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Author Topic: Cave - secret vp card  (Read 10138 times)

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scott_pilgrim

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Re: Cave - secret vp card
« Reply #25 on: January 07, 2014, 05:34:53 pm »
0

With three caves, you'll be getting cards onto your mat three times as quickly, and then scoring three times as many points per card on the mat, so that's 9 times as many points. 
That's not true, because Cave is terminal, and decreases handsize. Without villages you can't put away more than one card per turn, and without villages+draw you can't put away more than two per turn.

There is no rule against quadratic payoffs - see Bridge, Goons and Merchant Guild - but notice that for each of them, it's hard to play a lot of them, because they don't give either +actions or +cards. Madman has exponential payoff, but that's OK because it's hard to get a lot of them in the first place.

Yes, and I actually mentioned terminal collision later in my post.  But there is a huge difference between Cave and the cards you mention (Bridge, Goons, Merchant Guild), because the latter only care about how many copies of themselves you can get into play on a particular turn.  Cave wants you to play them as often as possible over the course of the game, and then each copy of it scores based on how many times you played it over the course of the game.  And on boards where strong engine possibilities are not available, you will do that by saturating your deck with as many Caves as possible.  If Cave is viable on these boards, then it is a dominant monolithic strategy, since you must contest them in order to make sure your opponent doesn't crush you with all 8 of them.  If it is not viable on these boards, then it's just a very weak card overall, since the only way to make it worthwhile is to build an engine that can play a lot of them, which will only be possible in a minority of games, and probably most of the time slower than just building up to Provinces.  Bridge is okay because it's still reasonable to get it in a BM deck (usually not great, but not completely awful), since playing one Bridge is okay.  Cave is a bad card because if you want some of them, then you want all of them.  This is not true of Bridge, Goons, and Merchant Guild, since these cards do not directly reward you for having many copies of them in your deck.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Cave - secret vp card
« Reply #26 on: January 07, 2014, 05:47:09 pm »
+1

With three caves, you'll be getting cards onto your mat three times as quickly, and then scoring three times as many points per card on the mat, so that's 9 times as many points. 
That's not true, because Cave is terminal, and decreases handsize. Without villages you can't put away more than one card per turn, and without villages+draw you can't put away more than two per turn.

There is no rule against quadratic payoffs - see Bridge, Goons and Merchant Guild - but notice that for each of them, it's hard to play a lot of them, because they don't give either +actions or +cards. Madman has exponential payoff, but that's OK because it's hard to get a lot of them in the first place.

Yes, and I actually mentioned terminal collision later in my post.  But there is a huge difference between Cave and the cards you mention (Bridge, Goons, Merchant Guild), because the latter only care about how many copies of themselves you can get into play on a particular turn.  Cave wants you to play them as often as possible over the course of the game, and then each copy of it scores based on how many times you played it over the course of the game.  And on boards where strong engine possibilities are not available, you will do that by saturating your deck with as many Caves as possible.  If Cave is viable on these boards, then it is a dominant monolithic strategy, since you must contest them in order to make sure your opponent doesn't crush you with all 8 of them.  If it is not viable on these boards, then it's just a very weak card overall, since the only way to make it worthwhile is to build an engine that can play a lot of them, which will only be possible in a minority of games, and probably most of the time slower than just building up to Provinces.  Bridge is okay because it's still reasonable to get it in a BM deck (usually not great, but not completely awful), since playing one Bridge is okay.  Cave is a bad card because if you want some of them, then you want all of them.  This is not true of Bridge, Goons, and Merchant Guild, since these cards do not directly reward you for having many copies of them in your deck.

Agreed. Goons is only quadratic if you get 2 in play at the same time. Cave is quadratic unless they collide (as long as you can play them both during the same shuffle).
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Warfreak2

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Re: Cave - secret vp card
« Reply #27 on: January 07, 2014, 06:17:08 pm »
+1

It's not enough to just play Cave every turn, you need to just-as-reliably buy expensive cards to set aside. That said, a Golden deck (Gold, Gold, Silver, Cave, Cave/Province) does produce the quadratic payoff - setting aside a Cave (later, Province) every turn.

This makes me think that the card must care about uniques. If each Province on the mat makes Cave worth another ~1VP then the Golden deck (with 3 more Caves on the mat) produces ~10VP/turn. That's too much, it would almost always be the optimal strategy. (If a Province on the mat isn't worth even 1VP, then Cave just looks pointless and weak.) i.e. the first Province on the mat has to be worth it, but the duplicates can't count.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2014, 06:19:17 pm by Warfreak2 »
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If the only engine on the board is Procession->Conspirator, I will play it.

LibraryAdventurer

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Re: Cave - secret vp card
« Reply #28 on: January 07, 2014, 06:28:26 pm »
0

How about this:
Quote
Cave
Action - Victory  $6

Place a card from your hand face down on the cave mat.
Worth 1vp for every $4 worth of treasure cards on your cave mat.
--
At the end of the game count the worth of the treasure cards on your cave mat (not cost), then return all of the cards on the mat to your deck.
It's still useful for getting victory cards out of your deck, but victory cards don't add to its score.  Getting rid of 4 coppers only gets you 1 point per cave, so you have to sacrifice better treasure cards to get a good score with the caves.  Buying one near the end of the game would be no good, but getting just one near the beginning would still be worthwhile. 4 coppers and 4 silvers makes it worth 3 VP. It wouldn't be hard to do that in the course of the game with one cave, but to get it significantly better you'd have to sacrifice better treasure cards.  Buying more copper to put in the cave would be too slow.
This fits the 'cave' theme well too.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2014, 06:52:38 pm by LibraryAdventurer »
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Warfreak2

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Re: Cave - secret vp card
« Reply #29 on: January 07, 2014, 06:42:00 pm »
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And what if I put a Bank on there, or a Philosopher's Stone?
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If the only engine on the board is Procession->Conspirator, I will play it.

LibraryAdventurer

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Re: Cave - secret vp card
« Reply #30 on: January 07, 2014, 06:50:08 pm »
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Just add this: "For purposes of this card, $? = $1." (or $2)
My treasure version should still maybe cost $6 since it isn't hard to get it worth the same as a duchy, plus it can help your deck.
(Edited my previous post to change the cost.)
« Last Edit: January 07, 2014, 07:01:35 pm by LibraryAdventurer »
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Holger

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Re: Cave - secret vp card
« Reply #31 on: January 08, 2014, 11:09:35 am »
0

To get around the ruins problem, you could maybe use "priced" instead of "named"? Might be too hard to make it worth three then.

Yes, this is probably the best way to make it non-OP with Shelters or Ruins. I think the following could work:

Quote
Cave - Action Victory - $5

Place a card from your hand face down on the cave mat.
Worth 1 VP for every 2 differently priced cards on your cave mat.
--
At the end of the game count the number of differently priced cards on your cave mat, then return all of the cards on the mat to your deck.

It will easily give 2 VP if you buy it early enough (by placing Copper, Estate/Shelter, Silver, Cave there), and usually not more than 3-4 VP, so it seems reasonable compared to e.g. Nobles (Cave's setting-aside alone would probably be a $2-$3 card, while Nobles without the VPs is a strong $4).
And the anti-synergy between pseudo-trashing and greening allows for $5 instead of $6, I think...
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