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[shark_bait]

Code: [Select]

Beggar, Cellar, Crossroads, Apothecary, Market Square, Masquerade, Urchin, Coppersmith, Mystic, Farmland, Shelters
Includes Shelters

Despite helping judge the Kingdom's for Gokodom I couldn't help but design a few myself even though they wouldn't be eligible.  This was my favorite that I designed.  The question I ask is how would you play it?

I have ideas for multiple strategies of varying complexity.  I will refrain from posting them until later as to not bias other comments.

[Davio]

Open Masq/Potion and go for some Apothecary/Mystic/Coppersmith thing with Market Square for buys?

It seems you have designed this with Copper-stuffing in mind, but I'm not sure I would use Beggar.

[shark_bait]

Copper stuffing is indeed one of the things I had in mind.  But Beggar was actually chosen for a different reason. 

[silverspawn]

pretty much like davio said, except i would also add cellar. i don' tthink you need beggar, you onlly want additional coppers once you have lots of apothecaries, and at that point you can easily just buy them.

merc seems entierly skippable. 3 card hands will not be that big of a deal with apothecary/cellar and you don't have many cards that you want to get rid of.

[markusin]

pretty much like davio said, except i would also add cellar. i don' tthink you need beggar, you onlly want additional coppers once you have lots of apothecaries, and at that point you can easily just buy them.

merc seems entierly skippable. 3 card hands will not be that big of a deal with apothecary/cellar and you don't have many cards that you want to get rid of.

Not to mention, the merc deck has to worry about opposing Masquerades once the deck becomes very trimmed.

[shark_bait]

Urchin/Mercenary was not put in just to be completely avoidable.  There is certainly a cost to going for them but they can be used very powerfully in this kingdom.

[markusin]

Urchin/Mercenary was not put in just to be completely avoidable.  There is certainly a cost to going for them but they can be used very powerfully in this kingdom.

Well, they sure would work well with Beggar. There aren't many terminals you need here, so Crossroads actions are available to play Beggar then trash 2 gained Copper with merc.

[2.71828.....]

As I was thinking of what I would do, I kept coming up with different ideas. 

At first, I was all about apothecary/celler/crossroads/coppersmith.  Then I realized that mercenary wouldnt really hurt that much.  But do you want to use early buys to get to that mercenary?

Anyone want to play this kingdom with me?  I will be in Outpost.

[shark_bait]

Urchin/Mercenary was not put in just to be completely avoidable.  There is certainly a cost to going for them but they can be used very powerfully in this kingdom.

Well, they sure would work well with Beggar. There aren't many terminals you need here, so Crossroads actions are available to play Beggar then trash 2 gained Copper with merc.

That's half of it.  Second half would be the Masquerade pass, essentially giving your opponent a 2-Card hand.  Discard into Pass can be brutal when played consistently.

[Polk5440]

Urchin/Mercenary was not put in just to be completely avoidable.  There is certainly a cost to going for them but they can be used very powerfully in this kingdom.

Well, they sure would work well with Beggar. There aren't many terminals you need here, so Crossroads actions are available to play Beggar then trash 2 gained Copper with merc.

That's half of it.  Second half would be the Masquerade pass, essentially giving your opponent a 2-Card hand.  Discard into Pass can be brutal when played consistently.

I want to see this demonstrated. After playing two experimental games with Mic Qsenoch, I ended up in my thinking about where Davio is. Potion-Masq into Apothecary, Mystic, Coppersmith; maybe a Market Square. Tactics with Farmland.

I am just not seeing Mercenary or Beggar being useful. I think they are a trap.

My second choice for a competing strategy would be Masq-Big Money (with maybe one market square). In my second test game I go Masq-MS and went overboard on the MS. Mic Q suggested it would have been faster without them.

Not sure how useful the games are to look at, but here they are:

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20140427/log.50ba29b8e4b015dcbac5f45a.1398614683887.txt

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20140427/log.50ba29b8e4b015dcbac5f45a.1398615907633.txt

[shark_bait]

In Outpost for the next 15ish minutes, would love to test this out with someone.

[terminalCopper]

Beggar plus Mercenary leads to the same situation you would get playing a milita and a moat that gains a copper to your Hand. Not that great ... ok, maybe decent with masq.

[shark_bait]

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140519/log.50ea2963e4b0429cfe091cec.1400519478609.txt

Sample game that wasn't finished due to time constraints.  The Discard to Pass combo is set up by Turn 10.  My opponent went for Masquerade/Potion into Apothecary with Market Square activation for Gold.  He was completely shut down.  He probably could have played better but this is a tough combo to protect yourself from.

