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51

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles

« on: August 04, 2019, 07:58:17 pm »

I'd argue that things you do during a Mission turn don't happen before the end of "the" turn, and therefore don't satisfy the challenge.

Fair enough.  I'll do it in the first turn.
Setup:  purchase Innovation, accrue many coin tokens, trash all of your deck (perhaps Donate).
Turn:  Buy many Travelling Fairs for extra buys.  Buy a Sculptor, play it with Innovation, gain a Watchtower to your hand.
Still in buy phase:  Buy 2 King's Courts, a Thief, a Torturer.  Buy two Cultists, use the Watchtower to trash them thus drawing your deck.
Buy a Villa, return to action phase.
Proceed as before:  KC-KC-Thief-Torturer, gaining and using opponent's Scepters.

52

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles

« on: August 04, 2019, 02:02:55 pm »

At the start of my turn, I have no cards and my opponent has 10 cards. At the end of the turn, I have 10 cards and my opponent has no cards. What happened?

One can assume that before trashing your deck, you have managed to accumulate many coin tokens.
So by using Traveling Fair, buy two King's Courts, a Thief, a (1st edition) Masquerade, and Mission.
Play KC-KC-Thief-Masquerade.
Opponent has all 10 Scepters; five in hand, five in deck.
The Thief trashes 3 Scepters and gains them.
The Masquerade draws the Scepters and exchanges them with the opponent, without trashing any.
Now play two Scepters to replay the Thief twice and trash the rest of the opponent's deck.  Do not gain the Scepters.
Play the remaining Scepter to replay the Masquerade.  Receive a Scepter from the opponent.  Repeat four times.
Buy Bonfire to trash two cards and you're left with ten cards.

The drawback is that this does not work with 2nd edition rules for Masquerade.  But there are many variations that can be substituted.
KC-KC-Thief-Torturer.  Torturer will draw the first three Scepters and force the opponent to discard his hand.  Replay Thief and Torturer as needed to gain/draw the remaining Scepters.

I particularly like a variant that forces him to trash all of his Scepters, then you play a Treasurer which can gain one to your hand.  Rinse and repeat.

53

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Best Asymptotic Point Scoring

« on: November 21, 2018, 07:57:34 am »

With the help of paulfc, I think we were able to get to 3 up arrows!

That was some truly inspired sh*t!  Congrats.

54

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Best Asymptotic Point Scoring

« on: November 21, 2018, 07:55:34 am »

If we started with 2A BMs and 2A Hs, doing one step of this loop gains us (2A)^2=4A^2 cards. We can choose this to be 2A^2 BMs and 2A^2 Hs. We can repeat the loop by playing all the Hs then all the BMs again. Even ignoring the Hagglers played in previous steps, one step of this loop changes A to A^2 (i.e. A -> A^2 -> A^4 -> A^8 -> ... ), so with B SPs, we can end up with 4*A^(2^B) actions in our hand costing less than 6.

If we were to add Capitalism and Mandarin to the kingdom, we could gain a Mandarin here and then not only get the 2A^2 BM plays, but instead could play all BMs we had already again. I am too lazy right now to work out whether this significantly increases the overall growth rate.

I was up most of the night figuring out how to do just this to my last posted engine.  Adding Upgrade would allow me to trash a Fortress and gain a Mandarin after having played all my Storytellers and they would go back onto my deck.  Adding Alchemist would allow me to generate an unending supply of Scrying Pools to redraw everything.  Oh, well.  No point in that now.

55

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Best Asymptotic Point Scoring

« on: November 20, 2018, 04:02:22 pm »

The title of this thread is "Best Asymptotic Point Scoring".  This led me to generate some complicated engines to achieve high asymptotic ratios of point growth.  Now I'm not sure if that was the intended goal or not.  It seems discussion here has gone in a direction that looks at growth over time where the number of turns for setup is a factor.  So I'm trying a different approach.

Kingdom:  Stonemason, Scheme, Scrying Pool, Fortress, Storyteller, Priest
Events: Advance, Seaway, Obelisk on Stonemason
Project:  Academy

Setup:  buy Seaway for Stonemason, buy the project Academy.

Starting Deck

  1 Scrying Pool
  1 Scheme
  1 Fortress
  1 Priest
  N Stonemasons
  M Storytellers

  We will always play Stonemason with Fortress as the card to be trashed and we will always gain two Stonemasons, so I'll just refer to this as "play Stonemason".  This also gains two villagers (via Academy), so we will always assume to use a villager when we need another action.  Similarly, Priest will also always trash Fortress.

