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Author Topic: Groupthink with Noble Brigand  (Read 2388 times)

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philosophyguy

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Groupthink with Noble Brigand
« on: December 04, 2011, 09:51:06 am »
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Last night my in-person group did a 4-player game where everyone fell into Noble Brigand groupthink and bought out the pile, and then the game got paralyzed. In short, all the Noble Brigands prevented anyone from holding onto a Silver long enough to get to 5 coin. We couldn't figure out an alternative strategy to counter the Noble Brigands and wanted to see if anyone here could recommend an alternative:

Crossroads, Develop, Oracle, JoaT, Noble Brigand, Trader, Cartographer, Inn, Stables, Mandarin.

The obvious choice seemed to be JoaT, but we found that a single player doing even double Jack couldn't generate Silver quickly enough to overcoming getting hit by Brigands three times each turn. Develop allowed you to at least get a Silver in your next hand because it put the Silver on top of the deck, but it usually ended up being a one-shot Silver that required drawing the right two card together (Develop + either a Crossroads or NB/Jack/Trader) and wasn't sustainable. I thought about using Stables (to take advantage of the NB's Copper attack) or Mandarin (for non-Silver money), but couldn't hit $5 frequently enough to develop those decks.

Any thoughts on how to counter a group rushing NBs in this set? Or how to overcome the stall when everyone is stealing Silvers back and forth but doesn't get to keep them long enough to play them?
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Thisisnotasmile

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Re: Groupthink with Noble Brigand
« Reply #1 on: December 04, 2011, 10:01:21 am »
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I'd go for Develop $4-costs (Probably NBs, they're not much use if I can't keep the money I steal)-> Stables/Oracle to get out of the stalemate. Stables takes advantage of the Coppers given out by all of the NBs and Oracle gives extra money that can't be touched by NBs. Take Provinces but if it's still hard to get to $8, just run out Duchies and one other pile. Greening doesn't matter too much when you're Oracle-ing for your money.

Oracle is not Oasis. Still, I'd do something with Stables and if I couldn't get to $5 to buy one, I'd develop the NBs to get them.
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Fangz

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Re: Groupthink with Noble Brigand
« Reply #2 on: December 04, 2011, 10:07:44 am »
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Well, if no one can reach $5, grab all the estates and crossroads you can and end the game on piles. Or yeah, develop those noble brigands - mandarin will give you enough money for duchies, at least.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2011, 10:09:51 am by Fangz »
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DsnowMan

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Re: Groupthink with Noble Brigand
« Reply #3 on: December 04, 2011, 10:08:06 am »
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You could take your one silver to make 5, buy a mandarin, top deck the 5, rinse and repeat until you have a few mandarins.

Or, buy a trader, and trash your noble bringand(s) for lots of silver. With enough silvers in your deck, you are bound to hold some of them for a bit. Then you buy a few mandarins, then run out the duchies.
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DG

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Re: Groupthink with Noble Brigand
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2011, 10:32:24 am »
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I still can't see that this is an intractable problem. The develops get rid of the estates. The noble brigands never remove treasure from the game, they only move it around or add copper. Therefore the money in the game is always expanding and the brigands will eventually be lost in the treasure. If your deck is only a develop, noble brigand, and coppers then it still has enough in it to move forward even without any silver. If you all kept buying inns to shuffle around the brigands then perhaps you did miss the opportunity to do anything better and that would leave you with less than 5 to spend.
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philosophyguy

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Re: Groupthink with Noble Brigand
« Reply #5 on: December 04, 2011, 12:39:59 pm »
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It's obviously not intractable in the sense that KC-Goons-Masquerade is intractable, but the game was functionally stalled for a long series of turns. Most games with an early rush have a post-rush period (e.g., after the Ambassador ping-pong is over, then you strengthen your economy and turn to Province buying). This game couldn't turn that corner for an extremely long time. Even though Silvers were just shuffled between players, they were not drawn reliably enough to hit $5 on a consistent basis for at least five turns. That's a really long time in a four-person game.
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