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1

Puzzles and Challenges / What's Missing?

« on: February 18, 2013, 02:41:12 pm »

Which 7 cards are Missing?

Fortress
Haggler
Jester
Merchant Ship
Moneylender
Mountebank
Noble Brigand
Nomad Camp
Rats
Secret Chamber
Smithy
Trading Post
Witch
Workshop

Honorable Mentions - Class A
Market Square
Thief
Possession

Honorable Mentions - Class B
Hunting Party
King's Court
Lookout
Oracle
Pirate Ship
Sage
Squire

Honorable Mention - Class C
Silver

2

Puzzles and Challenges / What's Missing?

« on: January 13, 2012, 01:28:30 pm »

Woodcutter
Possession
Walled Village

3

Puzzles and Challenges / Blooki's Puzzle #7 - Savvy Shopper

« on: October 14, 2011, 04:21:13 am »

It's your buy phase. It's a solitaire game. You have $11 and 1 buy. Under ordinary circumstances, you would be gaining 10 VP. However, these are far from ordinary circumstances. What's the maximum number of victory points you can gain during this buy phase alone?

Restriction #1: No Gardens, Vineyards or Fairgrounds are gained during this buy phase.
Restriction #2: To keep things simple, let's say your coin total never exceeds 11 and your buy total never exceeds 1 (so no Contraband).

My maximum: 250 VP

Hint: ...erlands cards are fair game.
Hint: My solution utilizes all 10 kingdom cards, one of which is Black Market.

Gone for the weekend. Will post more hints on Monday if the puzzle remains more or less unsolved.

4

Puzzles and Challenges / Blooki's Puzzle #6 - Nothing's Missing

« on: October 08, 2011, 04:38:11 am »

I wanted this to be a "What's missing?" puzzle, but surprisingly there just weren't enough cards that made the list. So instead, tell me what these cards have in common. Remember, these are the ONLY cards that share this characteristic.

Transmute, Remodel, Expand

Hint #1: I thought Remake would make the list, but it turns out it doesn't.
Hint #2: You might be tempted to think about their (along with Remake) obviously similar functionality of trash-for-immediate-gaining. Think again. Turns out that's just a coincidence.
Hint #3: This puzzle may not work in non-English versions of Dominion depending on how the cards have been translated.

5

Puzzles and Challenges / Blooki's Puzzle #5 - A "What's Missing?" Puzzle

« on: September 26, 2011, 08:53:23 pm »

Horn of Plenty, Native Village, Possession.

Here are a few more triples following the same rule that would be completed by the same missing card.
Chapel, Gardens, Tribute.
Ambassador, Followers, Contraband.
Feast, Haven, Envoy.
Ironworks, Bishop, Masquerade.

Hint: There are numerous combinations of triples that can be substituted for these three cards that will still cause the puzzle to work. However, the fourth missing card is unique. Additionally, the fourth card can serve as the first card as well!

6

Puzzles and Challenges / Blooki's Puzzle #4 - Covert Curses

« on: July 29, 2011, 12:20:21 am »

timchen the Puzzlemaster, Bob the Village Idiot, Nhu Bi the Noob and Zero R. Hero are playing their first Dominion match. They understand and abide by the rules perfectly, but their decisions and strategies are questionable to say the least. Though you have to give them credit for experimenting and trying to learn on their own. Throughout the entirety of the game, other than Curse, no two players have gained cards of the same name.

After many clumsy turns, Zero R. Hero realizes at the beginning of his turn that he can end the game on piles by buying the final curse although he is unsure if that will give him the victory. You see, this match has reached a curious game state. All four of our players are holding no cards in their hands and have no cards in their draw or discard decks.

Uninterested in such an anomaly, Zero R. Hero proceeds to buy the final curse. Ironically, the supply stacks of Sea Hag, Young Witch, Mountebank, Familiar, Torturer and Jester all remain untouched as they have been all game.

Our foursome then begins to tally up their points only to discover that they've all tied at a score of -1!!! If only our hero could've lived up to his name, victory would have been his.

How is this possible?

Oh yeah, no Masquerade (you're not getting by that gain constraint that easily ).

7

Puzzles and Challenges / Blooki's Puzzle #3 - 3's a crowd? Who says?

« on: July 28, 2011, 06:13:45 pm »

Anybody who has played live Dominion knows how tedious it can be to count Actions, Coin & Buys when you've got a lot of cards in play. So let's keep things simple. 3 puzzles, 3 things to count, 3 unique cards each! It's Blooki's Puzzle #3!

Our Hero is playing a solitaire Dominion game. She has only 3 cards in her play area, each with a different name.

Puzzle A - What 3 cards give her the most possible Actions and how many?

My best answer: 23

Puzzle B - What 3 cards give her the most possible Coins and how many?
For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to say no Philosopher's Stone.

My best answer: 971

Puzzle C - What 3 cards give her the most possible Buys and how many?

My best answer: 14

Hint: This puzzle was designed to be answered in order. Each solution should help you with the subsequent solution.


Acknowledgements
The puzzle has been solved by timchen. Congratulations!
Be sure to check out his solution for Part B below. It's way better than mine.

Deadlock39 has come up with a better solution for Part A below as well.

