Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

151

Dominion General Discussion / Reviving an old idea: Your best/worst kingdom

« on: May 10, 2012, 11:33:37 am »

I was reading through old posts and came across an interesting thread. The idea was to go to councilroom and look up the set of 10 cards you have the worst (and best) win rate with. If you had all ten of these cards in one kingdom, how would you play it?

(I looked for it again and can't find it- would be great if someone who knows where it is links to it)

I think it's worth reviving given the growth of this forum. I'll post mine below. I think it would be great to get feedback from other players on what you are doing right/wrong when you play these sets.

(Note: The biggest flaw I see in this is changing ability. For example I think I play Bishop pretty well now, but for a LONG time I played it terribly - and these stats go back to when I first started I believe).

So here goes my sets:

My worst set:

$4P Golem
$4 Noble Brigand, Bishop, Silk Road, Island
$3 Great Hall, Tunnel, Black Market
$2 Cellar, Lighthouse

(Black Market would include my next 15 worst cards I guess: Chancellor, Moat, Embargo, Oasis, Menagerie, Bazaar, Horse Traders, Moneylender, Ill-Gotten Gains, Watchtower, Cartographer, Explorer, Walled Village, Envoy, Courtyard)

(Obviously I was bad at alt-VP, Big Money and defending against attacks...)

HOW I WOULD PLAY IT:
With Great Hall, Island, Tunnel and Silk Roads it's a crazy alt-VP set with Silk Roads as the linch-pin. However there doesn't seem to be any cards that facilitate a rush.
I think I would open Silver-Island. Pick up a second Island after I've used the first (so there is zero chance of overlap). Pick up one more Silver and then switch to Great Halls on $3, Silk Roads on $4+ and Estates on $2 (Coppers otherwise). Then watch VP totals very carefully and manage the piles (assuming my opponent is doing a mirror).

Is there anything else viable here?
Are my tactics at all close to right?
I've lost way too many Silk Road splits by not going in fast enough. Do I need that second Silver?


My Best Set:

$8 Peddler
$7 King's Court
$6 Goons
$5 Torturer
$4 Coppersmith, Feast, Jack of all Trades, Remake, Salvager, Baron

How I would play it:
Very challenging set to play I think. Goons is normally my go-to, but here there are no villages and the only cantrip is Peddler which means only one play per turn - which makes dominating with Goons a lot more difficult.

You also always have to closely examine King's Court for some sort of spammable action. The first thing I look for a drawer (So you can hit KC-KC-Smithy-KC-KC-KC... Play all actions 3 times each...). Here the only option is Torturer (which is not a bad option). Torturer chains themselves don't work without multiple actions (again - KC does this in a way, but because the other guy sees it coming they can take two curses then discard them)

I think my play would be to set up a mega turn that looks like this:

(1) KC-KC-Torturer-Peddler-Peddler (left with 15 cards in hand, $6 and 6 actions)
(2) Play a ton of Goons (I think 4 would do)
(3) Buy up a bunch of stuff, end the game on piles with a ton of VP tokens

The challenge would be to get there before a double-Jack strategy took down all the provinces. Not sure if I could do it fast enough given the costs of all those cards (and the need to get a bunch of them so you get the right initial hand with KC, KC and T), but I would definitely give it a try.

The good news is I do have facilitators to help: Remake/Silver is the key open. Definitely picking up a second Remake. Changing Estates into Silvers and killing two coppers at a time. When the deck has been thinned turning the Remake into a Torturer (and depending on draws the Torturer into a Goons.

I think the second goal is to connect a KC and a Goons. This plays 4 cards and brings Peddlers down to free (with 4 buys). Pick up three of them and another KC. Sometime around then use Remake to turn a silver into a Salvager. You Salvage the Peddlers one by one to get the rest of your engine built.

It would definitely be a fun deck to pull off and while it would take some luck to get the mega turn, I think with the trashing from Remake it's definitely doable. It's just a question of whether it could beat Jack to 8 Provinces.

