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1

Innovation Articles / Analysis - What Innovation veterans are really about

« on: August 06, 2015, 03:01:10 pm »

No skills, tricks or fine mechanics is in this article. It is rather personal too.

So what kinds of general disciplines usually within a veteran?

1. Short Game - Sprint for objectives after objectives and lock down the victory

Typical gameplay is like a 6-0 achievement win in base set which they will score shifty and achieve as long as they can. Better short game are usually about how effective you can reduce the action needed while keeping yourself ahead. Generally you dont overscore by much with this kind of gameplay.

2. Long Game - Setup for a huge board/age lead and win the game with overwhelming advantage

No it is not only about spamming industrialization. It is actually more about how you forecast the flow of the game and be ahead on the rhythm. Forecasting cards helps a lot since it is a straight way of investing the future, but other technique applies too. Long game skills is a lot deeper since it is more on strategy and prediction over fine mechanics.

3. Small Game - Race for every ground with the finest mechanics

You may say short game gameplay relies a lot on your small game but small game is not only about that. It is about how you fight for an objective with your opponent. A gameplay example recons small game but not short game is like both sides at 5-5 on achievement with base only and the only achievement left is on age 9. While both sides are on age 8 with enough points, how do you get to achieve age9 first over your opponent.

4. Big Game - How to get your board snowballing

Now industrialization is one of the way to do it, but it is not the only one nor the quickest one(it may be the most fierce though). Get your board going early on and ahead of your opponent then banish them from dogma without sharing while they can never share yours.

5. Control - To keep your opponent away from winning

As one of the player which discipline in control this is my definition of what control is about. It is not only about disrupting your opponent nor destroying their board. It is always about keeping them away from winning, and, if you are so sure that giving them the next 3-4 achievements wont allow them to win, it is actually better to promote them to go that way so they are having their efforts under your gameplan, that is the real thing about controlling.

Apart from this there are skills, tricks, and the most important one the fine mechanics of how you actually play the game. Some of the higher level tricks like prediction, gambling, deception, illusion, board building/stacking, etc.

And there is one more thing: Our read.

It is like re-assessing the situation on a snooker table. Unlike some other board games, there are times that innovation can be highly unpredictable and you will have to rely on your read on the current situation and react accordingly. Usually the most relevant cases are to alert if a problem is already coming (say your opponent is setting up for something or even if they are looking for a card) and you will have to decide if you will stick to your original plan or not.

Most games are about a mixture of gameplays though but there are tendencies. Say kasaski favors big game(although his short game mechanics is really good last time which im quite shocked), while im more about small game and control. We may go for the other way though.

It is sad that a lot of veterans are no longer regularly here.

2

Innovation Game Reports / SPACEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

« on: August 03, 2015, 07:03:53 pm »

http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201508/03/game-20150803-152540-97da34ae.html

Read carefully, that Radio telescope is on kasaski's side.

Ended up 2-3 with him today. This one is the highlight though

3

Innovation General Discussion / 90 Players left on the leaderboard.

« on: August 01, 2015, 07:50:13 am »

Story: One day when im really bored I decide to have a look on this site again after eons have passed. One name caught my attention: 'kasaski2'. I really liked that because he realized a way to both having a new yahooID and bringing the maximum level of irony to the table. So I decided to do the same.

Don't make me wrong I still play sometimes with my friends(The HK-crews including marco, JimKam and others). It is not the same thing though playing 2v2 games with them are way more reckless and troll, which maybe one of the reason why im quite reckless while playing in isotropic too.

So I decide to come back and play a few games. I dont really sure if most of my opponents enjoyed that though.

But then when I check the leaderboard, only 90 players left. I still recall the days where the leaderboard consists of over 1000 players while there are thousand of games going on everyday, but those are the past.

And what is wrong with innovation?

Nothing big, really.

Apart from some particular buggy cards which I will be talking about in the bottom line, the major hindrance of developing a healthy community of players is that it is hard to show and teach this game. I dont think the learning curve of innovation is that steep as there are lots of games with way tougher learning curve(personally, Ti3 and others). I can even say that the learning curve of this game is not as steep as dominion. To have a shot against veterans in dominion one must have a lot of background knowledge on every mechanic around dominion and play within that line, while in innovation there is always some 10-30% of chance you can just beat your opponent via surplus amount of luck with limited amount of skills(Almanac spam, etc).

But to display and teach innovation in reality or network is another story. It is very hard for newcomers to imagine what they are actually doing since there are no clear concept of the game itself. Buying cards for dominion, Running a farm on Agricola, Building a space reign on Ti3, etc. Even more conceptual games have their own shape, like wealth of nations or even nuggets. Innovation though is a game of concept itself which is so hard to describe or display. Are you a scientist or alchemist or space being or something that have to fight between each other with ideas and thoughts? Or a planeswalker like MTG? Even though I will try to descripe what we are doing here with newbies, it is still hard for them to catch-up since things are a lot more blurry in the game. Most of them will just give-up.

Personally I have taught less than 5 players in real life from sketch and among them, Hideoshi make his way to the top on the leaderboard. Back when isotropic is not set, I simply play like 5 or 10 games with him every time we met without reason and perhaps that kind of extensive plays with emptiness is the only way to 'grow up' an innovation veteran. I guess it is the same for dominion or other games but the process is just so empty that many will leave.

I dont know if that is the only weakness of this game but personally I dont think it has that much to do with the game complications. There are games which are way tougher to learn and way more annoying cramped with calculations. To me, Innovation is not one of them.

Bottom line:

Please put a patch on Watermill, Almanac and Industrialization, in particular for echoes gameplay. Watermill and Almanac have nothing wrong or broken to do in the first release of echo expansion, as we have to mix a number of echo cards and base cards together to form an age deck for each age, so Almanac/Watermill spamming is not viable at most cases since you can end up drawing a base card instead of always hitting an echo one.

But then there it comes the echo drawing rule and seperation of decks. 'Blue Dyeing' becomes feasible and you can keep spamming Almanac and end the game alone. I have around 10% of games ruined by Almanac spam(including those spammed by me) and there is no reason to keep granting an age 3 card the possibility of ending the game without interruption. Math can be interrupted by board robbing cards or others but this little leaf simply denial gravity. Similar case for Watermill, although in lesser extent.

