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126

Dominion Articles / Combo: Chapel + Stash

« on: August 14, 2011, 02:23:13 am »

Just tried running this today, and while it's not the most powerful combo, it does show some promise.

Stash is normally a terrible card. However, it starts getting better when you either have multiple stashes, or when your deck cycles quickly (e.g with Chancellor)

The other way to make a deck cycle quickly is to make it small. Chapel does this quite well.

Chapel away your deck, while trying to get as 4 or more stashes as quickly as possible. Getting a silver or two on the way won't hurt. Then, each time you reshuffle, line up the draws so that you get $8.

The downsides of this are that because of how the deck is set-up, you'll probably never get the chance to buy a duchy, which can really hurt. Additionally, hand size reducers make this totally unviable, and your buying power gets limited pretty early

I haven't tried simulating it yet, but I did try some solitaire games, and it's somewhere around 13-15 turns to 4 provinces. Of course, the lack of duchies means that may not be very good...

127

Variants and Fan Cards / Bughouse Dominion - A terrible idea made at the perfect time

« on: August 01, 2011, 06:43:40 am »

This was made at about 1:00 AM, with one tryout game and implications worked out at around 3:00 AM

There are two teams of players, with one from each team in a game (two games of Dominion). Players may not directly buy or gain cards from the game they are not in.

Players go in turn order, sitting across from their partner (alternates T1P1, T2P1, T2P1, T2P2).

All rules of Dominion are conserved, with one exception; if you would gain a card, your partner does instead. Gain in hand = gain in partner's hand, gain on deck = gain on partner's deck.

Implications: Sea Hag makes one member discard the top, and the other member gets a Curse on top (aka Sea Hags stack).

It is rare that a team member will ever actually get cards from their game. The two cards that seem to bypass the rule are Ambassador and Jester. (Ambassador, return a card from the other game, the opponent in your game gains a card, which means their partner gains that card instead, so Ambassador is even better. This is reliant on your partner buying you an Ambassador though  )

Draw engines are weakened, because when buying, you can't improve your engine directly. You must buy cards that maximize the partner's ability to improve your engine, and vice versa. (Trashing is similarly weakened, the money bought by the partner gets shuffled in later.)

Torturer's attack reads "Discard 2 cards, or your partner gains a curse in his or her hand." This is very silly.
If one game has Workshop, and the other Gardens, one player can have lots of workshops but no gardens, while the other has lots of gardens but no workshop. And then the Gardens player can't buy anything without messing up the partner's deck, so the partner needs +Buy in the game with workshop.......

So this is pretty silly, and on retrospect (as in 20 minutes later) this idea isn't actually that good. But it's worth a shot if you want something silly (like Swindler trashing the top card of one person's deck and giving a card to the partner, or not giving a card at all if a $7 cost is trashed and there's no $7 in the other game  )

128

Puzzles and Challenges / The Ultimate Legal Fairground

« on: June 25, 2011, 11:32:05 pm »

You are excited. Today, you will build the ultimate Fairground, without that Black Market stuff.

You're not much for fighting in Tournaments either.

However, because you are a minimalist, your goal is to have exactly one copy of each card.

In a solitaire game with Fairground, Colony, and Young Witch, have exactly one copy of each card in supply in as few turns as possible, assuming perfect shuffle luck. (Goal of 10VP Fairground). If I forgot something as a workaround, let me know and I'll work it into the opening.

129

Variants and Fan Cards / Starting Deck Modifications

« on: June 22, 2011, 01:35:40 am »

What happens when you start with no deck?

Alternatively, your starting deck is 1 copy of each Kingdom supply pile. Not that interesting without the +action, but if there's enough...

I'm sure there's better ideas out there.

130

Game Reports / A regular 5/2 vs 3/4 game

« on: June 21, 2011, 08:59:51 pm »

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110620-223009-34538495.html

Bureaucrat, Cellar, Cutpurse, Harvest, King's Court, Native Village, Potion, Steward, Tribute, Vineyard, and Workshop

So, I start out 5/2, with my opponent 4/3. Personally not that happy about it initially. My plan for 4/3 would probably have been steward/silver, although cutpurse was certainly viable as well.

However, it's not actually that bad, because Tribute is in play. Normally, I've found that tribute tends to be a tad hit-or-miss. However, early on is the time where I maximize my chance to get +2 cards, because of the high estate density. Additionally, NV has a psuedo-trash ability to help make up the difference in steward trashing. So, I plan to buy tribute, hope it gives me something good, and then proceed with a steward powered deck.

I go Tribute/NV, while my opponent goes Cutpurse/Steward. Seemed sort of risky, but early on you're not drawing with Steward anyways. Additionally, buying silver would have given me more chance of money (might be negligible)

Going double terminal does pay off, as both of them get played. Meanwhile, Tribute pays off for me and I get a silly early gold.

The game \plays itself, me getting a Steward, more money, and more native village. I was surprised a bit that Kingslayer bought the Harvest. When it consistently gives $3, and there's King's Court and NV to help with not have enough +action, it does seem to work though...

Around turn 16, my deck starts stalling, and i have a 3-0 province lead. Only having 1 gold is messing my deck up. Note that Big Money probably beats both of our decks at this point.

That stalling does lead to big problems, because by turn 20 the provinces are split 3-3, and duchies are split 4-2. Additionally Kingslayer trashed 1 fewer estate, so he or she holds that tiebreaker as well.

On my turn 20, I'm faced with $8 and the 2nd-to-last province. I decide not to buy it. Here's my thought process at that time:

• If I buy it and Kingslayer buys it, I lose
• If I don't buy it and Kingslayer buys it, I lose
• If I manage to buy 2 provinces, Kingslayer has the 4-2 duchy split, and I lose to the estate split.

Too bad that last point is wrong. I still have an issue with province splits, thinking that 5/3 = a 6 VP difference instead of 12 VP. I should have bought the last province, because even if I did tie up duchies by buying the two remaining, Kingslayer would buy estates and keep the estate tiebreak.

So, with faulty logic I buy the Duchy. And it turns out I actually get $8 twice in a row thanks to KC/Tribute shenanigans. Oops. But seeing that I have the chance to tie up duchies, I buy another duchy instead of the province, the exact estate split situation described above comes up, and then I became sad. 

In the end, I manage to pull the 5/3 province split thanks to ridiculous luck. I should have noticed it was my only chance earlier, and if I hadn't had the ridiculous luck I would have lost.

So the lesson here is learn to do simple math.

Edited for improved clarity, typos, etc.