(If you played the double-Jack BM strategy - would you trash your provinces so they wouldn't slow you down? It would be ballsy (I've never seen anyone do it), but it might be the way to beat my mega-engine. You would just have to watch to make sure the few Goon's VP I am picking up doesn't let me end the game prematurely before the mega turn)


Thoughts on this one?

I would love to see how others do with this exercise.

Kirian: It might even be fun to have a tournament with these. Every player comes with two Kingdoms that people play each other with in a round-robin or something...

Ed

152

Game Reports / The best Develop Kingdom ever...

« on: May 07, 2012, 07:16:47 pm »

I love Develop. It's such a terrible card at face value, that I love finding ways to use it effectively (which comes up more than you would think).

I usually over-buy it and lose, but I find nothing is as satisfying as winning a game with Develop. This Kingdom made me smile:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201205/07/game-20120507-160414-982c82ce.html

It was a Colony Kingdom with Nomad Camp, Gardens and a $7 card (Bank - but it didn't matter) (nothing else really mattered).

I started out buying Nomad Camps and top-decking them. Then moves to Develops and started Developing Nomad Camps into Develops and Royal Seals (but any $5 card would do). The Royal Seals turned into Golds and Gardens. Golds turned into Banks and Royal Seals. Banks turned into Gold and Provinces. Provinces turned into Platinum and Banks. I got my deck up to 44 cards in 18 turns (emptying Royal Seals, Gardens and Develops - With 5 of the Seals in the Trash...). I picked up all the Gardens (trashing one of them with a Develop so I would have a Royal Seal and a Develop in hand next turn)

Who says you can't develop your Estates all the way to Platinum?

Nothing more satisfying.

Ed

153

Dominion Articles / Combo: Baron / Crossroads / Farmland

« on: May 06, 2012, 04:19:35 pm »

Three card combos are not that interesting (since they do not come up very often), but this one is nice in that it is actually two different combos that just happen to combo nicely together.

First:
Baron+Crossroads is nice combo
Baron works well with lots of Estate density (and is able to increase that density itself if there isn't an Estate to discard). Crossroads works great with higher green density too. The extra actions from Crossroads means you can also over-invest in Barons. If you can consistently play more than one Baron a turn you should be able to wrap up the game quickly.

Second:
Baron+Farmland
Baron+Estate gives you +$4. A couple of coppers and you now have enough for a Farmland. You can use Farmland to upgrade Estates into Barons, Coppers into Estates and Farmlands into Provinces. You should be able to avoid buying Golds entirely.


Then you put them together, like in this game:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201205/06/game-20120506-130517-23fdc2c9.html

The only purchases I made were Barons, Crossroads, Farmlands and Provinces. It was over in 14 turns on piles, but I could very easily have run down the entire Province pile (More likely three of the four piles - Estates, Crossroads, Barons or Farmlands - would have run out on their own without a concerted effort to end the game on anyone's part).

Open Crossroads/Baron. Play Crossroads first. Discard Estates with Barons when you can, otherwise, gain Estates. Buy Farmlands or Provinces when you get a double Baron-discard.

Fast and fun.

Counters:
Discard Attacks: Discard attacks hurt it a lot - you would be forced to choose between Baron-Estate or Crossroads-Estate-Estate and hope for the best.
Cursers: Curses likely make it much more difficult to line things up. Usually it doesn't matter what you draw with tis deck (Crossroads lets you use your green. Barons let you discard your Estates. If you don't have Estates, Crossroads lets you play multiple Barons, Barons let you gain more Estates, etc.). But curses make a mess of things. Mountebank is especially bad as the extra coppers reduce the deck effectiveness a lot.


Comments welcome.

154

Feedback / Titles

« on: May 06, 2012, 03:55:02 pm »

Just curious (and I'm sure it's somewhere in this forum already, but a quick look and I couldn't find it):

How are the titles under people's names determined on this site? Is it some sort of combination of respect and # of posts? With the more 'credit' getting cards that cost more?