Industrialization though is rather a victim of 'blue dyeing'. Originally the card will ramp though the age deck so fast that things can backfire and have to proceed in caution. Instead, it now gives you a huge board without even progressing the age deck in some cases, and when it starts eating up ages, your board is already so huge that you can overrun your opponents with icons alone.

My suggestion:

Almanac: dont give the +1 age with that dogma anymore. You still score, still ramp though echo cards and still hit a higher age occasionally but at least you cannot end the game alone with that card most of the time.

Watermill: when you finally stopped by hitting a non-echo card, change that so you have to tuck that card too. The result is you cant use that as a free age-jumping perform without things like empty colors or self board-removal stuff(actually it is nice this way since they do introduce cards like scissior which allows you to do that).

Industrialization: change to:"(fac)draw and tuck a 6. (fac)draw and tuck a 6 for every 4 factory icons on your board. (fac) splay...." Seriously I cant think of a real way to stop Industrialization spam as this card is meant for spamming at the beginning. My idea is, if the speed is a bit slower it should allow your opponent to react for 1 or 2 more turns. Currently It is like if I got industrialization and 6 factory icons on one red splay then your turns are numbered, and I will come to win like 90% of the time. To get 8 factories for the original intended ramming speed though would require a lot more factories from off-colors unless you got a super factory red pile (Coal+Machinery+Industrialization on top).

Well it is only my personal thoughts about the game and it maybe already suggested by others elsewhere. In the very bottom line, please at least fix Almanac. This is the most evil thing which still hurts my heart, as numerous games are ruined in Innovation, my favorite game.

4

Innovation General Discussion / Initial thoughts about da new Cities

« on: May 16, 2014, 05:17:32 pm »

Initial thoughs about the cities(NON-AGGRESSIVE version):

1. The cities mechanics is independent of your dogma, of course there are endorse action but think about it twice, you DO NOT need endorse to execute the same dogma(just activate that card will do). Though the endorse action can make something fancy happen but this is what it supposed to do, otherwise an endorse action is not necessary;

2. The cities mechanics is now highly centered to the meld action and your drawing. Since drawing do not really involve any skills(its all about probability...or luck), the only mechanics it alters is about melding a card from your hand;

3. The cities version is not liked by me as it doesn't really have anything to do with my dogma. Innovation the game should be centered by dogma instead of melding a card, where you can simply meld a card to get an achievement(Splay left, right or top or a flag simply because you got the right city card on time). I would rather favor the aggressive version where cities can be attacked by those attack cards, though the mechanics of that thing is extremely annoying and hard to master, it is possible to renovate and improve it;

4. Another issue of these cities thing is that there are simply no drawbacks or upkeeps or liabilities or whatsoever. Melding a city AT LEAST gives you icons of a full card(3 icons on a card), meld benefits which you will get immediately and no loss afterwards. The game mechanics becomes shifted towards drawing the appropriate card instead of setting up some sort of score drive/dogma chain/board setup as you can keep moving ages and getting cities card if you can get the splay cards and plus cards on good timing which simply nothing can stops (cards like Lisboa and New York simply destroy the original game - moving from age 4 to age 5/age 6 to age 7 is not that easy since there is a lack of develop cards in these ages). IF someone moves to age 4 quickly, got Lisboa, get a pair of age 5 cards which are usually potent, you have simply nothing to stop this from happening EXCEPT hand robbing cards(Archery, Machinery). If the current mechanics must stand there must be something like cost or upkeep being posted on these cities thing;

5. In another view is that when you compare cities to figures, it simply outdo figures completely with generally more icons, less risk of failure(some figure may actually backfoot your plan while cities wont really fail in most of the time), and no cost or upkeep(figure got the procedure of fading). They both enhance your dogma by some sort of ways;

Things like "need to return a card of the same value in-order to meld the city" may slow it a bit but I still prefer to get the AGGRESSIVE version of cities back, though that version is plagued with issues too.

5

Innovation General Discussion / Wanna know if any veterans from Taiwan

« on: May 14, 2014, 02:46:18 pm »

Since I am having a trip to Taiwan soon, I would see if anyone here interested to have an innovation gathering there 

Hmm...

I am Tree, if ppl here still remember LOL

6

Innovation Game Reports / I just can't find a topic this time. Just a legendary game.

« on: August 20, 2013, 01:51:13 pm »

BrokenTree v ksasaki:

http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201308/20/game-20130820-103626-06fb2fa2.html

Early game is already full of power plays, the king grabs a dominate castle lead and got monument, while I used confucius to sneak away his Empire(Peace and War you know);

Soon Enough I try to play my old card(Standard F&R) but I am constantly looking for Suburbia since I am really aware of Darwin(as I am 2 achievements behind the king can just meld Darwin and issue any Decree he want to end the game there)

Turns out is a massive Pressure Cooker...The king reduced his bulb to force me join that stuff 

So here we go the middle game, I used nearly 3 minutes to return the cards and we are playing mind games again(dunno why he cannot inspire green on Adam Smith -- possibly a bug)

Late game, the king wants to power play me out via George Stevenson -> massive achievements scandal but finally I got a useful Figure card which is, ROBERT E LEE the druid who suddenly gives me 2 more achievements. Now in-order to counteract his plan, I decided to decree a War and denial his age 7 top card since he only got 62 points and need to do a scoring before his 2nd achievement 7(I got 101 which I can achieve it twice). It turns out that the game comes down to a guess - if he succeed in his lighting rod and take away Robert then I will lose. He got 2 chances, though none of them hits me. I grab my second achievement 7 and finally escape from it. 

You know, just the type of game that still thrives your heart lol

7

Innovation Game Reports / AT&T. Your fastest 4G Network.

« on: August 07, 2013, 02:35:09 pm »

Nothing really interesting, except the last action of me:

http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201308/07/game-20130807-112241-493890b3.html

Hedy Lamarr, the one who discovered the basis of wireless network. 

8

Innovation Game Reports / How do you play against the tyrant when he got Paper, Industrialization

« on: August 06, 2013, 10:06:24 am »

http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201308/05/game-20130805-082111-b605d16e.html

First, call a ninja from their kingdom to take away those Papers;

Second, sneak away the Historybook with the fewest legitimate amount of color cards(turn 10, blue, 4);

Third, take away Destiny, Supremacy, Heritage and even Wealth from nowhere without help of Industrialization, even under some real bad luck with Physics;

Last but not least, go back to the tradition of score/achievement game. Figures are so useful when you can always fade them for some quick cash;

And that is how it is done. When it is done, all of the icons and score have been lost while the tyrant finally prevail. 