Play
  play Scrying Pool, draw entire deck
  play 1 Stonemason
  play Priest
  play Scheme (draw 1 Stonemason)
  play N Stonemasons
  play Storyteller (draws 2N+1 Stonemasons)

iterate next two lines as long as we have Storytellers
  play all Stonemasons
  play Storyteller (draw twice as many Stonemasons)
then
  play (N+1)*2^M Stonemasons
  buy stuff
  topdeck Scrying Pool

We have played a total of (N+1)*2^(M+1)-1 Stonemasons.  Only the ones we played after the last Storyteller have coins generated from Priest, but that doesn't matter, they all generated a +buy.  Buy Advance as many times as we can (zero cost).  Repeatedly trash the Fortress and gain Storytellers.
(Interesting note, each time you trash the Fortress, Priest generates another 2 coins which is available immediately for spending.  I had to remove Travelling Fair from the kingdom because of this.  It also means that at some point we can switch over to buying Stonemasons and overpaying by five to gain double Storytellers, but I'll leave this tweak out.)
So N'=(N+1)*2^(M+1)-1 and M'=M+(N+1)*2^(M+1).  Since the growth of Stonemasons is controlled by the growth of Storytellers, and vice versa, we can just say N'>2^N.  This is weak compared to other schemes already posted.  But it is simple and quick to set up.  So the next chore is to determine how quickly we can set it up.  I've added some additional items to my kingdom solely for that purpose.

Additional Kingdom cards:  Baker, Market Square, Pixie, Ironworks
Shelters.
Additional Events:  Donate, Alms

Starting deck is Necropolis, Overgrown Estate, Hovel, Pouch, Goat, and five Copper.

This is by no means optimized.  I concentrated on the worst case scenarios and took a guess on the correct order to buy.  This is tedious, I suggest skipping to the end.

The hand with Necropolis will buy Advance, trash Necropolis and gain an Ironworks.  The other hand may only have 1 coin.  Alms for Market Square.
If Goat collides with Hovel, trash Hovel.  Don't trash Overgrown Estate.
Turn 3:  Buy Donate, trash down to Ironworks, Market Square, Goat, and Overgrown Estate.  Discard Market Square, gain a Gold.  Worst case, we could only pay off 1 debt.
deck={ Ironworks, Market Square, Goat, Overgrown Estate, Gold }
Turn 4:  Ironworks a Potion.  Play Goat, trash Overgrown Estate, draw Potion.  Do not discard Market Square.  Play Gold.  Pay off 5 debt.
deck={ Ironworks, Market Square, Goat, Gold, Potion }
Turn 5:  Ironworks a Fortress.  Play Market Square and draw Fortress.  Play Goat, Gold, and Potion.  Pay off remaining 2 debt.  Buy Advance, trash Fortress, gain Priest.  Buy a Scrying Pool.
deck={ Ironworks, Market Square, Goat, Gold, Potion, Fortress, Priest, Scrying Pool }
Turn 6:  Play Market Square, Fortress, and Scrying Pool (if any in hand).  This puts the remaining five cards in hand.  Play Priest, trash Potion.  Play Goat, trash Gold.  Buy a Scheme.
deck={ Ironworks, Market Square, Goat, Fortress, Priest, Scrying Pool, Scheme }
Turn 7:  Play Scrying Pool, Scheme, and Market Square as them come into our hand.  Play Priest, trash Ironworks.  Play Goat, trash Fortress.  Buy Seaway, Gain Stonemason.  Topdeck Scrying Pool.
deck={ Market Square, Goat, Fortress, Priest, Scrying Pool, Scheme, Stonemason }
Turn 8:  Play Scrying Pool.  Even in the worst case (Goat is second card), we draw the remainder of the deck.  Play Scheme.  Play Fortress.  Play Priest, trash Goat.  Play Stonemason, trash Market Square, gain 2 Stonemasons.  Use coin token from Baker.  Buy the project Academy.  Alms for a Stonemason.
deck={ Fortress, Priest, Scrying Pool, Scheme, Stonemason x 4 }
The engine has been started.  We will increase the number of Stonemasons to 12 and buy 5 Storytellers this turn.

This allows us to conclude that the engine has the growth function f(n)=2↑↑(n-8).  I think this means it will beat luser, tim17, and liopoil's engine that employs City Quarter unless that engine can be setup in 6 turns or less.  I'm not knocking that engine!  The use of City Quarters and Royal Carriages was very clever and it was done before Renaissance.  I'm just establishing a complete declaration of point growth as a target.

56

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Best Asymptotic Point Scoring

« on: November 14, 2018, 09:10:21 pm »

A question for tim17.  I'd like a ruling on how split piles work in an infinite kingdom.  Would it be possible to gain a Fortune or would they be buried under an infinity of Gladiators?  Or is it 5 Gladiators, 5 Fortunes, 5 Gladiators, 5 Fortunes, ....   While we're on the subject, how about Knights and Ruins and other mixed supply piles?

57

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Best Asymptotic Point Scoring

« on: November 14, 2018, 08:55:10 pm »

"Each turn d' = (31/88)d, so we end up with around 31/88 ↑↑ n points."  I'm claiming d' = 256^d.

Your post looks right to me (though I didn't check super carefully), but since 4↑↑(n+2) > 256↑↑(n), it's only 2 turns better than the 4↑↑n kingdom (supposing the setup took the same amount of time) despite seeming way better.