I was unwinding today and thought I would look at the list of what cards were chosen, but couldn't find it anywhere.

Ed "Salvager" Never

155

Game Reports / May 5th Tournament Final Game Comentary

« on: May 06, 2012, 02:11:57 pm »

qmech and I played in the final of Rabid's one-day tournament. The final was to be decided by the first player to win 5 games.

After two hours of playing we were tied 4-4 and I had to push the final game to the next day.
The following day... well you can see below.

Below are all the game logs with commentary. Qmech will follow-up with his own commentary on the games. I think we both learned a TON from playing each other as we both seem to have very different strengths. Most of the games were decided by strategy, and those that weren't were decided by some significantly different tactics.

On the the commentary:

Game 1: Sometimes even Goons need the Green
Key Cards: Goons, Nobles, Inn, Remake, Horse Traders, Duke, Fairgrounds
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120505-152705-d159e2e4.html

Goons is my third-highest win rate given availability, so I was excited to see it here. The first thing I look for on a goons kingdom is whether there are +actions. In this case there were two options: Inn and Nobles. Both are not good options as they do not give you +cards. If the other player also goes Goons (and I assumed qmech would given how good a player he is) then you will be usually looking at 3 card hands. Without draw cards the best you can hope for is +2 actions, play goons, play goons. And your best buy scenario is $4 and 3 buys (but 6 VP if you use them all). If you use the buys then your drown your deck in copper. If you don't then you may run out of piles before you have enough VP to win.

But there were two more options on the board:
(1) Buy a lot of nobles and use them for actions AND draw. If you started with Goons, 2xNobles, you could end up with Goons + 3 cards. If that was Goons, Goons, Silver, Nobles - you could have $6 and 3 buys. Substantially better than $4 and 3 buys.
(2) Horse Traders. If you have a HT in hand when you get hit by Goons, you end up starting your turn with 4 cards - same scenario as #1, and it doesn't require a 2-card combo to get there

qmech saw the Horse Traders defense before I did, but I saw the importance of Nobles before he did (I think). Nobles also gives you that little bit of VP that reduces the need to pick up coppers and/or green and dilute your deck along the way. Which helps in setting up the mega turn (where the mega turn is when you manage somehow to play three Goons in the same turn, and use 4 buys to pick up 12 VP)

There are two other important cards:
(1) Remake: Which let us both dump our estates for silver, and get rid of some early coppers
(2) Inn: Both as a source of actions (given the lack of draw the same as a Noble played for actions most of the time), and as a way to manage your deck if you can pick it up right before re-shuffles (I've never payed so much attention to opponents reshuffles than in this game - unfortunately something you can't see from the logs)

For a full understanding, worth reading the entire log and watching the point totals. qmech pickes up the first goons and hits the first double-goons turn (he hits two more before my first one). He's also forced to buy a little more copper to stay on top (due to my purchases of Nobles). That additional copper (both forced and unforced) reduces his Goons ratio such that there are a few turns where he doesn't get to play one. On one of those turns I manage a Province.

Eventually the game comes down to both of us watching the piles and buying copper to stay far enough ahead (due to the danger of a mega-turn anytime you miss playing a Goons after the other guy had just bought an Inn). The game ends when I buy out three Estates to end on piles.


Series: 1-0 ednever

(Posting as I go along so I don't lose what I've written)

156

Dominion: Guilds Previews / Guilds

« on: May 02, 2012, 01:09:15 pm »

Jumping way over the gun...

I had a (very detailed) dream last night where I was playing Dominion - with the Guilds expansion that doesn't come out until next year. If my dream is true then I have a scoop for everyone.

Here is how the Guild expansion will work:

There is a new card called "guild" (cost $5, action). When you play Guild you get a new junior apprentice. There are a number of different types of apprentice, and a random set are chosen for each game where guild is in play.

Apprentice cards are very weak (ie +1 card +1 action, or +2$, or +1$ +1 buy, ect) - basically what you would think of as a $1 or $1.5 card.