Here are my solutions:

Puzzle A
Hand: Trusty Steed/King's Court/Tribute/2 Mining Villages (1 Action)

Play King's Court + Tribute revealing 6 actions (-1 Action  +12 Actions / 12 Actions)
Play & trash 10 Mining Villages (-10 Actions  +20 Actions / 22 Actions)
Play Trusty Steed (-1 Action  +2 Actions / 23 Actions)

Cards in play: King's Court, Tribute, Trusty Steed

Puzzle B
Hand: Scrying Pool/4 Platinums (+$20)

Play Scrying Pool & drawing 10 Mining Villages, 9 Embargoes, Counting House, Envoy & Venture
Play & trash 10 Mining Villages drawing 10 Banks (+$20 +$[Bank Value])
Play & trash 9 Embargoes (+$18)
Play Envoy & draw 4 Platinums (+$20)
Play Counting House & draw 59 Copper (+$59)
Play all treasures (Venture pulls 8 Ventures & 1 Platinum +$14)
Buy Mint (-$5)

Bank Value = 10*(9 Plats + 59 Cops + 9 Vents) + (arithmetic series 1-10 is 55) = 825

Grand total: $971
Cards in play: Scrying Pool, Counting House, Envoy

Puzzle C
Hand: Princess/4 Contrabands (1 Buy)
Durations: King's Court & Wharf (+3 Buys / 4 Buys)

Draw 6 Contrabands
Play Princess (+1 Buy / 5 Buys)
Play 10 Contrabands (+10 Buys / 15 Buys)
Buy Mint (-1 Buy / 14 Buys)

8

Puzzles and Challenges / Blooki's Puzzle #2 - Confused Swindler

« on: July 28, 2011, 03:15:39 pm »

This one should be much easier and less laborious than the other one.

It is our Hero's 3rd turn in what's shaping up to be an interesting 3-player Dominion game in which no players have bought the the same card. Eager to fill her opponents' decks with rubbish in this Moat-less and Lighthouse-less kingdom set, our Hero plays a Swindler only to discover that while neither player neither opponent gains a card from her Swindler! How can this be?

Note: I'm interpreting a revealed Watchtower as a successful gain followed by a successful trash or topdeck. You are welcome to use Watchtower in your solution, but it will not successfully prevent our Hero's opponents from gaining cards.

ElyV already got the solution I was looking for (Minion and Vault are alternatives to Council Room).

I actually really like timchen's Mint solution so much that I'm going to enhance the original puzzle to reflect it. I hope that's alright with you

For all intents and purposes, you have solved this puzzle. Good job you guys! I'm making these modifications for future readers who would like to try.

Here is the full solution:
Turn 1
P1 - Buys Black Market.
P2 - Buys Council Room.
Hero - Buys Swindler.
Turn 2
All players do nothing.
Turn 3
P1 - Buys $4 card off of Black Market
P2 - Plays Council Room, buys Mint, trashes 7 Coppers.
Hero - Plays Swindler.

P1 has no draw deck, reshuffles & reveals her Turn 3 purchase. There are no $4 cards in the kingdom. P2 has only 5 cards in his deck and they are all in his hand.

9

Puzzles and Challenges / Blooki's Puzzle #1 - Sad Saboteur

« on: July 28, 2011, 05:50:04 am »

This one is quite the doozy. I reserve the right to keep amending the constraints to redirect people towards the intended spirit of the puzzle.

Our Villain and our Hero are playing a two-player Dominion game and our Villain has our Hero right where he wants him. After playing several other cards, our Villain plays Throne Room-Saboteur sabotaging your lone Province to pulp, but failing to sabotage ANYTHING else. Dejected, our Villain immediately ends his turn. Our Hero looks down at his hand and sees 4 Estates and a 5th card and then proceeds to end and win the game, to our Villain's absolute horror. What's the highest VP total our Hero can end the game with?

All mats are empty. There are no tokens or duration cards currently in play. There are no Islands set aside. There are no Bridges, Universities, Jesters, Masquerades, Black Markets in the kingdom. There are no cards in the trash other than the Hero's Province. All rules of Dominion apply (i.e. 10 kingdom cards --- 2 of which are TR & Saboteur, 10 copies of each fewer than 3 empty piles to start Hero's turn, at least 7 Coppers & 3 Estates in Hero's deck).

By my estimate, my initial solution is 472 VP. I'm sure there are mistakes in my solution, but I think the ballpark should be around there.

Hint #1: What card can interact with Saboteur?

Hint #2: My intended solution involves an attack card as the 5th card accompanying the Estates.

10

Council Room Feedback / Trusty Steed bug

« on: July 26, 2011, 07:07:11 pm »

Is Trusty Steed supposed to show up on this graph?

http://councilroom.com/win_rate_diff_accum.html?cards=Treasure

11

Game Reports / Retrospective Board Analysis

« on: July 25, 2011, 09:17:01 pm »

Just finished a game where my opponent and I took divergent strategies. I ended up winning, but I had very fortunate shuffle-luck. However, each of us felt our respective strategies were superior to the other's. He went to the simulator, I'm going to the community (because I don't know how to use the simulator).

Kingdom:
Duke
Harvest

Conspirator
Remake
Tournament

Chancellor
Fishing Village
Menagerie
Warehouse

I'm totally blanking on the 10th card in the set. Whatever it was, I don't think either player gained a single copy.

No Colonies.

What is your opening? What is your plan? Any additional comments?

Thanks,
Blooki