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[Awaclus]

Someone Embargoing the Coppers early enough against this would be hilarious.

(Though, I'm not actually sure what would even qualify as "early enough"...)

I'm not so sure how much that would hurt actually. It seems like this combo would be very resilient to Cursing; you could just get all 10 Curses in your deck and maybe not care.

Well, it's still pretty cost-efficient just for the VP and doesn't take up space in your deck.

[mith]

I mean, if you Embargo them before they buy the first Counting House, they're going to have a harder time making it to $5; but chances of that are pretty low. After, and you maybe add a turn or two to them finding their Counting House and starting the combo (which could be enough depending on the board).

Effective or not, definitely hilarious.

[GendoIkari]

Someone Embargoing the Coppers early enough against this would be hilarious.

(Though, I'm not actually sure what would even qualify as "early enough"...)

I'm not so sure how much that would hurt actually. It seems like this combo would be very resilient to Cursing; you could just get all 10 Curses in your deck and maybe not care.

Well, it's still pretty cost-efficient just for the VP and doesn't take up space in your deck.

Good point, it's like buying a $2 self-Islanding Colony.

[JacquesTheBard]

So... I guess this means we can't put Counting House on the bottom of Qvist's $5 list anymore.

[Awaclus]

So... I guess this means we can't put Counting House on the bottom of Qvist's $5 list anymore.

It has always been better than Tribute.

[ehunt]

So... I guess this means we can't put Counting House on the bottom of Qvist's $5 list anymore.

It has always been better than Tribute.

Tribute is fine! Harvest is clearly the new Counting House.

[vsiewnar]

I played a 6-player game with these two yesterday.

Off the top of my head, other cards in the kingdom were Stonemason, City, Wharf, Miser, Walled Village, Expand, Conspirator, Counting House (mentioned earlier), Sage. The events were Expedition and Traveling Fair (mentioned earlier). It was a Colony/Platinum game.

Two players went for the Counting House/Traveling Fair combo (and claimed the first two spots). Other observations include:

-The City/Wharf/Conspirator engine with Expand and Stonemason was competitive with the Traveling Fair/Counting House strategy. It was also (perhaps, obviously) more flexible.
-Opponents started buying/gaining Counting Houses once they realised the potency of the combo. They could then Expand the Counting Houses in whatever they liked - a typical denial strategy
-The presence of Sage made me more hopeful for the Counting House strategy had the deck been forced to re-shuffle once the Counting Houses were exhausted. Though Sage could find expensive green cards, it could also find Counting Houses and usually after it skips some copper. Typical hands of 5 coin made it easy to top-deck Sages.

These are just some observations I wanted to share with the forum considering the novelty of the combo. It is not meant to be extremely enlightening or insightful.   

[ghostofmars]

The odds to hit $7 before a third shuffle is crucial, and to start with, I will approximate the simple scenario of opening 3/4 gaining 5 coppers in total:

In that case, you have 15 cards including 12 coppers and three estates, distributed on three turns, namely T3, T4, T5.

You missed that you can gain the coppers to the top of the pile. Very frequently, you will gain a Counting House in T1-T3 and get to in T3-T6. (If T3 is first or second reshuffle, depends on the opening).

Here are the approximate chances to get to in T3-T6
2/5 or 5/2: ~81%
3/4: ~73%
4/3: ~42%

The math behind these numbers:
2/5 or 5/2: open CH and 2C, then T3 you will draw CC???. If none of the ? is CH, you will get to (I neglected the possibility that all three of them are E).

3/4: open 2C
a) in T2 you draw 5C, buy CH and T3 will be EC??? which will get to if none of the ? is CH.
b) in T2 you draw 4C1E, buy 3C and a CH in T3. If you do not draw CH in T4 (11/16 chance), you'll get to in T5 or T6.
(again I neglected the possibility to draw all estates)

4/3 is the worst option. After opening with 3C, you still have a 40% chance to draw CCCCE in T2 and T3 and not be able to afford a CH. The other scenarios buy a CH in T2 or T3 and lead to similar chances as the other openings.

[mith]

For 2/5 or 5/2, drawing CCEEE turn 3 doesn't stop you hitting the combo, but you need to top deck exactly 1 of the coppers:

Turn 3: CCEEE, buy CC (top deck 1; 9 cards in deck)
Turn 4: CCCCC, buy CCC (top deck 1; 5 cards in deck)
Turn 5: CCCCH, $14, combo

or

Turn 3: CCEEE, buy CC (top deck 1; 9 cards in deck)
Turn 4: CCCCH, $8, buy HC (top deck; 6 cards in deck)
Turn 5: CCCCH, $12, buy HCCC (top deck; 5 cards in deck)
Turn 6: CCCCH, $15, combo

If you top deck both, you end up with $6 if you draw the Counting House turn 4; if you discard both, you still get to $12 in the second case but with no cards left you trigger a shuffle. I'm pretty sure you can get the combo going by turn 6 as long as you don't draw the Counting House turn 3, regardless of where the Estates land (and can buy all Provinces by turn 10 or 11 depending on where the initial Counting House falls).