Every time you play a junior apprentice it goes back to the suppy and you choose a senior apprentice to replace him (of the same type - ie +1 card +1 action turns into +1 card +2 actions, or +2$ turns into +$2 +1 buy, etc) and he new card goes in you discard.

When you play the junior apprentice it goes back to the supply and you gain in your discard a journeyman apprentice who is more powerful still.

Then a master apprentice then a full journeyman then a full master.


Since the cards go back to the supply and are only played once each you don't need very many of each type.

It adds a ton of variety to a game and allows for both very powerful cards ( the only way to get a master is to buy a guild, play the guild, play the ja, sa, ja, ma, and fj - 7 times through your deck!), and completely new strategies.

Sorry Donald for giving away the surprise. I learned from Cassandra you shouldn't keep future dreams secret.

Feel free to discuss. 

(true story about the dream - detail was incredible. Only things that were unclear were if guild was a treasure or action, and how many steps to get to master...)

Ed

Ed

157

Dominion Isotropic / Timing out

« on: April 26, 2012, 12:57:38 pm »

Does anyone know what the 'timeout' time is on iso?

It sometimes feels like a long, long time.

I played an online version of carcassone a while back. On that site they had a 1 minute countdown per turn. After 1 minute the other players could choose whether to boot you or not (like on iso).

I understand given the coming official site that no changes are being made to iso, but man, it sometimes feels like you wait a long time when someone starts slow-rolling.

I'm not sure what the optimum time is (sometimes you need a long time for complicated turns), but right now it basically drives me away from playing new or low-ranked people because I'm afraid I'm going to get stuck in a 25 minute game...

I understand there likely isn't a solution, but I figured I would throw it out there.

Ed

158

Game Reports / Comeback: down 41-1 with no goons or alternate VP (except Black Market)...

« on: April 25, 2012, 11:54:23 pm »

This shows why you should never give up.

I was down 41-1 against lemonade (Level 45). He used a great Menagerie strategy using Develop's to get Menageries, fishing villages and young witches to form his hand, and black markets to get all his treasure out of his hand. He was drawing most of his deck and had 5 provinces in 17 turns. Another on turn 20 and 21 (with a duchy in between).

There was no alternate VP in the kingdom and only Monument for alternate VP.

The only reason I didn't resign was that I like to finish games to see how they log out.

The only thing I had going for me was drawing a Chapel early on from the Black Market. That let me build a tight deck where I could draw almost everything with alchemists. In theory I could build out a good engine, but there was no time. By the time I was ready there wasn't enough VP on the board to matter.

I did pick up a Fairgrounds early from the BM, so I thought I could at least get some points on the board by picking up a different BM card every turn. And I picked up a Monument so I could earn a VP/turn with that as well. Then a Bishop came out of the deck. I started using it to trash things for VP, but I had to be careful to keep my variety up for the Fairgrounds - and I didn't have enough cash to buy much each turn.

Then I pick up an Outpost so I can play my whole deck twice/turn.

Then I drew a Vineyards. I started going heavier on actions.

Turn 21:
lemonade buys the second last last province
ednever plays monument, bishop's a jester, buys a market and a menagerie; Plays Outpost: monument, bishop a chapel, duchy

Turn 22:
lemonade stalls and buys an estate; Outpost turn: buys a monument
ednever: Monument, bishop the duchy, buys shanty town, gold; Outpost: Bishop the gold, buys a Vineyard+Jester+Horsetraders

Turn 23:
lemondade buys an Estate
ednever: Monument, Bishop the Horsetraders, Buys a golem, horsetraders, fortune teller; Outpost (Still down by : Monument, Bishop the Fishing village, buys Province, Develop

Final score: 50-46
Fairgrounds: 8 points; Vineyards: 7 points; Province: 6 points; 29 VPs

I've never had a game remotely close to this.

I was completely outplayed, but by not giving up the pieces landed in the right place for a comeback. I still didn't think I was going to win on my last Outpost turn.