9

Innovation Game Reports / I told you THIS IS SCIENCE!

« on: July 25, 2013, 03:48:52 pm »

http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201307/25/game-20130725-123647-f72af63c.html

Tesla is SCIENCE!

No Yuki plz no almanac no air-cond not even gunpowder just go all the way back to age 3 lol 

I do think von Neumann got a bug too...dunno.

10

Innovation Game Reports / Let's imitate ksasaki

« on: May 15, 2013, 04:46:56 am »

I seldom do this kind of super board...dunno, probably there is some slight difference between our mechanics which make us so different from each other:

http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201305/15/game-20130515-013859-6351b0f8.html

But then, there are times that I do it too, super board and a lot of special achievements without Industrialization 

11

Innovation General Discussion / Innovation Puzzles

« on: May 02, 2013, 05:09:48 am »

No I do not mean a real, physical puzzle, that is nonsense anyway 

It is just the similar kind of things like the dominion puzzle thread, tricky question...sort of.

So let me starts with...

Monument
-If you would tuck 6 cards or score 6 cards in a turn

How to accomplish, with any single color, both by tucking and scoring:
Red;
Yellow;
Green;
Blue;
Purple;

All of them 2x5 = 10 methods;

hints: some of them may require the echoes set to accomplish.

12

Innovation Game Reports / Some games with Fermenting+Reformation by the Tree

« on: May 02, 2013, 02:36:45 am »

Bah, of course I like using Fermenting+Reformation, I am from the forest, you know?

So some of them are the more usual one, those you got all the necessary cards for the winning formula:

http://scorepile.org/gamelog/201303/07/game-20130307-205203-a294c41a.html

This one is rather aggressive, I intentionally robbed the Fermenting card from yaron's hand in the middle because I know he has it;

http://scorepile.org/gamelog/201304/17/game-20130417-105748-c7f650f4.html

And this one is actually more usual approach, get all the required cards and grab a massive score. I used bicycle this time but later shifted my score back after I accidentally got Suburbia and go with Suburbia again;

http://scorepile.org/gamelog/201303/20/game-20130320-211408-9d4fd3d7.html

The key of playing Fermenting+Reformation is to draw a lot of cards and gain as much knowledge of your opponent as you can, so sometimes you can still work on it even you don't have Reformation for some reason, as long as you can draw a reasonable amount of cards and kept your opponent under your estimation,

You can see that generally I would have Calender/Pottery as my top blue card and that is usually what defines a good Fermenting+Reformation from a mild one. Having both Blue and Yellow cards supplying leaves means that you can easily reach 5-6 leaves via a green leaf or a purple one. My early goal before Reformation is 6 leaves which is usually the minimal requirement to make a Fermenting+Reformation becomes favorable;

http://scorepile.org/gamelog/201303/23/game-20130323-003224-987c960f.html

Classification post great harm to the forest. (See turn 11 of Hank) In such case try to shorten your game and do some quick Scoring with your massive hand. Currency serves such purpose quite well since you can easily score some 30+ points with a single action when you are working of F&R since the piles from age 2 is being drained by you. Currency is also a green card with a leaf which gives you both supplement to leaves and allows you to continue with your Fermenting since it won't cover it up.

After the threat of Classification is gone, I proceed to grab Suburbia and finish the game there.

As you can see my general preference is Suburbia > Bicycle > Lighting since Suburbia is simple and precise. It only serves one purpose: to build a forest in your score pile. With one single dogma action you can seal the game right there, even your opponent is 1 achievement away from winning. Bicycle is sometimes used to prevent cards which harms your hand like Classification or Composites(sometimes a shared Pressure Cooker, too) as Bicycle is an earlier card (age7) which means that you can get it quicker.

I seldom go with Lighting since it is not quite powerful as Suburbia or Bicycle, using it once may not be good enough if you did not score anything beforehand. You still have to achieve, too.

The difference between the 'game winners' that you may use:

1. Suburbia
Strength: 1 shot knockout, inert from sharing(even your opponent did get enough leaves to share it they still need the cards to accomplish it);
Weakness: an age 9 card, if you do not control the game tight enough at that point you could be in huge trouble(e.g. your opponent got into age 10 and wins with Self-service before you can score anything);

2. Bicycle
Strength: Gives massive score advantage, usually inert from sharing;
Weakness: It is not a scoring effect which means you cannot get Monument from it, and even you get 100+ points from it you did not win instantly, you still have to achieve things. Also it did not give you any board supplement which can be a trouble;

3. Lighting
Strength: Do a bit of everything, score a bit(consider not huge when comparing with the others in this class) and build your board a bit. Reusable;
Weakness: It only gives you a push in your score so unless your opponent is doing zero scoring, you may have to do it twice or 3 times in a row to ensure a score advantage;

4. Currency
Strength: An AGE 2 card which can still proves its resourcefulness even in a late game since it can potentially score more points per dogma when compared to Lighting;
Weakness: The scoring mechanism do not actually ram the age deck and it provides no supplement to your board, which makes it usually inferior to Lighting;

http://scorepile.org/gamelog/201303/20/game-20130320-211408-9d4fd3d7.html

There is no contradiction of running Math + F&R together in the same time as long as you know how to win the game with them via flow control. With both of them you can control how the game rhythm is going, get the winning card before your opponent(i.e. Stem Cells in this one, seldom use it though) and Math-tech to age 11 to end it.

http://scorepile.org/gamelog/201304/25/game-20130425-111445-8a3b2675.html

Classic type of F&R vs Achievement game. Usually it is more beneficial to go with Suburbia rather than Bicycle in this kind of situation while your opponent is 1-2 achievements away from winning, since Bicycle is only an age 7 top card and it doesn't give you access to Achievement age 8 and 9. if you are down to a situation which you have to fight for them, you are not in a much better position than your opponent since if you are working on 'Fermenting + Pottery/Calender + Bicycle + Reformation + some useless Red', you have no draw and meld effects which allow you to instantly got a touchdown. The only advantage you can have is that you can draw a lot of cards which can defines the age of your opponent's next turn start at;

http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201305/01/game-20130501-223757-9f0a209c.html

This one is a new one, a rather funny one though. When I got Watermill and Machinery I know the fact that 'if there is Reformation exists in the age 4 pile then I can do it, with a lot of leaves'. And I did it, via 1 single use of Reformation I got 20 leaves. I don't even bother to use it again to grab Monument or whatsoever as 20 leaves in age 4 is just too massive. (since I am Relaxing, too) I decided to go with Lighting this time since my opponent should not be able to get Composites but it turns out that it is Parachute who is waiting for me. Though I have 22 leaves already which means I can instantly burn out age 9 and 10 with 2 draws.