[aku_chi]

This thread motivated me to play some Counting House, Travelling Fair solitaire.

My conclusion: this combo is the real deal.  Even when I got one of the worst starts for the combo (4/3, no Counting House until turn 9), I managed to get 55 victory points by turn 12.  And I only needed to buy 4 Counting Houses!

Turn 1: CCCCE - buy 3 copper (on top)
Turn 2: CCCCE - buy 3 copper (in discard)
-- Shuffle --
Turn 3: CCCCE - buy 3 copper (on top)
Turn 4: CCCCC - buy Counting House
Turn 5: CCCCE - buy 3 copper (in discard)
-- Shuffle --
Turn 6: CCCCE - buy 3 copper (in discard)
Turn 7: CCCCC - buy 3 copper (in discard)
Turn 8: CCCCE - buy 3 copper (in discard)
Turn 9: HCCCE - buy Counting House + 2 Provinces (on top)
Turn 10: HCCPP - buy Counting House + Copper + 2 Provinces (on top)
Turn 11: HCCPP - buy Counting House + 2 Copper + 2 Provinces (on top)
Turn 12: HCCPP - buy 2 Provinces + 1 Duchy + 1 Estate

The power of conditionally top-decking cards adds a lot of reliability to the combo.  Early on, you want to keep track of where your Estates are to decide if it's worth top-decking for (a chance at) a Counting House or discarding to accelerate to your reshuffle.  Once you have purchased a Counting House, you want to trigger a reshuffle with 4 cards in your deck (to minimize the chance of a wasted Counting House).  When you're searching for your Counting House you only want to top-deck to ensure that you can draw Counting House without triggering a reshuffle.  Once you start the combo, I think you always want to top-deck everything, to provide some buffer cards in your deck so you can go double-Province earlier.

Great find, gamesou!

[Haddock]

I played this today IRL in 3p.  The other two went for a strongish engine involving Hunting Grounds, Throne Room, Lost Arts and Shanty Town with a payload involving Swamp Hag (admittedly no trashing, which doesn't help the engine, but meh).

I took 15 of the 20 Curses, I think I misplayed it pretty badly (my first time with it), but still won by at least 30 points.  That puts a tick next to this combo in my book.

[TheEmerged]

So, pardon the relative newbie with a likely newbie question.

I finally had a chance to ply this solitaire a few times to try and get a handle on it.  After some false starts I finally got (something resembling) the hang of it, and on turn 14 it purchased 3 provinces, including #9.  This cost me 8 of the Counting Houses (CH) and would have emptied the copper deck in the 3-4 player games I typically play with the rest of the group.

Now for this test I was ignoring the existence of anything else (like Duchies), so obviously I want to go back and include them.  The reason I came here first is what I noticed when I counted the cards in the deck afterwards: it came in @ 65.  That's more than the Garden Threshold - the point at which a Garden is worth 6 VP.  I probably notice that because we got in the habit of always having a 4th VP and Treasure on the table (Prosperity was our first expansion, I had it before most of the group played the first time) so I probably see the alt-VP cards more often.

Has anyone else given any thought \ tests to how this interaction changes if Gardens is in the kingdom as well?

==============

Feel free to check my math.  I edited out some notes where I'm trying to figure out when to topdeck versus discard (it's rather obvious you always discard once this gets going but the early turns still aren't clear to me).


1. 3 coin = 2 copper, discard.
2. 4 coin = 3 copper, top deck.
3. 5 coin = First CH.  SHUFFLE.  16 cards in deck.
4. 4 coin + CH (unlucky) = 3 coin, discard.
5. 3 coin = 2 copper, top deck.
6. 5 coin = Second CH (a bit of luck, I think).  19 cards in deck.
7. 4 coin= 3 copper, discard.
8. 4 coin = 3 copper, discard.
9. 3 coin + both CH, resulting in 17 coin = our 13-coin engine starts.
   ○ TF x6, put 2 copper in discard and the 13-coin engine on top.
10. 4 coin + CH, resulting in 23 copper = 1st Province.
11. 4 coin + CH, resulting in 27 copper = 2nd Province + 2 copper
12. 4 coin + CH, resulting in 33 copper = 3rd & 4th Provinces
13. 4 coin + 6th CH, resulting in 37 copper = 5th & 6th Provinces + 2 copper
14. 4 coin + 7th CH, resulting in 43 copper = (8th CH) = 7th-9th Provinces

[mee]

I think an easy way to stop this would be for the other player to buy counting houses especially if there is a tfb or any strong trashing  it seems in order for this to work you need to be able to buy lots of counting houses more than 6

[Awaclus]

I think an easy way to stop this would be for the other player to buy counting houses especially if there is a tfb or any strong trashing  it seems in order for this to work you need to be able to buy lots of counting houses more than 6

You basically have to be uncontested in Counting Houses, though. I bought 9 of them in order to pull it off.