Here's the log:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201204/25/game-20120425-200956-83bb0f96.html


Ed

159

Game Reports / Using watchtower to trash Embassy-gifted silvers

« on: April 20, 2012, 11:10:22 pm »

This is the most interesting game I've played in a long long time.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201204/20/game-20120420-195331-64e9c33d.html

nsnyder opened Embassy/nothing on a Colony board and was picking up Platinums by turn 5 and Colonies by turn 8. I started building a very sketchy engine that seemed promising on paper, but in practice took was to long to build.

Basic principle was:
Use Black Market to find the two villages (Border Village, Bazaar)
Use Upgrade to kill coppers
Pick up Goons to slow nsnyder down
Pick up Labs to fly through the deck
Pick up Grand Markets to move through the deck and get extra buys
Use Watchtowers to get my engine components dropped on my deck - and to trash coppers bought with goons

The deck only works if it all comes together: Find the Villages, have enough money to buy them when i find them, get them in the same hand as Multiple goons, have a Watchtower in hand as well, then buy a bunch of stuff and either top-deck or trash it.

In practice it looks like I was dead by turn 10. I think at one point I was down 60-something to around ~10 with two colonies left.

But it eventually all came together. On my second last turn I managed to get ahead 72-71 (to both of our surprise). nsnyder could only pull off a province on his turn and I managed to finish in on mine, played 10 labs, 8 grand markets, a border village, a bazaar and 3 goons. Buying the last colony, a couple of provinces, a duchy and a ton of copper.

Final score 132-79

Moral of the story is stick with your plan and don't give up. I would have bet against me on the start of turn 21, and it ended on turn 22...


Thanks to nsnyder for being a good sport and letting me finish my last big turn.

Ed

Editor's note: No actual edits made, I am just a forum admin noob

160

Dominion General Discussion / A New way to design Kingdoms using Council Room Supply Based Stats

« on: April 19, 2012, 09:32:01 pm »

The thread on a Kingdom design program got me re-thinking of an idea I had a while back for kingdom design.

The ideas going on in the other thread seem to create very artificial kingdoms. They do things like guarantee reactions with attacks or make sure there is a single +buy. But there is something interesting about playing a game with no village; or a game with no +buy; or a game with no defense to attacks. All involve different ways of thinking - and are part of what makes Dominion interesting every time you play.

That said, there is something to playing with cards that provide synergy or anti-synergy to each other. It's exciting when you play a game where Pirate Ship or Develop or Scout was directly responsible for your win. It's also exciting when you manage to line up three or more cards and pull off a fun combo.

One way to do it is have people hand design kingdoms (like the sample kingdoms in the rule books, or the ones designed in the Kingdom Challenge). I have an idea to do it automatically.

The idea is to use the Supply Based Stats in Council Room.

If you choose a card and then select "true" for interactions you can get a list of how that card interacts with every other card in Dominion. If you sort by Change in Quality you get a good proxy for which cards combo best with it. If you reverse that sort order you get a list of cards that are the best 'counters' to your selected card.

My idea is to use these stats to design cool kingdoms. I've tried a few different ways, but here is a simple one:

Pick two cards at random (call them your ALPHA cards). For Alpha card randomly select 2 cards in the top ten "improve quality". Then select two cards in the top ten "lower quality".

Here's an example Kingdom I just created randomly:
Two Alpha cards: Black Market, Mountebank

Two Black Market Quality Enhancers: Fairgrounds, Walled Village
Two Black Market Quality Destroyers: Militia, Tournament
Two Mountebank enhancers: Festival, Highway
Two Mountebank destroyers: Gardens, University

So you are left with:
$2P: University
$3- Black Market
$4- Tournament, Militia, Walled Village, Gardens
$5- Mountebank, Highway, Festival
$6- Fairgrounds

Looks to me like a really interesting board with a lot of different possibilities:
1- Use Black Market and University to pick up a bunch of cards and win with Fairgrounds
2- Use Festival and Highway to get a bunch of cards and win with Gardens
3- Go for a Tournament rush to province. Slow the other guy down with attacks (Militia, Mountebank)
4- University to Festival+Highways for a mega-turn
Plus who knows what will be in the Black Market...


