes, a weaker player can win 30.3% of the time on the occasional board with both Baker and Treasure Map, but there are already more common boards where the approach is sufficiently obvious and P1 has just over 50% chance of winning regardless of skill difference. I don't think it breaks things too much.

The weaker player will still have to recognize the TMap/TMap opening to get the 30% shot.  And isn't recognizing strategies, or lack thereof, really what makes a weaker player weaker?
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Robz888 on June 04, 2013, 01:05:06 pm
Well, these Baker coin starts are probably going to advantage first player anyway. And let's say it's a particularly pro-first player board to start with. Second player may want to bank on TMap collision decently often, then.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Watno on June 04, 2013, 01:07:30 pm
And it's not like the treasure maps would disappear from your deck if they don't collide on the first shuffle. If you buy nothing/cantrips, you have another 30% chance on the the nexst run through your deck.

I also think this will make village openings more common. The main reason for an early silver over village is that you need to hit 5.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: sudgy on June 04, 2013, 01:16:30 pm
If you play against a noob, you can just tell them how bad tm/tm is, and they'll ignore it. At least if they know how good you are.

Whenever I'm playing against a noob and I tell them some strategy advice, they don't know if I'm trying to help them or giving them wrong advice and helping myself...   ::)
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Davio on June 04, 2013, 01:27:58 pm
Well, these Baker coin starts are probably going to advantage first player anyway. And let's say it's a particularly pro-first player board to start with. Second player may want to bank on TMap collision decently often, then.
Yes, it is scary that P1 can always get a $5+ Attack card in the opening. IGG/X is always available, get that Curse in before the shuffle, people!

While I like the extra options this mechanic provides to the players, I'm scared about the effects it has on "pro" play and how much more it will swing the balance into P1's favor.

That being said, we have to agree that Dominion never intended to be a "pro game" (like Magic for instance). It turned out that way because people started to take it seriously and we were offered a very good online platform for it. If Iso never had existed and we could only play unranked games on BGG, I don't think this would be an issue at all. And of course all of the expansions have been designed without thinking that players will just play a single match and move on.

The effect of first player advantage is lessened in real life by making the player to the left of the winner go first the next game and you could get 3 games in with different cards in the same time as it would take for a regular worker placement. I still enjoy real life play the most, but unfortunately I rarely have the time for it and online is a decent surrogate.

All in all I think we have to accept that there will be cards which don't care a lot about the effect they have on pro games and the P1 advantage thingy. If they did, there wouldn't be any attacks! I'd rather have cards not care about that and be fun than care about it and be boring.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Watno on June 04, 2013, 01:39:00 pm
I really think swinginess is reduced by this. Being guaranteed $5 on the opeing turns is huge on many boards.
IGG on the very first turn is good, but to rare and insignificant to really matter.
The game acceleration helps P1, but i think the presence of many other crads accelerates the game way more.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: WanderingWinder on June 04, 2013, 01:45:13 pm
That being said, we have to agree that Dominion never intended to be a "pro game" (like Magic for instance).
Magic was intended to be a "pro game"? Have you seen Alpha?

More on point, I am not so sure that this actually helps p1 so much. A little, probably yes, but you know, not nearly as much as a lot of existing cards. Heck, I think not that much over your run-of-the-mill card like, I dunno, village.

I'm pretty sure even having 2 maps collide on turn 3-4 won't just guarantee a win. I mean, it's nice, but I bet that there are a reasonable number of boards where I'll prefer my position *anyway*. Of course, there will be boards it's bananas, and in those cases, we have to remember that there's quite a good chance of getting it on the first or second reshuffle, and well, that's not such an unreasonable play, is it?
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: DStu on June 04, 2013, 02:41:32 pm
Well, these Baker coin starts are probably going to advantage first player anyway. And let's say it's a particularly pro-first player board to start with. Second player may want to bank on TMap collision decently often, then.
Yes, it is scary that P1 can always get a $5+ Attack card in the opening. IGG/X is always available, get that Curse in before the shuffle, people!
Chances are good that it the only card that gives you the extra coin at the start, so you have (the potential for) higher first player advantage at ~5% of the games. Don't think that's such a bigh problem.
Also, it takes away the 5/2 vs 4/3 advantage in these games, that given you have an important $5 attack is probably larger.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: dondon151 on June 05, 2013, 11:07:09 am
I'm not so sure that Goons/$2 is so amazing. I'd imagine that in most kingdoms, a $5/$3 is better for engine building. There are some kingdoms where Goons/$2 is strong, like probably:

Goons/Chapel
Goons/Lighthouse
Goons/FG (no engine)
Goons/Pawn?