Ha.  My setup would definitely take a lot longer.  I wanted to show the usefulness of Hagglers though.  When used to best advantage, they can double your tetration base.  Unfortunately, City Quarters cannot be haggled.  I am also thinking that using Mines to gain actions directly into your hand may be very useful.  But I guess it's three arrows now or bust, eh?

If you put City Quarter in the kingdom and Gladiator/Fortune, you could Haggle for City Quarter that way, but since you can't gain them mid-turn it doesn't seem like that would really help.

One other little thing, you should be able to play your Hagglers when you Black Market, so you don't need quite as many Fishing Villages.

Wow.  You're right.  I didn't think of Fortune.  And I missed playing the Hagglers with Black Market.  Come to think of it, I could have also just played them in my buy phase.  That's great.

58

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Best Asymptotic Point Scoring

« on: November 14, 2018, 08:24:23 pm »

"Each turn d' = (31/88)d, so we end up with around 31/88 ↑↑ n points."  I'm claiming d' = 256^d.

Your post looks right to me (though I didn't check super carefully), but since 4↑↑(n+2) > 256↑↑(n), it's only 2 turns better than the 4↑↑n kingdom (supposing the setup took the same amount of time) despite seeming way better.

Ha.  My setup would definitely take a lot longer.  I wanted to show the usefulness of Hagglers though.  When used to best advantage, they can square your tetration base.  Unfortunately, City Quarters cannot be haggled.  I am also thinking that using Mines to gain actions directly into your hand may be very useful.  But I guess it's three arrows now or bust, eh?

59

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Best Asymptotic Point Scoring

« on: November 14, 2018, 08:06:02 pm »

The growth rate to beat is currently double-up-arrow, first introduced here:

I have better f(n)= 2^2^2^(O(n) times) kingdom kc, workshop, city quarter, training, tfair, bridge, gardens.  Deck contains starting cards one gardens, rest are action. Training on workshop

Turn starts by drawing deck with log(d) cq where d is deck size, play kc-bridge. Then you start multiplying workshops/kc. Assume that deck has k kc and k workshops. play k/2 kc on k/2 workshops to gain 3/4k workshops and 3/4k kc then play cq to draw these and repeat by number of cq in deck. If you start with 3 kc and 3 workshops and l cq you will end with 2^l workshops. Coins from training allow you to buy 2^l/10 cq which shows that f(n+1)>=2^f(n) and bound follows.

and explained in more detail here:

I think what luser originally wrote works but tim's suggestion is more clear and is technically better (improves the base of the exponent, pretty much). A more explicit (but still not totally optimized) description of luser's solution with additions (it took me a bit of work to decipher exactly what was happening):

Kingdom:  KC, stonemason, city quarter, fortress, gardens, training, travelling fair, inheritance (3 events, oh well). Training on stonemason, inheritance on KC (okay add a cost-reducer to the kingdom). When our deck has size d: Deck has 1 gardens, 1 fortress, ~7d/22 estates, ~14d/22 Stonemasons, ~d/22 City Quarters where x = o(d).

Turn:
Play ~log₂(d) City Quarters to draw the deck
Play the estates as d/4 KC on d/2 stonemasons for 3d gains, make them d estates and 2d stonemasons.
We have d/4 cards left in hand, so play 4 city quarters to draw everything again.
Play 3d/4 estates on 3d/2 stonemasons for 9d gains, which are 3d estates and 6d stonemasons...
Repeat like before until we run out of city quarters. We now have over d' = 3^d/88d cards in our deck, and the number of stonemason plays a bit over half of that. From training we could buy d'/20 city quarters, but just buy d'/22 instead (using travelling fair for buys).

Each turn d' = (3^1/88)^d, so we end up with around 3^1/88 ↑↑ n points.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if three arrows is possible though... I'll think about it...

the rest of the thread just improves the number of set up turns by a constant, as bitwise pointed out. So the next step requires a new level of method, and it would surely involve these newfangled expansions I'm hearing about...

"Each turn d' = (3^1/88)^d, so we end up with around 3^1/88 ↑↑ n points.".    I'm claiming d' = 256^d, so I think it's a lot better.

60

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Best Asymptotic Point Scoring

« on: November 12, 2018, 05:33:29 pm »

Here's my second take.  It's an extreme kingdom. I had to add Black Market to accommodate cards I only needed 1 copy of.  There's a lot of events and a Renaissance project.  It will also be difficult to get the engine started, but it's all legal.

Kingdom:  Black Market, Stonemason, Village, Fishing Village, Haggler, Mine, Scrying Pool, Alchemist, Golem, Possession
Black Market:  Scheme, Fortress, City Quarter
Events: Travelling Fair, Seaway, Training, Lost Arts, Donate, Ferry, Inheritance, Obelisk on Stonemason
Project:  Capitalism

Getting started:
  buy 1 Black Market, gain Scheme, Fortress, and City Quarter from the Black Market
  buy Seaway, Training, and Lost Arts for Stonemason (so it gets +1 action, +1 coin, and +1 buy)
  buy Ferry for Mine and then Inheritance on Mine, then buy Ferry for Haggler
  buy the project Capitalism
  buy Donate to trash unwanted cards

Victory points are simply generated by Obelisk.