The 2 alphas + 2 synergies + two anti-synergies seems to work well. Another option I looked at that is also fun is 1 alpha and then chain it:

Alpha
Synergy Card 1, Anti-Synergy Card 1
Synergy for Synergy Card 1 + Anti-Synergy for Synergy Card 1
Synergy for Anti-Synergy Card 1 + Anti-Synergy for Anti-Synergy Card 1
...and so on

The key is using Council Room to find the cards that work best and worst together and then throwing them in the same Kingdom. Almost by definition it creates multiple potential ways to win (and potential counters for each way)

I would love the communities thoughts.

Also: If anyone has the programming skill to pull the CR APIs, it would be pretty cool to do it automatically instead of manually (i.e., Press a button and it randomly selects two Alphas and then randomly pulls the synergy/Anti synergy cards to build you a complete kingdom automatically - you would then have to guess/use your own skill to figure out how each card ended up in the kingdom...)

Ed

161

Game Reports / Six Possession Turn

« on: April 19, 2012, 01:14:02 pm »

Maybe I should put this in the "I'm sorry Mr. opponent" thread.

Using Scrying Pools with a Mint and a Smuggler (to pick up Cities) I was quickly able to draw my entire hand. Pawns let me get extra buys which kept it going.

It exploded on turn 15 when I played 6 Possessions.

His deck was strong enough to consistently buy provinces - so I picked up 5 of them over the 6 turns.

I felt bad. His 5/2 opening hurt in getting the chain set up (I don't think he ever managed to buy a possession let alone play one).

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201204/19/game-20120419-100721-0a5c38cc.html


Ed

162

Introductions / Seattle

« on: April 18, 2012, 05:18:31 pm »

Thought I would try a subject different than a salutation.

Based in Seattle. Mid-30s. Former consultant. I now Run a few different online-type businesses (theory- if you ever want help monetizing this site let me know...). Other hobbies include endurance sports (marathons and ironman), and performing stand up comedy.

Discovered dominion when my brother introduced the family last Christmas afternoon. Loved it from the beginning.

Discovered isotropic in early March and the dominion strategy blog soon after. My learning curve for that past 6 weeks has been incredible. The iso tournament has also been great. Focusing on a single expandion every week is really helping me improve (level 26-> 31 pver the last 3-4 weeks). I really appreciate what you guys have built here.

Ed

163

Simulation / Lookout+Jack

« on: April 17, 2012, 06:45:34 pm »

I've been trying to find a strategy that has Jack in it that beats double Jack.

One idea I had was something like Lookout (to kill coppers) + Festival (disappearing money).

It likely won't work (Jack+Festival doesn't), but I figured it was worth a try. Unfortunately the simulation has Lookout kill Estates instead of Coppers.

I've never tried to change the rules on how a card operates. Is there a primer somewhere to help with that? I imagine, as far as changes go,  this would be a very easy change to make.

Ed

164

Game Reports / Governor + Possession makes for fast games...

« on: April 16, 2012, 05:11:42 pm »

It's well known that you don't want to play Militia + Possession. And It's well known that Governor + Militia is pretty great. But I've never seen Governor + Possession... Makes for a fast game - especially with a mirror match.

ednever plays a Governor.
... getting +1 action.
... drawing 3 cards.
... jksmooth draws 1 card.
ednever plays a Governor.
... getting +1 action.
... drawing 3 cards.
... jksmooth draws 1 card.
ednever plays a Governor.
... getting +1 action.
... drawing 3 cards.
... jksmooth draws 1 card.
ednever plays a Governor.
... getting +1 action.
... (ednever reshuffles.)
... drawing 3 cards.
... jksmooth draws 1 card.
ednever plays a Possession.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201204/16/game-20120416-140718-6c3e4888.html

165

Dominion Articles / COMBO: Vineyards / Develop

« on: April 11, 2012, 03:09:44 pm »

This is my first article. Comments and criticisms very much appreciated.
-=-=-=-=-

Develop is a very under-powered card, but it works like magic with Vineyards and the right set of Kingdom cards.