But I will probably usually take a $5/$3 opening most of the time. In an engine game, the couple of VP tokens that you get from an early Goons is dwarfed by the megaturn. So opening Goons/$2 on most boards is like opening Militia/$2, which is not that great.

$6/$2 doesn't seem all that great. Off the top of my head, I would only consider BV/Chapel and Gold/Courtyard as other good openings.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Squidd on June 05, 2013, 11:10:58 am
Goons/Squire
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: dondon151 on June 05, 2013, 11:12:44 am
I forgot Goons/Squire and Goons/Hamlet, but I still think $5/$3 is going to be better.

EDIT: Also Altar with a lot of $2s is good.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: liopoil on June 05, 2013, 03:40:43 pm
altar-squire with cultist on the board?
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: jbrecken on June 05, 2013, 04:39:07 pm
Urchin/Margrave
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Drab Emordnilap on June 05, 2013, 05:28:18 pm
Urchin/Margrave
Urchin/Minion?
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: werothegreat on June 05, 2013, 05:29:44 pm
Urchin/Margrave
Urchin/Minion?

Urchin/Mountebank.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: shMerker on June 05, 2013, 06:21:13 pm
Urchin/Margrave
Urchin/Minion?

Urchin/Mountebank.
Urchin/Rabble
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: sudgy on June 05, 2013, 06:45:03 pm
Urchin/Margrave
Urchin/Minion?

Urchin/Mountebank.
Urchin/Rabble

Urchin/Witch
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Watno on June 05, 2013, 06:58:01 pm
Urchin/Margrave
Urchin/Minion?

Urchin/Mountebank.
Urchin/Rabble

Urchin/Witch
Urchin/Cultist
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: shMerker on June 05, 2013, 07:00:22 pm
Urchin/Margrave
Urchin/Minion?

Urchin/Mountebank.
Urchin/Rabble

Urchin/Witch
Urchin/Cultist
Urchin/Pillage
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Watno on June 05, 2013, 07:27:29 pm
Urchin/Margrave
Urchin/Minion?

Urchin/Mountebank.
Urchin/Rabble

Urchin/Witch
Urchin/Cultist
Urchin/Pillage
Urchin/Dame Josephine
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: ashersky on June 05, 2013, 07:38:52 pm
Why are we ignoring Thief/Thief?

/joking

But really, how about in 4 player games?
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: sudgy on June 05, 2013, 08:03:00 pm
Why are we ignoring Thief/Thief?

/joking

But really, how about in 4 player games?

With Gardens, not a bad idea.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Schlippy on June 06, 2013, 01:33:34 pm
Why does everyone argue that double Treasure Maps leads to a 30% win chance? Even if Treasure Map said "When this collides with another Treasure Map, you instantly win unless your opponent reveals two Treasure Maps from his hand." it wasn't even close to 30% win chance. It might be around 30% win chance for the first player when Treasure Map said "When you buy a copy of this, no other player (except you) can gain or buy any copies of this anymore", but even those 30% are pretty far fetched.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: SirPeebles on June 06, 2013, 01:47:10 pm
Why does everyone argue that double Treasure Maps leads to a 30% win chance? Even if Treasure Map said "When this collides with another Treasure Map, you instantly win unless your opponent reveals two Treasure Maps from his hand." it wasn't even close to 30% win chance. It might be around 30% win chance for the first player when Treasure Map said "When you buy a copy of this, no other player (except you) can gain or buy any copies of this anymore", but even those 30% are pretty far fetched.

Why stipulate that they can't buy Treasure Map?