Starting Deck:
  1 Scheme
  1 Fortress
  1 City Quarter
  1 Black Market
  N Stonemasons
  N Golems
  4 Scrying Pools

We are starting with 3 Fishing Villages set aside from last turn (allows us to play a City Quarter and a Black Market and one Mine without requiring more actions)

Start of turn (This will make more sense after seeing the buy phase)
  hand consists of 4 Scrying Pools and a City Quarter
  play 1 Scrying Pool, drawing all the recently bought actions that were topdecked.
  play the the City Quarter to draw the remainder of the deck.
  play the Scheme (to allow us to topdeck our City Quarter for next turn)

As before we are going to play all of our Stonemasons on Fortress, gaining more Stonemasons, then playing a Scrying Pool to draw them all into our hand.  To prevent running out of Scrying Pools, divert a Stonemason as needed to downgrade a potion card (Possession -> 2 Golems -> 4 Alchemists -> 8 Scrying Pools).  We will do this repeatedly until we only have one Scrying Pool left.

Now use all of the Stonemasons to generate the following cards in these ratios:
  2 Estates
  2 Hagglers
  2 Villages
  3 Fishing Villages

  play the final Scrying Pool to draw these all into our hand (our discard pile is now empty)
  play the Black Market, allowing us to play Fishing Villages. play 1/3 of them (enough actions to play all of the Hagglers)
  play an Estate, trashing a Fishing Village and gaining a Potion
  play a Village to draw the Potion
  repeat that sequence for all Estates
  play all of the Hagglers

Begin buy phase

  play all of the Potions
  buy Travelling Fair (for topdecking)
  buy a lot of Possessions, gaining a lot of Golems (topdeck them all)
  buy 1 Alchemist, gaining a lot of Scrying Pools (topdeck them all)
  put the City Quarter on the top of our deck (because of Scheme)

Each Golem is worth 4 Scrying Pools, so we've played ~N*2^(4*N) Stonemasons for 1 buy and 1 coin each.  We've also played ~(N/2)*(2/9)*2^(4*N) Hagglers for 2 coins each and ~(N/2)*(1/9)*2^(4*N) Fishing Villages for 1 coin each.  We mined ~(N/2)*(2/9)*2^(4*N) Potions.  I'm not even going to work out exacly how many Possessions we can buy since the only significant part is the O(N*2^(4*N)).  So we buy O(N*2^(4*N)) Possessions and that allows us to gain O(N*2^(4*N))*O(N*2^(4*N)) Golems due to the Hagglers.  That is an increase in Golems of O(N*2^(8*N)) = O(256^N).  Stonemasons did not increase by nearly that much, only O(16^N).  We have to run quite a few Scrying Pool passes in the next turn, doubling the number of Stonemasons each time in order for them to achieve an equivalent growth.  It would take O(240^N) Scrying Pools to do that, or O(0.25*240^N) Golems.  The true growth rate is therefore O(256^N) - O(240^N) which is still O(256^N).

I struggled real hard to put Hagglers into my last solution.  That solution started out with Upgrade instead of Expand.  I needed Ferry on Hagglers to gain them using Stonemason.  But that would allow someone to put Ferry on Upgrade and gain them which would lead to an unbounded engine.  I then picked Expand instead, reasoning that Ferry on Expand would not make them gainable as the cost would be 5 coins.  Alas, Expand Fortress to Gold, Expand Gold to Province, Stonemason Province to 2 Golds, Stonemason 2 Golds to 4 Expands yields a gain of 2 Expands, hence another unbounded engine.  This kingdom uses Mine as a selective Expand.  It can't be used on anything put treasure cards.  The original goal was to mine an action card to gain a Haggler.  I needed an action card costing 3 coins or less, that had at least +1 coin (to make it a treasure), that also provided additional actions, and that didn't draw cards.  Squire was my first choice, but it was too good.  I could Mine a Squire and gain a Haggler, but trashing the Squire allows gaining an attack card.  Scrying Pool is an attack card.  Enough said.

That's the hardest part of this puzzle.  You have to put together a pretty good kingdom, but not a great kingdom, and hope you didn't miss an exploit.

EDIT: Corrected the growth calculation.  It's actually bigger than I first reported.

EDIT: I was thinking of Mine as a replacement for Expand so much, I forgot that the Potion would be gained into my hand.  D'oh.  No need for those Villages.  You could use half as many Fishing Villages instead (for actions) and play them along with the others by Black Market.  It wouldn't improve things in any significant way, but I thought I'd point that out.