Just the most pure type of F&R combo which don't even involve much useless actions, pure age deck ramming.

There are other forms, too. Another approach of working with F&R is to consume the hand quickly before ramming deep and grabbing achievements beforehand. This is usually used when you don't have a complete version of it(e.g. you got only 9 leaves even after using Reformation and your opponent is scoring quickly already). As long as you have something which quickly consumes your hand(e.g. Umbrella/Currency) you can put them together and score fiercely. I do play a lot of games like this, but I can't separate them from the scorepile.org since they are win by achievements too...

So this is how the Tree rebuild the forest and preserve the earth 

13

Innovation Game Reports / The legendary theory of Miniaturization

« on: April 28, 2013, 01:48:51 pm »

So he did it, Math tech-up to age 10, all 3 times via direct use of Math without covering it all the way:

http://scorepile.org/gamelog/201304/25/game-20130425-123540-afcfac56.html

http://scorepile.org/gamelog/201304/25/game-20130425-123905-64cc2dd6.html

http://scorepile.org/gamelog/201304/25/game-20130425-123905-64cc2dd6.html

Although the result is always like:

— theory's turn 17 —
theory applies the dogma of Mathematics2.
...  effects are shared with BrokenTree.
... BrokenTree has no card to return.
... theory returns Ecology9.
... theory draws and melds Miniaturization10.

— theory's turn 11 —
theory draws Services9.
theory applies the dogma of Mathematics2.
... theory returns Services9.
... theory draws and melds Miniaturization10.

— theory's turn 10 —
theory draws Computers9.
theory applies the dogma of Mathematics2.
...  effects are shared with BrokenTree.
... BrokenTree returns nothing.
... theory returns Computers9.
... theory draws and melds Miniaturization10.

Good, now we have one more 'achievement' which shell be called 'The theory of Miniaturization' 

14

Innovation General Discussion / One more step...

« on: April 20, 2013, 01:14:01 pm »

And level 50. Finally. 



Just as I said before, this is yet another milestone for me. So maybe next one will be the legendary level 55.094 mark 

15

Innovation General Discussion / 59.990

« on: April 11, 2013, 03:24:41 am »

Right at the edge of some sort of plane in the universe. Amazing. 

(Nah just play as usual, nothing to envy about  )

16

Innovation Game Reports / As they always talk about Fermenting + Reformation...

« on: April 09, 2013, 11:15:02 am »

http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201304/09/game-20130409-080841-f4e2dcd0.html

Let's win a game purely by Fermenting and Reformation then, say no bicycle, no lighting, no suburbia. 
In fact I only used Reformation once and I don't even get monument by it.

17

Innovation Articles / Personal Reflection - Mathematics

« on: April 08, 2013, 02:59:11 pm »

Rather than computing probabilities and drafting hypothesis this article is mainly about my personal experience after playing with numerous players across the globe.

Recently the discussion about Math is hot. In fact it is always one of the hottest topics around innovation from time to time. Is Mathematics that good which draws so much attention, or just being overrated?

And for me, here is my general idea about Mathematics:

1. Extremely versatile card. Mathematics is useful in a large variety of situations, varies in any age and can work with both a bulb lead or not;

2. Not the silver bullet to all the situations. Yes it maybe applied in a lot of scenario but it doesn't means that it is the best choice. In fact, often there are better options, but we just in fear that the chance of using Math to keep an age lead will be ruined so a lot of players tend to avoid those options;

3. Doesn't give you any score nor achievement nor hand. All it does is a universal age-up platform;

4. Hand consumption required actually makes it become such a infamous card, because it makes sharing it on your first action becomes a very viable play;

Right. I am not a fan of it. I would rather spam Almanac to age 10+ (which is way more viable if you are allowed to stay uninterrupted) rather than using Math. Actually as my games mainly around those in the level ~30s and ~40s, most experts are not addicted to it, too. Say ksasaki is a echo heavy player who would search and stack echo effects but you don't see him go Math often(somewhat related to his echo heavy play style, though), yaron and yuki are achievement oriented players who would prioritize scoring and achievements on their first place. You just don't see a Math spamming often.

Yet another thing is that, the chance of math-ing all the way to age 10 is not that easy. Say you skipped the age2 -> age3 step as I suggested, the chance of you age up from age3 to age10 without Math being covered is about 20.0%. So yes if you can reach there you do have a good chance to win, but the chance is only about 1 out of 5. It makes the whole thing like a gamble, too.

You may argue that we can stop at elsewhere where you can take full command of the game. Yes, you can, but even if you include those your chance is still nothing extraordinary, say you may win 5 or 6 out of 10 games with Math. A chance around 50% is nothing unusual, just like yet another card. The reason behind this, is that a scorer with a low entry requirement is rare throughout the game. Yes you can use Perspective to score 100+ points and you may use Lighting or Canning to catch a scoring lead in a sudden, but all these plays would require resources from you in other aspect (board, hand, etc). One of the major weakness of Math tech-ing is that you don't build a lot of resources for yourself, which you might find yourself in a tough situation even you got such a good scorer. This is also one of the reason that why some players tends to rely on age10 cards which are bounded with effects of 'draw and score a 10'.

Actually some of my technique with Math is that: I hide it in my hand. Since the dogma can be as effective in age 6/7 just like it is in age 2/3, you save it until there is no more tech-up possibilities. It takes a really high skill level to foresee such a trick though, since an unused age2 hand is really nothing special, it maybe a Canal Building or Mapmaking or whatsoever which you just won't meld it at all in some cases.

Don't wanna write too much in it, since I am just not a big fan of tech-up maniac.

18

Innovation Articles / Talk about specific base cards - Age 2

« on: April 04, 2013, 04:09:09 pm »

Talk about specific base cards - Age 2

Right, as the current leader I should write something...less conceptial(i.e. those mechanics thing). Let's talk about specific cards.

Starting from age 2. I skipped age 1 because there are a lot more mechanics back in age 1 as the start of the game, so each card's actual function may be altered by a lot. I will try to keep writing until age 10...maybe.

