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Author Topic: Neat and potentially useful card interactions  (Read 504360 times)

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Titandrake

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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #625 on: June 28, 2016, 02:49:12 am »
+6

Forge + Fortress

Needs at least one draw card to really work. Aim for an early Forge, picking up Fortresses along the way. You then use Forge to slim down your deck, ideally picking up a 2nd Forge if you can, and Forge 2 Fortress -> Province repeatedly.

This isn't as convoluted as it sounds, because you can get away with trashing almost all of your treasures once you get a Forge. If Forge doesn't collide with 2 Fortresses, you can often trash 1 Fortress to gain another, or trash Fortress + Silver to gain another Forge, or trash Province to Province.
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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #626 on: July 04, 2016, 12:08:24 am »
+2

bridge troll + alms
You can now alms 5 costers  two turns in a row. This is really good in the opening because bridge troll is light house normally for your economy during the first two turns.
On a five two this is incredibly good because you can get a 4 cost a bridge trolls and two miscellaneous 5 costs after the first two shuffles.
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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #627 on: July 05, 2016, 09:12:04 am »
+2

Port + City Quarter

Not a crazy, broken interaction, but a nice way to quickly build up action density so that City Quarter draws a lot of cards.  Along that same vein, I haven't had a board with this particular two-card combo yet, but I assume that Magpie + City Quarter is also a "neat and potentially useful card interaction."
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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #628 on: July 05, 2016, 09:18:37 am »
+3

Baths + Miser

Miser is okay but you sure do spend a lot of turns not doing anything. Baths makes those turns actually really productive! This applies to any Trasher really but better trashers are more likely to be contested by multiple opponents and the strategy just kind of cancels out then.
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tim17

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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #629 on: July 08, 2016, 05:36:16 pm »
+3

Artificer + Hermit

Get a few artificers and madmen, and gain several provinces in one megaturn.  Artificer both helps you gain the provinces, and also increases your deck size (which you want), doing something useful on the turns where you turn your hermits into madmen.  Since you really need around 25 cards for this to go off, it might be better to not trash your estates with hermit, especially since you're mostly not buying things anyway.  A cheap source of +buy helps you buy extra green at the end of the megaturn if you have cards left in your hand.

This isn't anything amazing, but not terrible.  Without +buy it seems to be roughly on par with Gear BM.
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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #630 on: July 11, 2016, 08:57:26 pm »
+1

Artificer / Menagerie

Discard some cards, topdeck a Menagerie, play your other Menagerie, repeat
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Seprix

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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #631 on: July 11, 2016, 09:06:23 pm »
+1

Sacrifice/Great Hall/Ironworks

A legitimate rush strategy. Gain Great Halls with Ironworks, trash them for a net VP gain with Sacrifice while also drawing cards. A good way to get some points while building up.
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Loschmidt

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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #632 on: July 12, 2016, 01:23:43 am »
+2

Salt the earth + Tomb

Why bother ever buying cards
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eHalcyon

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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #633 on: July 12, 2016, 01:30:38 am »
0

Salt the earth + Tomb

Why bother ever buying cards

Because that's $4 for 2VP, which isn't all that much. :P
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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #634 on: July 12, 2016, 07:43:58 am »
0

Salt the earth + Tomb

Why bother ever buying cards

Because that's $4 for 2VP, which isn't all that much. :P

$4 for 2 VP no cards is pretty good actually. I think it's gonna take awhile for people to get how much better buying static amounts of VP without a card attached can be. Obviously you can't always just skip actual Victory cards but VP is good man
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Seprix

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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #635 on: July 12, 2016, 10:16:33 am »
0

Salt The Earth + Tomb is actually a viable combination.

Open Steward/Salt The Earth on Province. You have +2 VP already.

Assuming good shuffles, you only need to trash 2 Estates with Steward before you get guaranteed $4 every turn. So let's assume you get to Steward trash 2 Estates T3. (for 2 more VP!)

After that, you get to buy Salt The Earth every turn.

The Provinces will be emptied by Turn 10, and you will have 18 VP. Not bad at all. That's the equivalent of 3 provinces in 10 Turns. It is important to note that your opponent will have thinned down as well, netting him some VP as well. But assuming a weaker board with no +buy or gains, this could be a legitimate way to win a game.
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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #636 on: July 12, 2016, 10:20:59 am »
0

I wonder, in a game with Salt the Earth and Tomb, with $8 and 2 buys, if it's better to buy a Province or trash two. I guess that could be a thing for the simulator.

