I just played another great Merchant Guild game against PitrPicko (semi-finalist of GokoDomII).
Well, at the very least, your opponent entirely skipped the 'draw' part of his draw engine. He bought no nobles or journeymen all game. That seems like it was a mistake maybe?This. And then why would he want to trash his mercenaries with these incoming curses?If he had bought at least 2 nobles/journeymen and had kept mercenaries, he would've been likely to get rid of his curses which could've made a crucial VP difference. I think, your first jester should've been a journeyman, too. You both seem to have underestimated draw/cycling here; he dramatically, you a little in the beginning.
I guess some people don't like BM and would put Envoy ahead.I'd assume the people who like BM would put Envoy ahead; the other cards aren't that great for big money.
I'd buy Envoy, then Stash, then consider buying Walled Village. I wouldn't buy the other two at all.
I would recommend to everyone (myself included) to try and not be annoyed by these small things.
Forge has a strong synergy with Advisor that might be worth mentioning in the "works well with" section. Forge likes big hands full of junk, and then, if you manage to forge down, the result is an advisor-friendly deck. (Forge also works well with workshops since it can turn two $4s into a province, and gainers are a reason to go for advisors.)
I can see a counter-argument in that if you need the forge to do your trashing, well, that's very late trashing, so maybe it's not an advisor board after all. Forge is pretty weak in general, but it seems like this might be one of the cases where it can shine.
Nicely done, but your pirate ship could very well have turned into a ruined mine had AI gone with early steward trashing. After the pirate ship has become a ruined mine and you attempt to switch to another strategy it will be too late and your opponent will have a huge advantage with a much thinner deck and better quality cards, which is usually what happens when your opponent goes pirate ship.
I don't think he could have done that at all, as there's no virtual money on board besides Steward, Treasury and, well, Pirate Ship, so I fail to see how this would lead to an advantage for him at all. If he starts buying Silvers/Golds/Harems in a trimmed deck that's even better for me, and if he transitions into Pirate Ship himself I can just respond with trashing Coppers more aggressively. + I think my Pirate Ships would be worth at least 3 before he's done trashing, but I rarely play the card so my intuition might be totally off there.
I'd be more inclined to agree with you if Shanty Town was Village or Fortress was Worker's Village, as in that case you can play a (Worker's) Village, Steward, Treasury engine, but without +buy and Shanty Town and Steward as the only components that are gainable with Hermits, the engine is terribly weak here.
Welcome back Qvist, and get well soon!
You know, you've returned just when Ozle returned... Are you the same person?!
Oh great, Ozle's back?
Thought we had got rid of him!
Goko does not punish resignations.
However, I will admit I'll sometimes gg near the end of my opponent's final turn if I know s/he knows s/he can win, but not resign, because I'd rather have the full log available.
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130902/log.514cd37de4b0fe3236619906.1378148383199.txt
I'm really surprised my opponent didn't go for Vineyards himself--this is like the Vineyards dream board, with cheap Actions, Stonemason, and even Border Village (though I don't take advantage of that). Well, not only does he leave me to get all 8 Vineyards, he actually buys 7 Cultists. This puts me in the awkward situation of not wanting to play my Lighthouses! Give me ALL the Ruins, please.
.The draw here is weak
It would be interesting to look at how it would go between two opponents of approximately same skill level.
Sea Hag is unignorable in any strategy.
Generally, if an engine has neither +buy (or another way of gaining multiple Victory cards per turn), nor an attack to play every turn, it will lose to BM.
This holds if you can draw your deck reliably and are playing possession reliably every turn. In your turn, you'll draw spoils the same turn you played BC. On possessed turns, your opponent gains Spoils himself so he cannot use it immediately. Moreover, you can use it when you possess him since he didn't have time to use it between adding it to his deck and being subjected to your possession.
A bunch of people will post after this saying the same thing, but with a lengthy confusing explanation.