Cards in age 2:

Red

Construction
[T][T][X][T]

For most players, the first connection of this card is the Empire achievement. While it can lead you to the Empire achievement, remember that is a bonus condition which is only a part of it.

The 'main' dogma of this card is actually a hand robber, which somewhat promotes sort of mathematical gain as you get 2 cards while your opponent lose a hand (-2 and +1 from the demand). Though one of the best way to use it, is to rob everything your opponent has when he/she has 3 hands. 2 Construction dogma in a row and you take away everything from them while they are left with one random age 2 card.

Remember it is always better if you left something random to your opponent instead of something they intended to save. In this case, if you only dogma once he/she can save a hand of their desire, which could possibly the intended card of their plan. When we are going for some disruptive dogma try to take away your opponent's next step and disrupt their plan.

Road Building
[T][T][X][T]

Trick card which defines a good player from the community. This one can do a wide variety of tricks, both when you are leading towers or losing it.

The most easy one is a 'clean green robbing' which you meld a red card and another card. You give your opponent that red and take away their green so they lose their green and you keep the Road Building to yourself. The same trick also give your opponent a red card which you can cover their useful red card with some dump. In a real game one of my opponent keep Math-ing and he got both Industrial and Electricity. I melded Plumbing and another card with Road Building, give him that Plumbing which covers up the dangerous Industrialzation, and got the Electricity which I jumped all the way from age 3 to age 7, while my opponent was sent back to age 5.

Another possible usage is to force your 'Tower-ful' opponent to meld something if he/she only have 1 hand. Be careful, though, if you know that your opponent is gotta meld that card next turn anyway, you should consider is that worth to save his/her next action in-order to earn a free draw from it. Though you still get the usage of the Road Building.

There are a lot other tricks: most of them related to icon mechanics. Do remember, a card which allows you to meld 2 cards in a action can quickly change your board. Say you can meld both Fermenting and Pottery in 1 single action which you can suddenly jump out with Leaves. The type of swift board alternation can create a lot of momentum and pressure to your opponent, which can draw their attention.

Yellow

Fermenting
[L][L][X][T]

Just refer to my 'How to do F&R combo for dummies' in one of the post by Hideyoshi about massive drawing mechanics with Fermenting, don't want to repeat again.

One thing to remind is that both leaves are on the left side of the card which means that if this card is somehow on your bottom pile, an effect to splay your yellow right would give you some easy leaves.

One more thing is that, since this card do not give you score or achievement, you may actually share the dogma to your opponent in very late stage of the game if he/she is doing some super board with industrialization but a bit lack of score. Share the effect to them with careful consideration may actually end the game by massive drawing. Remeber, hands do not count as score, unless you got someone called Michelangelo in the FitS.

Canal Building
[X][C][L][C]

Another trick card, while this one is way more difficult to master.

Do remember one thing: never intentionally set up a canal building scoring. If you got Physics + Canal Building it is alright since it is fast enough (2 action + ~15 points). The point is, Canal Building is simply a slow card which don't save you action, just as Bicycle, and it does no development effect to your board. So unless you can win the game by one more use of it, never intentionally set a canal building plan.

Won't explain a lot on this card since this one is just too difficult to describe accurately. This one is not exactly a scorer though it might lead you to a lot of points (i.e. Physics + Canal Building). Though the key is, it is really a slow one, so unless you got extra action to spare, don't count on it.

Blue

Mathematics
[X][B)[C][B)

Everybody who are experienced with Innovation know this card.

My general thought about Math-ing:

a. Try NOT to do age2 -> age3. Age 3 don't give you much candies and if you cover it with Translation you will rage. If you cover it with Alchemy while you don't have any tower lead(it usually happens), you will rage too. If there is still a lot of age2 cards it is fine then.
b. age3 -> age4 is fine since even you may cover it, Experimentation would give you access to age5 cards.
c. age4 -> age5: think about what can you do with Chemsitry and Physics in that exact scenerio and you will know is that a gamble or a solid play. There are times that Physics is absolutely useless, say your opponent got Machinery on their board already. There are also times that Chemistry is not too useful say you don't have any score in your scorepile.
d. age5 -> age6 is usually something tasty, while age6 -> age7 face the same effect as age2 -> age3
e. age7 -> any age is usually good enough UNLESS your opponent may rob your new invention in their very next turn. (Banking, Enterprise, Skyscaper, Compass, Road Building, and others in the echoes set). Always pay attention to these cards when you are working on Math-ing.
f. Math an age 10 card can end the game. Simple enough.

Notice the crown on this card, it means that it can fulfill the requirement of Translation as a blue card. Not much blue cards actually qualify for it.

There are times that you don't pull this thing immediately after you get it. My experiance is, I don't rush for Math-ing as long as I have organized another plan to get achievement/win the game. Remember, after all, Math is a card who helps you to search for options, not a real game winner.

Calender
[X][L][L][B)

2 leaves on this blue card makes it a backup for Pottery in F&R plays or blocking possible Machinery.

This one is rather straight forward, a 'draw 2 card' effect is usually straight enough since usually you are not willing enough to share such effect to your opponent, unless that is the winning move.

The key of this card is to get some score and throw your hand away. That is one of the reason why you try to score earlier so you do not have to work on the requirement once you got Calender.

Green

Currency
[C][L][X][C]

A great scorer. Real. A green scorer is rare. A crown scorer is rare. A lot of players underestimated the greatness of currency even until now.

Currency is the first 'hand eater' which consumes your hand quickly and transform them as scores. There are times that you get a large hand and have no real means to score them, while currency serves that quite well.

You can score 5 points if both age 1 and 2 are empty while you return a 1 and a 2, and you can score some 13 points if both age 1,2,3 are empty while you return 1,2,3,4. This 2 are the common tricks where the first one gives you enough points for next 1 achievement and the second one gives you points for 2 achievement. There are other tricks, too.

Mapmaking
[X][C][C][T]

This card is rather straight forward, since you cannot 'share' this to your opponent in a 1 vs 1 game. Do remember the optimum approach on it is to sweep out age 1 card first and try to score a better number for each use.

There are minor tricks like Optics + Mapmaking though I personally do not think these 2 cards are related. It is just a fail-safe mechanism instead of a vaild combo (since you can keep melding crown cards with Optics so you do not have to go Mapmaking).