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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #637 on: July 12, 2016, 10:54:03 am »
0

I wonder, in a game with Salt the Earth and Tomb, with $8 and 2 buys, if it's better to buy a Province or trash two. I guess that could be a thing for the simulator.
Depends if you are ahead or not.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #638 on: July 12, 2016, 11:51:18 am »
0

Salt the earth + Tomb

Why bother ever buying cards

Because that's $4 for 2VP, which isn't all that much. :P

$4 for 2 VP no cards is pretty good actually. I think it's gonna take awhile for people to get how much better buying static amounts of VP without a card attached can be. Obviously you can't always just skip actual Victory cards but VP is good man


My point was that it's not nearly good enough to buy nothing else. For example, in Seprix's example an opponent could easily win just by buying an early Province or two, considering they also get bonus VP from thinning and can likewise use Salt the Earth to pile out after.  Both players would have to contest Provinces some to be competitive.
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Asper

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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #639 on: July 12, 2016, 08:30:40 pm »
0

Salt the earth + Tomb

Why bother ever buying cards

Because that's $4 for 2VP, which isn't all that much. :P

Great Hall is $3 for 1VP. And it stinks, usually.
This is a much better deal, though. Not only is the price/VP ratio better, but the main difference is that piling out Great Hall doesn't end the game. If i buy six of these and always trash Province, the Provinces left are worth just as many points. Can i reach $4 seven times before you reach $8 twice? I think yes.

Of course if you recognize this behaviour, there are ways to deal with it, but they aren't as trivial. Buy "hard" VP except Provinces (which will usually mean Duchies, a measly +1VP and a dead card), use your deck that didn't just buy "Salt the Earth" to buy the Event twice (non-trivial to do), or attack your opponent (keeping them from $4 will be a challenge, but cursing sounds nice). Either way, coping with the headstart of the player who does this immediately looks like it will be a challenge.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #640 on: July 12, 2016, 10:44:10 pm »
0

Salt the earth + Tomb

Why bother ever buying cards

Because that's $4 for 2VP, which isn't all that much. :P

Great Hall is $3 for 1VP. And it stinks, usually.
This is a much better deal, though. Not only is the price/VP ratio better, but the main difference is that piling out Great Hall doesn't end the game. If i buy six of these and always trash Province, the Provinces left are worth just as many points. Can i reach $4 seven times before you reach $8 twice? I think yes.

Of course if you recognize this behaviour, there are ways to deal with it, but they aren't as trivial. Buy "hard" VP except Provinces (which will usually mean Duchies, a measly +1VP and a dead card), use your deck that didn't just buy "Salt the Earth" to buy the Event twice (non-trivial to do), or attack your opponent (keeping them from $4 will be a challenge, but cursing sounds nice). Either way, coping with the headstart of the player who does this immediately looks like it will be a challenge.

Someone should take it to the simulators.  I'm still not convinced though.

Can you reach $4 seven times before I reach $8 twice?  It's not so clear cut to me, but I actually lean toward no.  Suppose you start going at it immediately.  You're hitting $4 every 2 turns, so you need 13-14 turns.  That's certainly enough time for me to get 2 Provinces, even with pure Big Money.  You can buy other cards to improve your rate, but that also usually costs a turn for each card you pick up, and the vast majority of economy cards are geared toward helping you get more total coin on a given turn rather than helping you consistently hit $4, so I don't think you get much help there.  (It also violates the part that I was arguing against -- that you don't need to bother ever buying cards.)

But it's even more complicated.  What if I build up a little, buy a Province and maybe a Duchy or two while Salting along side you?  There are lots of ways this could play out.  If there's a trasher on the board, how does that figure into either strategy (with Tomb VP)?

Salt the Earth + Tomb certainly belongs in this thread as a neat interaction, and it's definitely something to watch out for.  I only take issue with the idea that you don't need to buy anything else.  2VP isn't all that much so while the Province-piling is a threat, I think the player who builds up a little can take control pretty easily.
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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #641 on: July 12, 2016, 11:32:07 pm »
+1

Salt the earth + Tomb

Why bother ever buying cards

Because that's $4 for 2VP, which isn't all that much. :P

Great Hall is $3 for 1VP. And it stinks, usually.
This is a much better deal, though. Not only is the price/VP ratio better, but the main difference is that piling out Great Hall doesn't end the game. If i buy six of these and always trash Province, the Provinces left are worth just as many points. Can i reach $4 seven times before you reach $8 twice? I think yes.

Of course if you recognize this behaviour, there are ways to deal with it, but they aren't as trivial. Buy "hard" VP except Provinces (which will usually mean Duchies, a measly +1VP and a dead card), use your deck that didn't just buy "Salt the Earth" to buy the Event twice (non-trivial to do), or attack your opponent (keeping them from $4 will be a challenge, but cursing sounds nice). Either way, coping with the headstart of the player who does this immediately looks like it will be a challenge.

Someone should take it to the simulators.  I'm still not convinced though.