Anyhow, it looks like your argument is that everyone can grab Treasure Map.  I think that's rather the problem.  Many players, particularly skilled players who have invested lots of time studying strategy, don't like the idea of everyone rolling some early dice to determine who ends up with four Golds versus who holds onto two dead cards. 
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Schlippy on June 06, 2013, 02:17:23 pm
Why does everyone argue that double Treasure Maps leads to a 30% win chance? Even if Treasure Map said "When this collides with another Treasure Map, you instantly win unless your opponent reveals two Treasure Maps from his hand." it wasn't even close to 30% win chance. It might be around 30% win chance for the first player when Treasure Map said "When you buy a copy of this, no other player (except you) can gain or buy any copies of this anymore", but even those 30% are pretty far fetched.

Why stipulate that they can't buy Treasure Map?

Anyhow, it looks like your argument is that everyone can grab Treasure Map.  I think that's rather the problem.  Many players, particularly skilled players who have invested lots of time studying strategy, don't like the idea of everyone rolling some early dice to determine who ends up with four Golds versus who holds onto two dead cards.
I also do not like the idea, but it is not like this that is a new thing in Dominion. Familiar and Young Witch can lead to similar situations. Even worse, being lucky with those two directly leads to your opponent being less likely to buy his next Familiar/have his bane in hand when he needs too. Being able to start a Torturer chain faster than your opponent due to simple drawing luck leads to him being less likely to set of his. Hitting a Silver early on a Knight-dependend board is devastating and also leads to your opponent being less likely to catch up on the Knight split. Similar situations can occur with Minion (although to a far lesser extent). A 3E 1C chapel hand can easily be the win on some boards, even for pretty bad players. Mint/FG and Chapel/Witch also often lead to games that are over due to simple luck. Tournament, cough.
Dominion can be a game with a relatively big luck factor, depending on the board. That is just how it works. If you have to roll the dice because that will lead to a 50%/50% chance (ignoring first player advantage) then so be it. In the end you will still win more games if you're better and luckily Dominion is a fast game, so you can play matches instead of single games.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: ashersky on June 06, 2013, 06:52:03 pm
Why does everyone argue that double Treasure Maps leads to a 30% win chance? Even if Treasure Map said "When this collides with another Treasure Map, you instantly win unless your opponent reveals two Treasure Maps from his hand." it wasn't even close to 30% win chance. It might be around 30% win chance for the first player when Treasure Map said "When you buy a copy of this, no other player (except you) can gain or buy any copies of this anymore", but even those 30% are pretty far fetched.

I thought people were arguing it was a 30% chance of drawing the two together, not of winning the entire game.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: NoMoreFun on June 07, 2013, 07:00:34 am
On the issue of FTA, Noble Brigand/Noble Brigand
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: brokoli on June 07, 2013, 07:25:34 am
Talisman / Quarry ?
Island / Island ?
Remake / Remake ?
Nomad camp / Peddler ? This is probably a terrible idea but it's fun to know that you can open with peddler. And maybe not that bad with a Tfb. Same with Border village
Native village / Goonds ? For a goons megaturn ?
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Robz888 on June 09, 2013, 11:43:58 pm
I kind of life the idea of opening Double Remake. That'll clean your deck out pronto!
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: NoMoreFun on June 10, 2013, 12:07:16 am
Nomad camp / Peddler ? This is probably a terrible idea but it's fun to know that you can open with peddler. And maybe not that bad

You can already do that in Dark Ages games with Necropolis, and get yourself a Poor House too if you're lucky.
Now with Baker, you can get yourself any $2 card. If you're planning on picking up a TFB Squire seems like a good move.

You can open Nomad Camp/Border Village(/Death Cart/Ruins/Ruins)/Ruins, which will give your death cart a lot to work with, and I think 6 unique cards is the most that can be opened with barring multiplayer shenanigans. Nomad Camp/Death Cart/Squire or Hamlet is probably better though.