First, Develop can be used to multiply your actions. Turn an action into 2 actions - worth an extra 1/3rd of a VP per Vineyard you end up with.

Second, and more importantly, Develop solves one of the biggest challenges with Vineyards - when to green. You want to be buying lots of actions, but unless you create a deck that draws itself every turn or you buy more than one Potion you have to cycle your deck once for every Vineyard you buy. If you wait to buy that Potion (if there aren't any other Potion cards in the Kingdom) it takes even longer. You might get Vineyards up to 10 VP/card, but you can't buy them fast enough to compete with a treasure heavy deck that just buys Provinces.

Develop solves this problem, by converting your $3 and $5 actions into Potions (and a second action) and - this is key - dropping them on top of your deck. A few develops and you should be able to buy one or more Vineyards a turn going into the end game. If Border Village is in play it's even better - convert a $5 into a Potion and a Border Village, re-pick up the original Action. Next turn: Buy a Vineyard - that is now worth 1/3rd of a VP more with your extra action.

The usual caveats for Develop apply:
1- Don't buy the card on the opening, and only use it on higher value cards (it's not for killing curses and transforming Estates)
2- You obviously need Action cards at all the main price points (even better if there are $6 and $7 as well)
3- Best is when there are combos $2 apart that you can drop ready made on top of your deck (Smithy/Hamlet, Border Village/Smithy, Wharf/Village, Torturer/Fishing Village, Kings Court/Wharf, etc.)

Develop in general is not a very good card, but when you can see the Kingdoms when it works you can have a lot of fun and your opponent won't even see it coming. If you do it right you won't have to buy a Potion until late in the game so your opponent may not even realize you are going for Vineyards. It's entirely likely he chokes on Provinces when he discovers too late you won't be buying any.

Works especially well with:
- Good action cards at all price points
- Cantrips/Villages you don't mind stocking up on
- Cards only good in the early game (i.e., Sea Hag, Moneylender)
- Good copper trashers
- +Buys (to pick up extra actions for Vineyard and for buying Vineyard + an Action in the end game)

Has issues with :
- vs. Strategies that don't choke on Provinces (Goons, Bishop, Alchemist, etc.)


This Kingdom was not ideal for the combo, but it still allowed for a come from behind victory:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120405-105631-f84f5294.html

For more about the two cards stand-alone:
Vineyard: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=310.0
Develop: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1664.0

Ed

166

Game Reports / 3 card combo: Tactician / Salvager / Peddler

« on: April 03, 2012, 08:38:08 pm »

Three-card combos are always a little niche - the odds of seeing three cards in combination is pretty low. Which makes reading about them a lot less interesting than powerful 2-card combos which you will often see again and again.

That said, I couldn't resist showing this one.

Salvager / Peddler is a well-known 2-card combo (I'm sure someone can figure out how to link to it below). I just played a game where it was facilitated massively by Tactician.

I got the combo going by turn 8. Then the double Tactician by turn 11.

Every turn would look like this:
Draw 5 cards (plus more due to Caravan thrown in)
Play Cantrips, holding a single Peddler back
Salvager Peddler
Play Tactician
Buy a Province and two Peddlers

Repeat.

On turn 15 I purchased my 7th province.

I'll bet if I saw the combo faster It would be able to pull off 8 provinces even faster.


Again, 3-card combos are not particularly interesting, but this one sure was fun!

Here's the log:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201204/03/game-20120403-173028-ebd3643e.html


EDIT:
I just played a solitaire game to see how fast I could win it. I discovered it doesn't work without a good cantrip card (like Caravan). I think any cantrip would work, but I tried it with only Ironworks and Conspirator available and it failed pretty badly.

EDIT 2:
Just tried it with a village - and it works even better. The extra actions allow you to salvage more then one peddler a turn. Here's a solo game log:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201204/03/game-20120403-174936-397711c0.html