Can you reach $4 seven times before I reach $8 twice?  It's not so clear cut to me, but I actually lean toward no.  Suppose you start going at it immediately.  You're hitting $4 every 2 turns, so you need 13-14 turns.  That's certainly enough time for me to get 2 Provinces, even with pure Big Money.  You can buy other cards to improve your rate, but that also usually costs a turn for each card you pick up, and the vast majority of economy cards are geared toward helping you get more total coin on a given turn rather than helping you consistently hit $4, so I don't think you get much help there.  (It also violates the part that I was arguing against -- that you don't need to bother ever buying cards.)

But it's even more complicated.  What if I build up a little, buy a Province and maybe a Duchy or two while Salting along side you?  There are lots of ways this could play out.  If there's a trasher on the board, how does that figure into either strategy (with Tomb VP)?

Salt the Earth + Tomb certainly belongs in this thread as a neat interaction, and it's definitely something to watch out for.  I only take issue with the idea that you don't need to buy anything else.  2VP isn't all that much so while the Province-piling is a threat, I think the player who builds up a little can take control pretty easily.
Buying silvers on 3 greatly inhances the chance of hitting 4 +
So 9 turns is a reasonable estimate.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #642 on: July 13, 2016, 01:58:20 am »
+1

Buying silvers on 3 greatly inhances the chance of hitting 4 +
So 9 turns is a reasonable estimate.

But that's buying a card, which was deemed unnecessary at the start. ;)

So I tried some super simple simulation via proxy on Dominiate to answer Asper's question: "Can I reach $4 seven times before you reach $8 twice?"

Here's the code for the Salt strategy:

Code: [Select]
{
  name: 'PureSalt'
  requires: ['Great Hall']
  gainPriority: (state, my) ->
    if state.supply.Colony?
      [
      ]
    else
      [
          "Great Hall" if my.coins > 3
          "Silver"
      ]
}

Great Hall is a proxy for Salt the Earth here.  It buys StE with 4+ and Silver otherwise.  Obviously I can't run this thousands of times to see what wins, but I can run single games a few times and check the game log to see when the 7th Great Hall is purchased.

Results from 10 trials:

10
10
9
10
9
8
10
11
10
11

Mean: 9.8
Mode: 10 (5 times)

It hit a speedy 8 turns once, a slow 11 turns twice.

Now here's a naive Smithy bot that rushes Provinces. 

Code: [Select]
{
  name: 'RushSmithy'
  requires: ['Smithy']
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Province"   
    "Gold"
    "Smithy" if my.countInDeck("Smithy") < 2 \
             and my.numCardsInDeck() >= 16
    "Smithy" if my.countInDeck("Smithy") < 1
    "Silver"
  ]
}

When does it buy the second Province?  10 trials:
10
13
8
11
8
8
10
10
8
8

Mean: 9.4
Mode: 8 (5 times)

It hit a speedy 8 turns a whopping 5 times, but a slow 11 turns once and an abysmal 13 turns once. 

It's close, but it looks to me like going for Provinces has an edge here.  Pure Salt is more consistent while the rush can be pretty blistering to 2 Provinces.  However, these are both naive approaches, and I'd guess that the rush has overall more control and flexibility which will give it the edge when played responsively.  OTOH, buying the 2nd Province vs. the 6 StE buys is only achieving an equal score, so that's a point in Salt's favour.

There's lots of strategic wiggle room here for optimization though -- the rush might be using something worse than Smithy, both parties could be buying/trashing Duchy, the Province rush could potentially make use of Salt the Earth as well.

But I think my argument stands.  You shouldn't neglect buying cards even if you intend to Salt all the way down.  You should certainly take Silver at least, and you will probably be better served by buying at least a few other things as well.

Edit: I also just noticed the second Smithy rule in the rush bot that is unlikely to be optimal.  I just edited down the SmithyBM bot and didn't give it much thought, but I'm guessing that getting the second Smithy earlier or not at all may be better (with the current rule, it's probably a waste of time when it happens).
« Last Edit: July 13, 2016, 02:03:00 am by eHalcyon »
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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #643 on: July 13, 2016, 02:04:33 am »
+1

Something to think about, what if the opposing player goes for Duchies against the Salt Rush
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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #644 on: July 13, 2016, 05:08:27 am »
+3

Ran into Scheme + Teacher yesterday, turning Schemes into Alchemists without Potion is pretty fun.
Also, Scheming called Teachers to immediately get another benefit next turn.

Pathfinding + Hamlet is also a nice combo since Hamlets make it easier to buy more Hamlets. Those $2 cards that can give you a buy and can turn into cantrips or Labs are fun. Candlestick Maker into Market and Squire into Bazaar also seems like a pretty sweet deal.
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Seprix

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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #645 on: July 13, 2016, 11:38:26 am »
0

Something to think about, what if the opposing player goes for Duchies against the Salt Rush

I hope we call it the Salt Rush from now on.
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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #646 on: July 13, 2016, 01:53:34 pm »
+4

Man, I'm having lots of fun with Adventures.