61

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Best Asymptotic Point Scoring

« on: November 10, 2018, 11:12:10 pm »

First off, I'd like to thank tim17 for this excellent puzzle.  Here's my first take.

EDIT:  majiponi  found an exploit that leads to unbounded play thus disqualifying this kingdom.

Sorry, but I've noticed that your Kingdom goes infinite even without Ferry.

Expand Alchemist to Possession
Stonemason Possession to Golem and Gold
Stonemason Golem to 2 Alchemists
Expand Gold to Province
Stonemason Province to 2 Expands

Removing Alchemist, no infinity, but no interest either.

Kingdom: Stonemason, Village, Scrying Pool, Alchemist, Golem, Possession, Expand, Scheme, Fortress
Events: Seaway, Training, Lost Arts, Donate, Obelisk on Stonemason

Setup:  Seaway, Training, and Lost Arts on Stonemason (so it gets +1 action, +1 coin, and +1 buy)

Victory points are simply generated by Obelisk.

Starting deck:
  9 Scrying Pools
  1 Scheme
  1 Fortress
  N Expands
  N Stonemasons

At start of turn
  play Scrying Pool, draw entire deck
  play a Stonemason on the Fortress, gaining 2 Stonemasons
  play Scheme to draw one Stonemason (and to allow us to topdeck a Scrying Pool for next turn)

Start of iteration

  play all Stonemasons on Fortress, gaining 2 Stonemasons each time
  play a Scrying Pool, drawing a lot of Stonemasons

  play a Stonemason on Fortress, gain 2 Villages
  play remaining Stonemasons on Fortress, gaining 2 Stonemasons each time
  play a Scrying Pool, drawing a lot of Stonemasons and 2 Villages

  play a Stonemason on Fortress, gain 2 Stonemasons
  play 2 Villages, draw the two stonemasons
  play Expand on a Scrying Pool, gain a Golem
  play remaining Stonemasons on Fortress, gaining 2 Stonemasons each time
  play a Scrying Pool, drawing a lot of Stonemasons and 1 Golem

  play Expand on Golem, gain a Possession
  play remaining Stonemasons on Fortress, gaining 2 Stonemasons each time
  play a Scrying Pool, drawing a lot of Stonemasons and 1 Possession

  play Stonemason on Possession, gain two Golems
  play remaining Stonemasons on Fortress, gaining 2 Stonemasons each time
  play a Scrying Pool, drawing a lot of Stonemasons and 2 Golems

  play Stonemason on Golem, gain two Alchemists
  play Stonemason on Golem, gain two Alchemists
  play remaining Stonemasons on Fortress, gaining 2 Stonemasons each time
  play a Scrying Pool, drawing a lot of Stonemasons and 4 Alchemists

  play 4 Stonemasons on Alchemists, gain 8 Scrying Pools
  play remaining Stonemasons on Fortress, gaining 2 Stonemasons each time
  play a Scrying Pool, drawing a lot of Stonemasons and 8 Scrying Pools

End of iteration.  This state matches the start of iteration state except we have about 128 times as many Stonemasons and 2 less Expands.

It may seem like an endless loop, but eventually we run out of Expands.  Since neither Expands nor potion cards can be gained during a turn, the turn must eventually end.  When the Expands run out, we keep performing the iterations just gaining and drawing Stonemasons until we are out of Scrying Pools and the action phase ends.

Buy phase

  buy all of the Expands we can for next turn
  topdeck a Scrying Pool (from playing Scheme)

Two Expands gives us 7 Scrying Pools, so if we start with N Expands, we do O(3.5*N) Scrying Pool passes that double the number of Stonemasons each time.  That means we played O(N*2^(3.5*N)) Stonemasons for 1 buy each and 1 coin each. We can therefore buy O(N/7*2^(3.5*N)) Expands for the next turn.  Our Stonemasons have increased by the same order.  Therefore our growth rate is O(2^(3.5*N)) = O(11.31^N).

62

Game Reports / Re: Quickest turnaround?

« on: September 16, 2018, 10:10:35 pm »

Thanks, I edited my post.  Don't know why Royal Wedding stuck in my brain.

63

Game Reports / Quickest turnaround?

« on: September 16, 2018, 06:06:52 pm »

The kingdom contained Mint, Noble Brigand, Tactician, and mostly uninteresting action cards.
It was a Platinum, Colony kingdom.
Events were Wedding and Borrow.

I reasoned that I wanted to get Mint as early as possible after getting a Gold.  Tactician was probably going to be the quickest way.  The Noble Brigand didn't interest me, as offensively, it is rather weak.  And it was worthless against Platinum and I expected to be minting a lot of those.
I had a 3/4 split.  I bought a Silver, then with my four coin hand, I went for Borrow and bought a Tactician.
Due to Borrow, I only drew four cards for my next hand, and I couldn't believe my amazing luck:  Tactician plus my 3 Estates.  Obviously play the Tactician.
This allowed me to draw all of my treasure into my next hand.  One Silver and 7 Copper yields 9 coins and two buys.
And this is where I execute a brilliant strategy.  I buy a Mint and a Wedding!
Now my deck is just Tactician, Mint, 3 Estates, and a Gold.
I'll be minting Gold till my debt is repaid and then I'll buy a Platinum and start minting those.  With Tactician hands filled with Platinum and Gold, I'll surely kick ass.
It is now turn five and I draw my entire deck other than my Gold.  Well, that's unlucky since I won't be able to mint a Gold this turn, but this will only delay my victory by a turn.  I was convinced that I was going to win.
Then my opponent buys a Noble Brigand.
I resign.