Purple

Philosophy
[X][B)[B)[B)

Rather a strange card in base set. In echoes play this is extremely strong since you can quickly turn some echo effects on with the left splay.

One part of its usage is as a scorer, but the effective range is like Agriculture, which only works well after some age 4-5 as you can score ~5 points with it each time.

Another part of it is a Bulb wildcard. Say both players got a bulb Blue, with Philosophy on your table your opponent cannot take a sole Bulb lead even he/she got cards like Paper. They gotta have multiple wildcards for you because Philosophy is a strong wildcard which provides 3 Bulbs. A triple icon card would easily beat down a double icon card, just like Oars being destroyed by The Wheel.

Left-Splaying is easily connected with massive Towers, Paper and Invention. Though there are other things, too.

Monotheism
[X][T][T][T]

A card which can take away any color of top card from your opponent except purple is extremely strong, which also comes with solid effects like 'draw and tuck a 1'.

One of the possible trick is to use it to counter gunpowder. When someone melds GP and attacks you, he/she would lose towers from the covered red top card, so they would occationally get behind you. If you only keep 1 red top card, just let them get it. You follow up with Monotheism and get rid of GP, so you can keep developing Towers freely from this point.

Another trick is: use it with Coal. When you see your opponent get a key card down the board (say, the fermenting), you burn your yellow away by Coal followed by Monotheism to strike his/her Fermenting precisely.

The final note is, sometimes when you are behind in towers and lack of colors while your opponent got all 5 colors, it is somewhat more benefitial to share the draw and tuck a 1 to your opponent and benefit from possibly get a new color by it. Since you will get a free draw action from sharing anyway, this maybe better then drawing directly.

------

I may keep writing till age 10, maybe not, since this is rather long.

19

Innovation Articles / Advanced Mechanics: Rhythm(1) - Deck Consumption

« on: April 02, 2013, 06:27:50 am »

Advanced Mechanics: Rhythm(1) - Deck Consumption

*Before you actually try to understand this, first you must know all the 105 cards in the base set, at least what icons on it and what dogmas they carry. Of course the color too. To extend these knowledge to echoes play would require further knowledge in the echoes play.

Each player will have 2 actions per turn. Each action you are going to do something(which means that skipping an action is not possible by rule, though you may produce the same effect by other means). And, when you are doing something, you usually used up a certain amount of age deck and transferred them to elsewhere. (e.g. score pile, hand, board, etc.)

A big part of the game rhythm control depends on how fast these age piles are being consumed.

Say, you have 2 actions, and consider doing the following things:

a. Draw a card (-1 to your current age pile)
b. Use 'The Wheel' to draw 2 age 1 cards (-2 to age 1 pile or corresponding pile if age 1 pile is empty)
c. Use 'Agriculture' to score a card from your hand (+1 to a designated pile, -1 to next age's age pile)
d. Share a 'Writing' to your opponent (-2 to age 2 pile or... and -1 to your current age pile)
e. Achieve an age (0 to any age pile)
f. Work on something irrelevant to age pile (eg. Code of Laws, Road Building) (0 to any age pile)

assume the age 1 pile is empty and you are working in the age 2 with your opponent now, you can easily simplify these,
which comes with a conclusion of: {a. -1, b. -2, c. 0, d. -3, e. 0, f. 0}

And since you have 2 actions, you can generate an age pile consumption of a range [0, 6] assume that you have enough hand to pay for Agriculture.

Conduct a similar analysis for your opponent's next turn by his/her current state, and combine the range altogether, by then you can predict how much age pile cards are left next turn. Say if your opponent got a Fermenting Pottery which can draw a maximum of 4 cards next turn, then the greatest consumption by your next turn is 10 cards, which is a bit more than an age already. (Remember, for your info, each age before age 10 got only 9 cards since one of them is being used as achievement)

Base on the prediction you can work on the rhythm itself, either slowing it or accelerating it. The application part is extremely case-dependent but the general rule is: These knowledge do not allow you to draw more cards than what you can originally do, but it allows you to draw less cards since you can always choose to do something else rather than drawing like hell.

Another insight is that, sharing dogmas usually speed up the pace of the game due to the free draw you can have, plus doubling any possible consumption effects to the age deck. Use the case above as an example, although the wheel allows you to draw 2 cards, but it is actually a shared writing who generate the greatest consumption to the age deck (-3 cards). It doesn't means that The wheel is worse than writing, but it means that with this -3 card effect you may possibly increase your reach and 'touch' a card in the next age. (Say the age 2 pile only have 2 cards left a Writing shared actually allows you to draw a 3 while The wheel will only give you two 2's) This is an example of extended reach via sharing.

Yet another idea based on these observation is that, in order to keep a good control to the age deck consumption, your optimum board should contains dogma effects of:
1. Drawing multiple cards;
2. Shared effect for 'reach extension';
3. Card returning effect;
4. Effects which allow you to do nothing to the age pile;

A few things to talk about these are:
a. You don't actually need an effect to draw 1 card if you are going for age pile consumption control, since you can always draw a card. This do not means that such an effect is useless in rhythm control. An effect which allows you to draw a higher card or lower card may affect the rhythm too;
b. An effect which allows you to 'do nothing' is actually surprisingly useful if you comes into such a situation that you don't even want to draw a card. It sometimes happens. I won't list a lot of examples here since this is not in the scope of the topic, but a general indicator is that when you feel that you are going to win in the next turn if you don't do anything in your second action anyway (+ you have no insurance move right now) , then the 'do nothing' dogma could be your best action for you.

There are a lot more on the game pace and the rhythm thing, real. 

20

Innovation General Discussion / [Tournament]Treefolk Invitational Series

« on: March 28, 2013, 05:11:14 am »

Hi guys I am Tree. 

Right, I will host a tournament. 

Here we go the Treefolk Invitational Series:

Introduction:
This tournament is a series of game in a league style for experienced players, not experts though. For this reason, every level 40+ players on the leaderboard today(28/03/2013) are not eligible for the tournament(which are actually only 7 players, including me, hideyoshi, alvin1912, yaron, ksasaki, yuki(First) and isomophic). I first apologize to the other 6 on the list but this series are just too shallow to contain you guys, and I do believe there is a reason why you guys are always on level 40+ which cannot be balanced with other players. In order to make the skill level among players more balanced, players who are interested must have at least played 50 registered games on the isotropic leaderboard and have a minimum level of 5 in-order to join this tournament.