Opened Tunnel -> Scouting Party for a turn 2 Gold today (5/6 chance of hitting).
The rest of the board was pretty lame, so Scouting Party with Tunnel was a pretty fun strategy.
There was also Cellar.

Lots of turns of $10+ (because Golds) where you can just do Scouting Party + Province.
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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #647 on: July 13, 2016, 10:50:54 pm »
0

Buying silvers on 3 greatly inhances the chance of hitting 4 +
So 9 turns is a reasonable estimate.

But that's buying a card, which was deemed unnecessary at the start. ;)

So I tried some super simple simulation via proxy on Dominiate to answer Asper's question: "Can I reach $4 seven times before you reach $8 twice?"

Here's the code for the Salt strategy:

Code: [Select]
{
  name: 'PureSalt'
  requires: ['Great Hall']
  gainPriority: (state, my) ->
    if state.supply.Colony?
      [
      ]
    else
      [
          "Great Hall" if my.coins > 3
          "Silver"
      ]
}

Great Hall is a proxy for Salt the Earth here.  It buys StE with 4+ and Silver otherwise.  Obviously I can't run this thousands of times to see what wins, but I can run single games a few times and check the game log to see when the 7th Great Hall is purchased.

Results from 10 trials:

10
10
9
10
9
8
10
11
10
11

Mean: 9.8
Mode: 10 (5 times)

It hit a speedy 8 turns once, a slow 11 turns twice.

Now here's a naive Smithy bot that rushes Provinces. 

Code: [Select]
{
  name: 'RushSmithy'
  requires: ['Smithy']
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Province"   
    "Gold"
    "Smithy" if my.countInDeck("Smithy") < 2 \
             and my.numCardsInDeck() >= 16
    "Smithy" if my.countInDeck("Smithy") < 1
    "Silver"
  ]
}

When does it buy the second Province?  10 trials:
10
13
8
11
8
8
10
10
8
8

Mean: 9.4
Mode: 8 (5 times)

It hit a speedy 8 turns a whopping 5 times, but a slow 11 turns once and an abysmal 13 turns once. 

It's close, but it looks to me like going for Provinces has an edge here.  Pure Salt is more consistent while the rush can be pretty blistering to 2 Provinces.  However, these are both naive approaches, and I'd guess that the rush has overall more control and flexibility which will give it the edge when played responsively.  OTOH, buying the 2nd Province vs. the 6 StE buys is only achieving an equal score, so that's a point in Salt's favour.

There's lots of strategic wiggle room here for optimization though -- the rush might be using something worse than Smithy, both parties could be buying/trashing Duchy, the Province rush could potentially make use of Salt the Earth as well.

But I think my argument stands.  You shouldn't neglect buying cards even if you intend to Salt all the way down.  You should certainly take Silver at least, and you will probably be better served by buying at least a few other things as well.

Edit: I also just noticed the second Smithy rule in the rush bot that is unlikely to be optimal.  I just edited down the SmithyBM bot and didn't give it much thought, but I'm guessing that getting the second Smithy earlier or not at all may be better (with the current rule, it's probably a waste of time when it happens).

Wow!

You know I just said "why bother buying cards" flippantly, like "here's a lazy scenario where you can get points and do nothing". I never expected it to be good, or even okay. This is the "neat and potentially useful" thread not the "dominant strategy" thread.

I am amazed straight up Salt/Silver can beat a naive smithy BM even occasionally. Although wait we're not running the head to head are we, smithyBM would notice the low provinces and start getting Duchy over gold before that. You'd only need a few Duchies for the smithyBM to break it.

This is really interesting, how do you play StE properly? Looks to me that a BM game could use it to accelerate the endgame if they were winning. I want to see a head to head smithyBM game where one buys StE over Duchy and trashes a Province if it'll put it in the lead. Geronimoo's simlulator has the Empires cards up right? Shame i'm at work.....
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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #648 on: July 13, 2016, 11:00:54 pm »
0

The 'Pure Salt' strategy. Salt The Earth just has the best name ever.
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Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions
« Reply #649 on: July 13, 2016, 11:12:35 pm »
0

This is really interesting, how do you play StE properly? Looks to me that a BM game could use it to accelerate the endgame if they were winning. I want to see a head to head smithyBM game where one buys StE over Duchy and trashes a Province if it'll put it in the lead. Geronimoo's simlulator has the Empires cards up right? Shame i'm at work.....

Any strategy can use StE to accelerate the end game. An engine can probably use it better by generating plenty of coin and buys to Salt multiple times, though BM strategies can probably use it sooner to exert pressure. Tomb isn't needed for this.
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