(The Noble Brigand nicks my Gold leaving me treasureless and still in debt from Wedding.  I cannot even buy Copper.  It is impossible to win.)

64

Dominion Strategy Wiki Feedback / Throne Room and duration card contradiction

« on: March 05, 2017, 04:49:14 pm »

From http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Throne_Room:

When you play Throne Room and choose to target a Duration, the Throne Room stays out in play with the Duration that it affects. If you Throne Room a Throne Room which affects a Duration, the top-level Throne Room does not stay in play and gets cleaned up during the Clean-up phase of the turn. However, if the targeted Duration won't do anything next turn on its second execution (for example, if it is a Tactician), the Throne Room doesn't stay out.

From http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Duration:

When you use a Throne Room variant on a Duration, it stays in play, even if multiplying the Duration's effect is not meaningful, such as Throning a Tactician, or Throning an Archive with 3 or fewer cards remaining in your deck. With Procession specifically, Procession remains out even though the Duration has been trashed, and remains in play until the Duration would have been discarded (if at all).

65

Let's Discuss ... / Re: empires: overlord

« on: August 13, 2016, 01:17:40 pm »

Imagine a kingdom with Overlord, Band of Misfits, and Conspirator.  Play Overlord, select to play it as Band of Misfits, then play Band of Misfits as Conspirator.  +card, +action, +2 coins!

66

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?

« on: June 06, 2016, 10:43:09 pm »

Now that Empires is out, the solutions can be improved.
The minimum number of cards that contain all letters of the alphabet stays at 6, but it can now be done with just 43 characters.
The solution is unique.

------- 6 cards, 43 chars ------
bazaar
jack of all trades
tax
squire
swamphag
envoy
---------------------------------

For the fewest number of characters, there are a whole lot of 8 or 9 card solutions using just 43 characters.
Here is just one example.

-------- 8 cards, 42 chars ------
plaza
jester
taxman
quarry
bank
witch
forge
delve

67

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles

« on: May 30, 2016, 01:37:47 pm »

Alternate method with only 3 Action cards: Pillage/Raze/Mining Village/copperx2

Play Mining Village, trash. Play Pillage, play Raze, trashing itself.

Hard mode: remove all cards (not just Actions) from play without discarding, putting on mat:

Pillage/Raze/Mining Village/[Raze or Mining Village]/Copper
Play Mining Village, trash. Play Pillage, play Raze/Mining Village as needed to trashdraw both Spoils. Play Spoils, play copper.
Then simply buy Bonfire, trashing the copper.

Extreme mode: Trash all cards from your hand and from play, INCLUDING THE SPOILS.
Hand of Pillage/Mining Village/Mining Village/Mining Village/Chapel

Play Mining Village, trash, Pillage, draw Spoils with Mining Village, trashing, trash Spoils with Chapel, buy Bonfire.

Pillage, Mining Village works and is simpler than my solution.  Grats.

The second solution does not work.  You play the Spoils before buying Bonfire, hence actions are still in play.

The second solution does work. There are no Action cards in hand or in play. The bonfire was for trashing copper, a minimal increase in difficulty. Raze and Mining Village already trashed themselves along with Pillage, and the remaining card was Copper, or another Mining Village if you want it all to be just Action cards, nullifying the Bonfire bit as it would just all be gone anyways.

I stand corrected.
Let me make the Puzzle harder.  No Pillage.

EDIT:  My solution doesn't work as it has an on-buy/on-gain resolving order problem.  This may not be possible.
EDIT:  It can be done
EDIT:  Again a problem.  So close, but I think it may be impossible.

68

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles

« on: May 30, 2016, 11:33:33 am »

Alternate method with only 3 Action cards: Pillage/Raze/Mining Village/copperx2

Play Mining Village, trash. Play Pillage, play Raze, trashing itself.

Hard mode: remove all cards (not just Actions) from play without discarding, putting on mat:

Pillage/Raze/Mining Village/[Raze or Mining Village]/Copper
Play Mining Village, trash. Play Pillage, play Raze/Mining Village as needed to trashdraw both Spoils. Play Spoils, play copper.
Then simply buy Bonfire, trashing the copper.

Extreme mode: Trash all cards from your hand and from play, INCLUDING THE SPOILS.
Hand of Pillage/Mining Village/Mining Village/Mining Village/Chapel

Play Mining Village, trash, Pillage, draw Spoils with Mining Village, trashing, trash Spoils with Chapel, buy Bonfire.

