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[brokoli]

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Fortune Teller, Baron, Bridge, Bazaar, Cultist, Haggler, Hunting Party, Mandarin, Fairgrounds, King's CourtMy thoughts on this board were, in order :
- OMFG CULTIST !
- OMFG KC-BRIDGE !
- OMFG FAIRGROUNDS WITH RUINS !
- OMFG NO TRASHING !
- But how will I play this huge board ?

Finally, I did that : http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140625/log.516d8322e4b082c74d7c334e.1403732441619.txt
Well, a megaturn with all fairgrounds and 3 provinces is not bad at all*… I'm especially proud of that King's court on Ruined market… but I'm pretty sure overall I misplayed this board a lot.

I realized that I absolutely don't know how to play cultist in this complex engine. Bazaar is expensive and compete with cultist at the price of $5. As junking is usually important, I decided to focus on cultist first then get the bazaar… but it was pretty slow before I could get enough bazaars (still I was fairly lucky to connect my KC with bridge at turn $15). Especially with no sources of trashing.
So my first question is : how do you manage to balance your purchases at early game, when cultist is key but want to make the transition to a big drawing engine ?

The other difficulty in this board, I think, is Hunting party. This card is weaker with ruins… but it's still an important way to increase handsize, and it really helped me at the end of the game. The tactical plays of Hunting party are particularly hard. For example, at turn 19 I decided to play HP first and as a result all my other cultists were discarded.
How would you play Hunting party ?
And finally : without the presence of Fairgrounds, do you thing the KC-Bridge megaturn could compete against some kind of Cultist-Big money ?

Interesting board anyway.

*Well, I still played that stupidly… I should have bought a duchy to maximize my victory points (14 different cards in the deck)

[amalloy]

Do you really want Bazaar at all? My first inclination would be to use KC+KC or KC+HP as my villages; I'm not so sure that having a Bazaar in hand will help very often. I don't like the Bridge opening either: buys will matter eventually, but for now the #1 priority is giving out those ruins and getting my draw going, and I don't have enough money to take advantage of the extra buys.

I'd open Silver/Silver, and then get Cultist on $5-6, KC on $7, a single Bridge on $4 (which will surely happen eventually). On $3 or less, maybe a third Silver depending on how much I'm being junked, but other than that buy nothing: those Silvers are going to be worse than ruins once I get KC. Once I have three or four Cultists, I'll switch my $5 buys to Hunting Party, and pick up another couple Bridges once I can play multiple terminals.

[brokoli]

Actually during a big part of the game I thought Bazaar and cultist would be enough for the draw, and that Hunting party would be too weakened by the ruins. It was wrong obviously.
I think you still want a bazaar or two, for two reasons :
- You may want to keep KC to play it on bridge, or Cultist.
- It's another different card for Fairgrounds.

You are absolutely right about the silver/silver opening, I quickly noticed that playing the game.

[amalloy]

Actually during a big part of the game I thought Bazaar and cultist would be enough for the draw, and that Hunting party would be too weakened by the ruins. It was wrong obviously.
I think you still want a bazaar or two, for two reasons :
- You may want to keep KC to play it on bridge, or Cultist.
- It's another different card for Fairgrounds.

You are absolutely right about the silver/silver opening, I quickly noticed that playing the game.

Hunting Party is "weakened" by the ruins in that you draw some cards you don't want, but...it still nets you +1 card. You're going to have to draw most of your deck anyway to megaturn, so the net number of cards is a big deal. Even if Hunting Party is just a Lab, that's still as good as Bazaar+Cultist, which is like a Lab+Peddler at twice the price. The main problem with Hunting Party is it's twice as hard to line up KC+KC with it compared to Bazaar/Cultist. That's a serious problem, so maybe you're right that you need some other draw. I'm still not convinced Bazaar is the way to go, though - I'd rather just add more Cultists and King them for draw after Kinging my HP for actions. As for Fairgrounds points, you can easily enough pick up a single Bazaar mid-game, or even on your megaturn itself just to bump up the Fairgrounds.

[MarkowKette]

Hmm i think this question is not trivial. As long as you have a chance to turn the ruins split more in your favor Cultist is obviously the correct buy. You should have about 4 at least 3 Cultists at that time or you probably came down on the wrong end of the split and are already very far behind. If you opened with a terminal Bridge, Baron or Fortune Teller probably(but i think Silver/Silver is correct, Bridge is probably worst of those) then i think you want a Bazaar probably not more than one through.You want to hit $7 as soon as possible now and drawn dead by Cultist Bazaar and HP are the same to you. You will hit your $7's by connecting a few Cultists with your Silvers despite having a couple ruins. The additional chance not to draw your other terminal dead with cultist justifies the buy of a bazaar over a HP there for the sake of getting to KC sooner. If you opened double Silver  you want the Hunting Party. Your source of actions will be Kings Court once you get your things together. The spare time for a bridge will come in between buying KC's anyway with all the ruins around and you most likely don't want more than one bridge until you can reliably connect that bridge with a KC. Every other question (Cards to pump up FG etc) wont matter until that point. Cultist BM can't empty a 3rd pile on a lead against the engine if the ruins are split fairly even.