The key for setting this up is the buy order.  If you go double Urchin for Mercenaries and then Apothecary/Market Square/Masquerade you will fall behind due to lack of cycling.  Additionally you really want to keep a fair amount of Copper in your deck.  So you don't really want the Mercenary until you can grab the Beggar to keep yourself with enough Copper buying power.  Throw in a Coppersmith for payload and Cellar for smoothing and with a few Mystics and you have a great deck.

[2.71828.....]

I tested this kingdom a few times earlier today and this is what I learned:

game 1:  Basically that this can be very fast.  My opponent does not play very well, with some weird sort of masq-BM, with a late potion.  Regardless, I was one coin away from being able to have the buying power for 8 provinces in 13 turns.  I opened celler/potion, getting apothecary/market square t3/t4.  From there it just rolled, picking up a second potion and having 8 apothecaries by the end of t9.

game 2:  A much better opponent.  I was forced into the celler/potion here because of a 5/2, and Breezy went masq/potion.  I got my second potion before a market square here, which i think is a mistake.  We end up even on the apothecary split, but I am starting to run into some trouble when, after 10 turns I have 3 potions, necro, and OE due to his masq passing.  So I purchase a double urchin t11 which I am able to start playing on t13.  I think Breezy would have won this one had he just gone coppersmith, but he got distracted by the market square when-you-trash-from-your-hand benefit, gained some golds, and really slowed down his deck and prevented his apothecaries to be really useful.  I end up with 5 provinces in 16 turns, which is enough to win.

game 3: accidentally played this one with 3 estates, which makes a huge difference because of the lack of villages.  I again open celler/potion to his masq/potion.  I get my market square before my second potion, and a little due to his bad luck getting EEECP t3 I am able to win the apothecary split 7-3.  He is also unable to utilize his masquerade as well, and I am able to get 4 provinces by t12 and slog it out for 6 provinces after 16.  One variance I added here was utilizing begger to gain coppers.

Overall thoughts:  I would like to play this game opening masq/potion just to see how different it is, but I really like my celler/potion.  celler provides better (or just as good) cycling as masquerade, it is not a terminal (important), and is much more useful late game.  I really liked how I was able to clean up a bit mid-game in my second game purchasing urchin-urchin then quickly utilizing the mercenary.  Overall, the uncontested engine is a clear win, and I think that apothecary/celler/market square/coppersmith is the backbone of a winning strategy (with a crossroads for actions).

[2.71828.....]

My opponent went for Masquerade/Potion into Apothecary with Market Square activation for Gold. 

Market Square for gold is definitely a trap.  Playing a single coppersmith on 7 coppers gets you the coin value of 2 golds (and a bit) and will not clog up your apothecaries.

[shark_bait]

I guess the question is how does the Apothecary/Coppersmith/Market Square/Cellar strategy compare to the same strategy that adds Mercenary discard into Masquerade pass (sustained via Beggar).  Obviously you will be a bit slower to build, but how much of a lead can the non attack player get and can they still obtain enough green despite the attack?

[shark_bait]

http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/logprettifier.html?20140516/log.50ea2963e4b0429cfe091cec.1400274236722.txt

I cleared the Provinces in 13 turns (Lord Bottingham got 2 of them) in a practice game.  I agree with you that it is exceptionally fast.  It's just a question of how the engine fairs when being limited to 2-Card hands instead of 5-Card hands.

[2.71828.....]

I guess the question is how does the Apothecary/Coppersmith/Market Square/Cellar strategy compare to the same strategy that adds Mercenary discard into Masquerade pass (sustained via Beggar).  Obviously you will be a bit slower to build, but how much of a lead can the non attack player get and can they still obtain enough green despite the attack?

I was forced into a celler/potion by a 5-2, but I think begger/mercenary/masq/coppersmith is definitely the way to go.  It did not really slow me down at all (6 provinces in 16 turns), while crippling my opponent.

log

[Polk5440]

I guess the question is how does the Apothecary/Coppersmith/Market Square/Cellar strategy compare to the same strategy that adds Mercenary discard into Masquerade pass (sustained via Beggar).  Obviously you will be a bit slower to build, but how much of a lead can the non attack player get and can they still obtain enough green despite the attack?

I was forced into a celler/potion by a 5-2, but I think begger/mercenary/masq/coppersmith is definitely the way to go.  It did not really slow me down at all (6 provinces in 16 turns), while crippling my opponent.

log

Ok. I get it.

I thought for some reason the Mercenary strategy was going to be at the expense of Apothecaries (at the extreme, a no potion strategy). It makes more sense grabbing some Apothecaries first then setting it up Mercenary mid game. If both players go for Apothecary, the game is not going to end in 12 turns because the engine starts to get bogged down quickly when the pieces are more contested so there is time for the attack to hurt.