Pillage, Mining Village works and is simpler than my solution.  Grats.

The second solution does not work.  You play the Spoils before buying Bonfire, hence actions are still in play.

69

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles

« on: May 30, 2016, 10:58:55 am »

Your deck consists of just the five cards in your hand from a legal kingdom of your choice.  No cards are set aside, on a mat, etc.
The challenge:  In one turn, gain a Spoils and later play it with no action cards left in play or in your hand or in your deck or set aside or on a mat, etc.
In other words, all action cards must be trashed before playing the Spoils.

Solo play, any legal kingdom, any number of events.  You may assume perfect shuffle luck if you need to.

70

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Max VP tokens from Goons.

« on: May 29, 2016, 07:30:02 am »

What is the maximum number of VP tokens you get get from Goons in 1 turn? There are 10 cards in the kingdom, no Travelling Fair. Assume you can have any cards in your hand, in play or in your deck or the supply.

Infinite.  http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=14322.msg604357#msg604357
Your kingdom requirements can be met if you are willing to wait more than 3 turns for the megaturn.
It only works in solo play or with cooperative opponents (the Ambassador attack must be blocked).

71

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Most points by turn 3

« on: May 29, 2016, 06:58:24 am »

Now, I'm sure there's a version of this loop that plays Monument. But I'm too lazy to go around mucking with someone else's loop. There's a new Landmark called Tomb that gives 1 VP each time you trash. Use that and you get infinity. If you're really upset about having 3 landmarks/events, well, go remake that loop yourself, it just takes 2 more King's Court's, another Council Room, and 2 more Rogues.

I've been looking at Farmer's Market.  It's ideal as it provides VP, coins, +buys, and trashes itself.
This was going to be my modified loop.
KC-KC-KC-KC-Rogue-Rogue-Rogue-Rogue-Council Room-Band Of Misfits-Band Of Misfits.

You execute Band Of Misfits 6 times.  If the farmer's market supply is initially empty, you can use this sequence.
1) Farmer's Market (+buy +1 coin +1 VP)
2) Farmer's Market (+buy +2 coins +2 VP)
3) Farmer's Market (+buy +3 coins +3 VP)
4) Farmer's Market (+buy +4 coins +4 VP)
5) Farmer's Market (+buy +4 VP and the card is trashed)
6) Ambassador to return the Villa

Another benefit is that all cards in the loop are 5 coins or more.  You can open with Procession-Bridge and all cards can still be Rogue'd (no need for Ferry).
I haven't fit this into a 10 (or 11) card kingdom yet.  Others feel free to try.

I'm already regretting my last post.  Though I do think the BoM, Farmer's Market, Amb combo is slick, it is trying to add more cards to an already full kingdom.  I couldn't get it into play in 3 turns.

I think the win goes to esphesos, with contributions from liopoil and florrat.  All we need to do is stick a Goons in the black market and get it in play.  The loop buys one Villa each iteration to generate infinite VP.  Goal achieved.

72

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Villa: To Infinity and Beyond

« on: May 28, 2016, 04:09:11 pm »

  Play BoM as Crown
   Play BoM as Crown
    Play BoM as Raze(trashing Mandarin and itself, drawing 2 cards: Council Room and Rogue)
    BoM trashed, can choose again: Play BoM as Procession -> Rogue gains BoM and Mandarin(putting 4 "Crowns" on deck)

I hate to nitpick on something so brilliant, but you trashed two cards with the BoM as Raze.  Does this work?  If Raze trashes itself on the first play, then you can pick a different card for the second.  But you had to have picked Raze both times to trash two cards.  That BoM is trashed, but the previous BoM that Crowned it is not.  And because it was Crowned by the BoM before THAT, wouldn't it simply be forced to Crown another action card?

73

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Most points by turn 3

« on: May 28, 2016, 02:30:31 pm »

Now, I'm sure there's a version of this loop that plays Monument. But I'm too lazy to go around mucking with someone else's loop. There's a new Landmark called Tomb that gives 1 VP each time you trash. Use that and you get infinity. If you're really upset about having 3 landmarks/events, well, go remake that loop yourself, it just takes 2 more King's Court's, another Council Room, and 2 more Rogues.

I've been looking at Farmer's Market.  It's ideal as it provides VP, coins, +buys, and trashes itself.
This was going to be my modified loop.
KC-KC-KC-KC-Rogue-Rogue-Rogue-Rogue-Council Room-Band Of Misfits-Band Of Misfits.

You execute Band Of Misfits 6 times.  If the farmer's market supply is initially empty, you can use this sequence.
1) Farmer's Market (+buy +1 coin +1 VP)
2) Farmer's Market (+buy +2 coins +2 VP)
3) Farmer's Market (+buy +3 coins +3 VP)
4) Farmer's Market (+buy +4 coins +4 VP)
5) Farmer's Market (+buy +4 VP and the card is trashed)
6) Ambassador to return the Villa

Another benefit is that all cards in the loop are 5 coins or more.  You can open with Procession-Bridge and all cards can still be Rogue'd (no need for Ferry).
I haven't fit this into a 10 (or 11) card kingdom yet.  Others feel free to try.