Style:
There will be a series of gameplay in swiss format in the first stage of the tournament and post-season games after that, depends on the amount of players joined. Dividing groups may be necessary if the amount of players exceeds certain amount.

Format:
For each opponent, we play best of 7.
Each week you will be matching against someone. You will have a whole week to finish the series of BO7 though, and it may be in the format of 7 games in a row, 3+4, 4+3, 2+2+3 or something equivalent.

Expansion used?
Echoes are still under consideration. My personal preference are on the echoes side since playing 7 base games are simply boring enough, but if some of the players have absolutely zero knowledge in echoes...depends, still mindstorming on this one.

Anything else?
I will welcome any opinion from you guys and once an complete idea is formed I will post the official note. 

21

Innovation Articles / Inner Mechanics: Illusion

« on: March 28, 2013, 04:40:10 am »

*Unlike the Advanced Mechanics guide which are usually related to the Innovation game itself (eg. critical points/optimum moment of the mathematical formulas behind the game), the inner mechanics are all about the mind games between the players in a 2-sided Innovation duel. (either 1v1 or 2v2. I have played over 1500 games now and among them about 400-500 of them are 2v2s)

*It is not necessary to know everything beforehand for this article but you should know the game enough that you can win a 1v1 duel regularly, with your own set of approach and mindset behind. If you don't even have a sense/insight about how to win a Innovation duel, try to play more on the isotropic preform with others.

Before I talk about my own insight about these 'inner mechanics', I shell share a story first.

As I had spoken before, Hideyoshi(former rank 1 in isotropic innovation) actually learned the Innovation game from my teaching. I think I have played around 50 games with him before he jumped to F14 platform and start bullying around, later in isotropic too. The story is, after he is quite familiar with the game itself after those 50 games, I played a set of 5 games with him while I opened all my hands and scores so he can see it just as I do. The result though, is that I split the series with him 2-3. The reason I talk about this, is that it is simply possible to win a game even with all your hands and scores opened to the public, just because you have better cards than your opponent and your opponent simply have no counter/equalizer available against you. For these games, it is all about the execution. Which is, to execute it correctly, or not.

The first step of all these mind game is: The uncertainty of your hand and score pile.

Since your hand are disclosed from your opponent while only the age is known, your opponent can only tells 'what card can that be' from its age. Usually a good enough player knows a set of possibility that card can be, say you still have an age 1 on your hand and all the green age 1 cards are shown on the board/in your opponent's score pile. Your hand can be any of the 12 cards remaining in the age 1, removing the green cards.

Better players knows even more, from your set-up and your approach. They screen out possibilities and put down a list of threat which your card may post. Say I am only lack of Crowns and you holds an age 7 unknown card. I won't have to worry about Explosives or Sanitation since I have more icons than you but I will have to worry about Combustion. In such a case, my worry is a 1/10 chance of a threat.

But how much it can do for a 1/10 uncertainty?

Depends. 1/10 chance for a shared Mass Media may not be that weird but imagine you now have 40 hands after some crazy F&R combo and your opponent holds an age 9 card, if that card is a Composites then you are instantly blow up. Now this uncertainty is huge. You may not win the game even you have 40 hands although you are in a better position, but if he actually holds Composites, then your day is done. Now even the chance is low, you are still worried.

And think of this:

You start with The Wheel and your opponent starts with The Tools. You keep drawing cards while your opponent is ready to go you with Tools. Although the chance is not huge, if he gets Machinery from age 3 your huge hand would be removed. Such a case occur, and usually what I do is I would meld Agriculture to defend it from coming.

All these are perception. These are the ways we read a Innovation duel.

To make use of the illusion is to first, create such a possibility. Try to hold some hands unless your board allows you to do enhanced draw or draw and meld effects. When I see someone who starts with Agriculture and score their only hand with the only action they have, I know he/she is not good at all. Hold it, even it may be a Code of Law. Your opponent have no idea of what that can be. He/she may use guessing techniques to screen out some of the possibilities but usually a ranged of possibilities will be left. Also, draw a card in your first action in such case. This is to create even more possibilities to your opponent to guess.

This is all about a battle of information, and your hand are one of the best defense you have. If your hands are empty, then every information about you are disclosed to your opponent and your opponent can easily predict what you can do on your next turn, say you can only use the dogmas on your board or draw a hand or achieve something. The uncertainty of melding a card from your hand and activate its dogma is gone.

To make it short, don't disclose anything unnecessary to your opponent. Don't even make unnecessary melds: sometimes it is better to save a hit than save an action. Let's say you draw a 4 on your first action and you grabbed gunpowder (GP) in your hand. Are you going to meld it on your second action or wait for your next turn? Assume there are some castle cards out there, usually you would meld it and prepare to GP twice. But then your opponent is alerted, he melds experimentation and draw and meld a 5...Dang, he got Steam Engine and is saved from your GP invasion. If you don't meld it and do something else, your opponent is not alerted and he/she may do something else(since melding experimentation and do draw and meld a 5 is simply a gamble that may not be his/her preferred action at the beginning). Now what is all these about is that, while you meld a GP or not can be a deception(I will talk about it later, one of the most infamous technique that I command), a good enough player would be alerted anyway because you hold an age 4 card, since it can be a GP anyway. In another POV, since your opponent in this case also holds an age 4 card, you should already think about the possibility of he/she holds GP or not, and the threat that he/she may pose to you. This is the base line of all these mind games: Use the uncertainty as your advantage.

I know it is a bit confusing but illusion is always linked with deception which forms a large topic. I will try to illustrate it bit by bit.

22

Innovation Articles / [Featured] Advanced Mechanics: Icon Surge

« on: March 24, 2013, 11:51:56 pm »

Advanced Mechanics: Icon Surge

*Before you actually try to understand this, first you must know all the 105 cards in the base set, at least what icons on it and what dogmas they carry. Of course the color too. To extend these knowledge to echoes play would require further knowledge in the echoes play.

Consider only base game.

Each card gives you 3 icons. Assume you don't have any splays, 5 top cards would give you a total of 15 icons.

But then, since your opponent can also get 5 top cards, how do you got a lead in a particular icon you want?

This is all about icon surging.

Let me back to the basics first. Each color do have a featured icon which the majority of the cards are related to that icon. Castles and Factories for red, Leaves for yellow, Bulbs for blue, Crowns for green. Purple is the funny one which consists of a few each type of icons(and serves as a wildcard, later on that).