Speaking of shenanigans, opening with a $6 Doctor gives you a good chance of cleaning out your junk on turn 2, and you'll probably have more than $2 on your second turn with a thinner deck. Best case scenario, you can open $6/$5. Worst case scenario, you still get $2, you've already trashed one of your junk cards, and you can play the Doctor to try trash the others.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: NoMoreFun on June 13, 2013, 11:54:13 pm
Stonemason/Treasure Map/Treasure Map/Haven (or possibly courtyard if it's a Shelters game) will be the best 6/2 opening.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: sudgy on June 14, 2013, 12:49:55 am
Stonemason/Treasure Map/Treasure Map/Haven (or possibly courtyard if it's a Shelters game) will be the best 6/2 opening.

What's the chance of collision?
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: AJD on June 14, 2013, 02:22:35 am
I'd like to second the suggestion of Goons / Native Village.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: sudgy on June 14, 2013, 02:23:45 am
I'd like to second the suggestion of Goons / Native Village.

Why Native Village?  If you're looking for a village, go with hamlet.  That one gives +buys too (for the Goons).
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: AJD on June 14, 2013, 02:35:40 am
I'd like to second the suggestion of Goons / Native Village.

Why Native Village?  If you're looking for a village, go with hamlet.  That one gives +buys too (for the Goons).

Goons benefits from Native Village for the same reason Bridge does: you really want to get multiple Goons lined up in the same hand with enough actions to play them all, since the benefit is quadratic in the number of Goons you play. You can't build a Native Village / Goons deck like you can a Native Village / Bridge deck, buying nothing buy NV/Bridge until it's time to pull the megaturn, since Goons costs too much to pull that off. But you can totally play a strategy where you keep putting cards on your Native Village mat until there's two or three Goons there, and then pull them off for a Pretty Okay Turn.

With Hamlet/Goons, aren't you doomed to spend a lot of turns with Goons/Goons/Hamlet hands, which once the Hamlets run out isn't useful for very much?
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Titandrake on June 14, 2013, 02:41:31 am
This is only for puzzles, but you can now do

T1: Stonemason for $6, gaining 2 Nomad Camps
T2: Play Necropolis, play 2 Nomad Camps, now have $6 and 2 buys.

Stonemason/Nomad Camp/Nomad Camp/Stonemason/Fortress/Fortress opening? Now a thing.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Davio on June 14, 2013, 02:42:52 am
This is only for puzzles, but you can now do

T1: Stonemason for $6, gaining 2 Nomad Camps
T2: Play Necropolis, play 2 Nomad Camps, now have $6 and 2 buys.

Stonemason/Nomad Camp/Nomad Camp/Stonemason/Fortress/Fortress opening? Now a thing.
Celestial Chameleon, please take it from here.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: NoMoreFun on June 14, 2013, 02:44:48 am
This is only for puzzles, but you can now do

T1: Stonemason for $6, gaining 2 Nomad Camps
T2: Play Necropolis, play 2 Nomad Camps, now have $6 and 2 buys.

3 buys, and you can get 3 peddlers. Or even 3 peddlers, a stone mason and a spare buy.

Then use stone mason on the peddlers.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: eHalcyon on June 14, 2013, 02:57:52 am
Open Stonemason/Bridge/Bridge//Native Village
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: sudgy on June 16, 2013, 01:53:22 am
Actually, last turn you could buy Peddler/Stonemason/Watchtower and start getting amazing cards almost right away...
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: PSGarak on June 16, 2013, 02:33:00 am
If there's Familiar on the board, is it a brilliant idea or a terrible one to open Stonemason-Squire/Squire//Stonemason-Squire/Squire? On the one hand, you won't reshuffle until after Turn 5 and gaining a Familiar entails gaining two copper (which may not be a bad thing?). But on the other, you are guaranteed at least one Familiar by the second reshuffle, and likely a second, without Potions and with the ability to downgrade Familiar to Silver afterwards.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: jaybeez on June 16, 2013, 02:50:53 am
Just had a game where I opened Doctor/Silver on a 5/3.  In that order, which is important because after trashing an Estate and a Copper on T1 with the Doctor on-buy effect, I played the Doctor to trash two Coppers on Turn 2.  Man it was so awesome.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: SirPeebles on June 16, 2013, 10:07:38 am
If there's Familiar on the board, is it a brilliant idea or a terrible one to open Stonemason-Squire/Squire//Stonemason-Squire/Squire? On the one hand, you won't reshuffle until after Turn 5 and gaining a Familiar entails gaining two copper (which may not be a bad thing?). But on the other, you are guaranteed at least one Familiar by the second reshuffle, and likely a second, without Potions and with the ability to downgrade Familiar to Silver afterwards.