74

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Most points by turn 3

« on: May 26, 2016, 09:03:34 pm »

I'm sure the method described in ADK's first link easily gets 1000+ VP. Villa is unneccessary.

The link you mention just empties the supply.  It doesn't gain VP.
Where is the game you are describing?

Easily modified to get 10 goons in play, done. The point is that exploding in a kingdom with those core cards is always is the answer to these puzzles. The solution is not completely fleshed out. You can find one of florrat's posts for all the details in a similar sort of puzzle.

It doesn't matter if you put all of the Goons in play.  Any engine that depends on buying cards to generate VP will eventually stall because it will run out of things to buy. This can be remedied by using Ambassador to put things back into the kingdom so they can be repurchased.  But then you run out of Ambassadors.  If you read the link in my first post, you would understand that the goal is to put florrat's "infinite engine" into play in 3 turns.  Then you can truly achieve infinite VP.  The goal of this puzzle is to gain the most VP and infinite beats finite.  So the core cards are not the answer.

75

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Most points by turn 3

« on: May 26, 2016, 08:56:46 pm »

Take 3; shortened and improved.
190 VP in turn 3 and game ended.
Thanks to gkrieg13 for checking my earlier attempts.
This could be improved on.  liopoil has stated that a better solution exists, and that's probably true, but not the point.
This was a test to see if a Villa engine could be started on turn 3 and the answer is yes!  (and it probably could be done simpler)
The next step is to get florrat's "infinite engine" modified to gain VP and stick it in.

Kingdom
  Options
    Shelters, Platinum/Colony
  Events
    Alms
    Travelling Fair
    Triumph
  Actions
    Baker
    Bridge
    Councilroom
    Cultist
    King's Court
    Procession
    Squire
    Stonemason
    Villa
    Watchtower

Turn 1
  Copper x 5
  Buy Borrow
  Buy Stonemason, overpay by 4, gain Procession, gain Bridge

Turn 2
  Copper x 2, Overgrown Estate, Hovel (only four due to Borrow)
  Buy Borrow
  Buy Watchtower

Turn 3 draw Necropolis, (reshuffle) Procession, Bridge, Watchtower (only four due to Borrow)
  Play Procession-Bridge, gain Cultist, reveal Watchtower, trash Cultist, draw Copper x 3
  (Watchtower stays in hand forever.  I'll just note (trash) or (topdeck) after each gain.)
  (3 buys, 2 coins, and cards cost 2 less) (no Copper played)
  Buy Travelling Fair (now 4 buys)
  Buy Squire (topdeck)
  Buy Squire (topdeck)
  Buy Squire (trash), gain Cultist (trash), draw Squire x 2, Copper
  Buy Alms, gain Villa (in hand)
Turn 3.1
  Play Villa, Squire (for +2 buys), Squire (for +2 buys), Copper x 3 (now 5 buys, 6 coins, and cards cost 2 less)
  Buy Squire (topdeck)
  Buy Stonemason (trash), overpay by 2, gain Bridge (topdeck), gain Bridge (topdeck)
  Buy Stonemason (trash), overpay by 2, gain Procession (topdeck), gain Procession (topdeck)
  Buy Squire (trash), gain Cultist (trash), draw Procession x 2, Bridge
  Buy Stonemason (trash), overpay by 2, gain Bridge (topdeck), gain Villa (in hand)
Turn 3.2
  Play Villa, Procession-Procession-Bridge-Bridge
  (Play Procession on Procession, thus playing Procession twice.  Both times you play Procession, it will be on a Bridge.  The 2nd Bridge is not yet in hand.)
  (One Procession and both Bridges will be trashed to gain three 5 coin cards.)
  gain Cultist (trash), draw Bridge x 2, Squire
  gain Councilroom (topdeck)
  gain Cultist (trash), draw Councilroom, Copper x 2
  Play Squire (+2buys) (now 7 buys, 6 coins, and cards cost 6 less)
  Buy Travelling Fair
  Buy Squire (topdeck)
  Buy Squire (topdeck)
  Buy Squire (topdeck)
  Buy Bridge (topdeck)
  Buy Stonemason (trash), overpay by 1, gain King's Court x 2 (topdeck)
  Buy Stonemason (trash), overpay by 1, gain King's Court x 2 (topdeck)
  Buy Cultist (trash), draw King's Court x 3
  Buy Villa
Turn 3.3
  Play KC-KC-KC-Councilroom-KC-Villa-Bridge-Bridge-Squire-Squire-Squire
  Buy Travelling Fair
  31 buys and all cards are free
  Buy Colony x 8, Province x 8, Duchy x 8, Estate x 6, Triumph for 190 VP.