So if you got yourself lack of leaves, usually what you want is not a yellow card with leaves, unless your yellow card don't have leaves at all. What you want is something out of yellow who do have leaves, like Pottery from blue or Clothing from green. That is, a wildcard rather than the mainstream card.

In order to do proper surging for each of the 6 icons, you have to know all the exact info of all the cards. Really. Or, you may have a look on my general guidelines below:

Castle:
Red is the major powerhouse of castles while purple helps a lot too, which means that anything rather than red and purple will provide the extra castle you want. Masonry and The Wheel are very annoying since it gives a lot of extra castle you want with some good dogmas bounded with it. Alchemy sometimes serves well, too.

Leaves:
Yellow is very concentrated with leaves, while other colors do not consist of much leaves with a very sparse patten. Pottery is extremely deadly as a wild card and Reformation is very helpful as well. Note that red card do not give a leaf and green cards never give you 3 leaves(actually only 1 green card give you 2 leaves which is Clothing). I even say that Fermenting/Reformation is a wrong concept, it should be known as Fermenting/Pottery or Fermenting/Calender which provides a huge surge of leaves and makes Ramming for the Reformation becomes possible.

Crowns:
This one is rather complicated. Green owns the most crowns but there are wildcards in all 4 other colors and in basically all ages, except age 9 and 10. Wildcards are: Optics, Pirates, Combustion and Flight in red, Canal Building for yellow, Translation and Encyclopedia for blue, Code of Laws/City States, Enterprise and Societies for purple. Mastering crowns are hard since overuse of crowns will make your board become dull, though. (I can write another 2 or 3 articles related to it, really)

Bulbs:
Blue cards contains most bulbs, while the most famous wildcards are Philosophy and Education from purple, Classification, paper, invention and measurement from green and Perspective from yellow. It is rather straight forward for bulbs.

Factories:
Red consists of most of the factory cards, including the famous Industrialization. Now in order to make sure you dominate in factories, there are Chemistry in blue, Steam Engine and Canning from yellow, Emancipation from purple and Electricity/Corporation from green. Sometimes the 1 factory icon from invention helps a lot, too.

Clocks:
This one is rather rare, since only a few cards have clocks printed on it even in the later stages. While 5 out of 6 blue cards from age 8 contains a majority of clocks, the first clock base card is the Railroad from age 7. Another color with impact on clocks are green cards which Satellites and Database would provide 3 clocks while Bicycle, Mass Media and Collaboration both provide 1 clocks. But then, to be honest if you have to get a clock surge you better splay some of your colors up/right which will be way better.

So when you are working on card counting, try to bare in mind of all these cards so you will know when can your opponent get some extra icons from nowhere or when can you benefit from it.

23

Innovation Articles / Advanced Mechanics: Icon Blocking

« on: March 23, 2013, 04:19:09 pm »

Advanced Mechanics: Icon Blocking

*Before you actually try to understand this, first you must know all the 105 cards in the base set, at least what icons on it and what dogmas they carry. Of course the color too. To extend these knowledge to echoes play would require further knowledge in the echoes play.

Icon Blocking is one of the icon mechanics that I am usually talking about.

Icon Blocking is to 'defend your opponent from using dogmas in the optimum position'.

It might not be always means that you have to dominate the icons of some type in order to force your opponent to share some effects to you, sometimes it may be even better if your opponent don't share something to you, say Oars, Domes, Alchemy, Physics, Education, Printing Press, Chemistry, etc.

(*these cards may still benefit you from sharing, it is all about the situation. Since I assume you know all the cards already I am not going to discuss about it)

The simplist case is that your opponent have The Wheel and you have Oars, so your castle is behind(2 vs 3) and now you start with 1 action.

If you got City State, which contains 1 castle, you meld it and now both have 3 castles.

Your opponent might first meld a card with some castle from his hand and go for The Wheel and draw 2 (1), but then he will be demanded by your City State right at next turn, since none of the age 1 card contains 3 crowns, if he meld anything with a castle his amount of Crowns must lose to you(3).

This is the simpliest kind of Icon Blocking.

It looks simple but this involves a lot of concept already:

1. Since City State only demands opponent who has at least 4 castle, your opponent can only have at most 3 castles unless they are prepared to be demanded. Therefore, if you can get yourself at least 3 castles you can always check your opponent from using castle dogmas alone.

2. Since your opponent only has 1 card in his/her hand, and none of the age 1 card can supply enough crown(3) to block your demand, multiple crown cards will be required. This is a use of card knowledge, in order to deploy icon blocking efficiently you have to know basically every possibility of your opponent's possible icon modification next turn, say you know someone might go Tools next turn and jump to age 3. If he can get 2 leaves from Machinery your hand will be robbed immediately, so you might consider meld Pottery or Agriculture against it.

3. If your opponent actually have 2 cards and melding them all would generate enough icons, you still successfully block him/her from using that paticular dogma, at least from his/her next turn. This is because he/she do not have enough actions to go for that paticular dogma effect.

4. Based on 3. if you are only playing base set and you want to block some icon, you have to consider about what modification can be done by your opponent after his/her first action, since activating a dogma will require a dogma action.

Consider these cases, you can see the icon mechanics is not only about the dogma effect of some cards, but the game itself as a whole (actions, hand, board, dogma, score).

In fact, it is quite common that some card on your board is actually used for icon instead of dogma. This is actually a step of evolution as an innovation player, from dogma based approach to utility based approach. Each card serves as utility on your board while some of them are there for icon manipulation.

This is only a little part of the whole icon mechanics thing. Though I might keep writing.

24

Innovation General Discussion / Now with 660 registered players on leaderboard....WOW

« on: March 16, 2013, 06:17:00 am »

One week ago it is still like some 250 players on the leaderboard...now 660.

Great players from dominion side of the world is coming, gotta be well prepared for their challenge 

25

Innovation General Discussion / Lets play Stronghold Innovation Extreme!!

« on: March 06, 2013, 10:28:36 am »

http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201303/06/game-20130306-072245-a80faff1.html

Turn 5 of me(Tree). Let's build stronghold! 

50% luck on this one, my original plan did not involve Empire(Supremacy is what I aim at and Monument is a plus), well just can't go over aggressive whenever someone have noodles, so I just stall there and wait for such a chance.