You aren't guaranteed a Familiar by the second reshuffle.  For instance, you could draw 4 Squires and an Estate turn 3.  On the other hand, if you open Potion/Silver and draw them together with three Coppers, you could buy a Stonemason and overpay by $3P for two Familiars.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Tables on June 16, 2013, 10:44:30 am
I've run a few simulations on TM/TM opens, against Market/Silver and Wharf/Silver. It wins about 33% of the time against Wharf and about 50% againt Market, although those are not entirely optimised. Testing it with the TM's being forced to collide turn 3 (with 3 coppers) against Wharf/Silver, the win rate becomes about 80% - lower than I thought it would be, actually. Note I did let it buy Wharves since they're on the board.

So... TM/TM is not really a guaranteed win. Wharf BM is strong, but there's much better engines, so even a turn 3 collision can be beaten by either a good player, or later luck.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Awaclus on July 03, 2013, 07:23:29 am
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130703/log.50fefabfe4b0f82020d85477.1372850238009.txt

Goons/Lighthouse is sick. Takes him 9 turns to get $6, and I have two Goons at that point, getting the third one on turn 10.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Warfreak2 on July 03, 2013, 07:36:06 am
Goons/Lighthouse is sick.
Your poor opponent! With King's Court on the board, and Peddler to soak up extra Goons buys, this game was won on turn 1.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Davio on July 03, 2013, 08:19:19 am
I'm not so sure that Goons/$2 is so amazing. I'd imagine that in most kingdoms, a $5/$3 is better for engine building. There are some kingdoms where Goons/$2 is strong, like probably:

Goons/Chapel
Goons/Lighthouse
Goons/FG (no engine)
Goons/Pawn?

But I will probably usually take a $5/$3 opening most of the time. In an engine game, the couple of VP tokens that you get from an early Goons is dwarfed by the megaturn. So opening Goons/$2 on most boards is like opening Militia/$2, which is not that great.

$6/$2 doesn't seem all that great. Off the top of my head, I would only consider BV/Chapel and Gold/Courtyard as other good openings.
Well, another reason why an opening Goons isn't that great is that you can't really hinder your opponent from getting to a crucial $5 if needed, because of the Baker coin. Say the non-Goons opener starts with Silver/$4 terminal Silver with a regular $4/$3. You only need to have $4 in regular money in one of your next 2/3 turns to be able to get that $5 and with your coin you might even get to six.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Synthesizer on July 03, 2013, 09:52:30 am
Would double pirate ship be good?
Pirate ship is typically too slow to achieve high enough value, AND you clear the opponent's copper. But if you have two, and they don't collide, the additional build up speed might just make it viable.

How about double moneylender?

I might even consider [powerful $5] / chancellor....
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Robz888 on July 03, 2013, 03:33:31 pm
Would double pirate ship be good?
Pirate ship is typically too slow to achieve high enough value, AND you clear the opponent's copper. But if you have two, and they don't collide, the additional build up speed might just make it viable.

No.

How about double moneylender?

No.

I might even consider [powerful $5] / chancellor....

I wouldn't.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: ftl on July 03, 2013, 03:38:38 pm
Only if it's a nonterminal $5. Rebuild/Chancellor sounds like a good opening to me!
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: Awaclus on July 03, 2013, 05:16:41 pm
Only if it's a nonterminal $5. Rebuild/Chancellor sounds like a good opening to me!
It's probably marginally better than Rebuild/Silver, I would imagine.
Title: Re: 5/3 Openings
Post by: liopoil on July 03, 2013, 05:34:45 pm
Only if it's a nonterminal $5. Rebuild/Chancellor sounds like a good opening to me!
It's probably marginally better than Rebuild/Silver, I would imagine.
more than marginally I think. If there isn't a better terminal for rebuild, then it's strictly better, in a big way. I think chancellor's cycling is better with rebuild.