Well, even if you're contested in Counting Houses, that just means that it'll suck for both players so it's still fine.

[markusin]

I think an easy way to stop this would be for the other player to buy counting houses especially if there is a tfb or any strong trashing  it seems in order for this to work you need to be able to buy lots of counting houses more than 6

You basically have to be uncontested in Counting Houses, though. I bought 9 of them in order to pull it off.

Well, even if you're contested in Counting Houses, that just means that it'll suck for both players so it's still fine.

Same sort of thing with Hermit/Market Square/Madman. You're bound to lose if you don't go for it and your opponent does. Maybe in 3+p, the one not going for the Combo can eek out a win somehow.

[aku_chi]

I think an easy way to stop this would be for the other player to buy counting houses especially if there is a tfb or any strong trashing  it seems in order for this to work you need to be able to buy lots of counting houses more than 6

Not necessarily.  It depends on when you draw your first Counting House.  In the solitaire game I logged above, I got 55 victory points by turn 12 with four Counting Houses.  It would have been very difficult (and counterproductive) for an opponent to grab 7+ Counting Houses in that time, unless they were employing this strategy themselves.

Feel free to check my math.  I edited out some notes where I'm trying to figure out when to topdeck versus discard (it's rather obvious you always discard once this gets going but the early turns still aren't clear to me).

1. 3 coin = 2 copper, discard.
2. 4 coin = 3 copper, top deck.
3. 5 coin = First CH.  SHUFFLE.  16 cards in deck.
4. 4 coin + CH (unlucky) = 3 coin, discard.
5. 3 coin = 2 copper, top deck.
6. 5 coin = Second CH (a bit of luck, I think).  19 cards in deck.
7. 4 coin= 3 copper, discard.
8. 4 coin = 3 copper, discard.
9. 3 coin + both CH, resulting in 17 coin = our 13-coin engine starts.
   ○ TF x6, put 2 copper in discard and the 13-coin engine on top.
10. 4 coin + CH, resulting in 23 copper = 1st Province.
11. 4 coin + CH, resulting in 27 copper = 2nd Province + 2 copper
12. 4 coin + CH, resulting in 33 copper = 3rd & 4th Provinces
13. 4 coin + 6th CH, resulting in 37 copper = 5th & 6th Provinces + 2 copper
14. 4 coin + 7th CH, resulting in 43 copper = (8th CH) = 7th-9th Provinces

TheEmerged, I would have played out the end slightly differently.  If I follow the log correctly, you have 7 cards in your deck on turn 9.  I would start by buying a Province immediately and got to 8 Provinces on turn 13.
9. 3 coin + both CH, resulting in 17 coin = buy Counting House, Province, Copper, top-deck. <- 10 cards in deck
10. 3 coin + CH, resulting in 20 copper = buy Counting House, Province, 2 Coppers, top-deck <- 9 cards in deck
11. 3 coin + CH, resulting in 23 copper = buy Counting House, Province, 4 Coppers, top-deck <- 10 cards in deck
12. 4 coin + CH, resulting in 27 copper = buy Counting House, 2 Provinces, Copper, top-deck <- 9 cards in deck
13. 1 coin + CH, resulting in 28 copper = buy 3 Provinces

It might have been worthwhile to discard some of the gained coppers on turns 9 or 10, to liberate more of the coppers in your deck.

As for buying the second Counting House pre-combo, I have mixed feelings.  On the upside, it eliminates the chance of drawing your only Counting House with an empty discard pile and it will result in the combo beginning earlier in the third shuffle (on average).  On the other side, it's almost impossible to take advantage of a Counting House in your deck once you begin the combo, and the opportunity cost is 3 coppers in your deck and one more Counting House in the pile.  I can't decide if it makes more or less sense to get a second pre-combo Counting House if they are contested.

[J Reggie]

I'm sort of disappointed that the OP doesn't have like 55 +1s.

Well this actually happened

[faust]

Just had this come up with Banquet. 8 Provinces in 9 turns... that was pretty nice.

[crj]

The reason I came here first is what I noticed when I counted the cards in the deck afterwards: it came in @ 65.  That's more than the Garden Threshold - the point at which a Garden is worth 6 VP.

The "Garden threshold" is lower with Travelling Fair in the kingdom, though.

To keep the maths simple, I'll ignore the fact you don't need a Travelling Fair for the first card you buy each turn..

So: a Province costs $10 and gives you 6VP, i.e. 0.6VP/coin spent; Gardens only needs to be worth 4VP in order to give you 0.66VP/coin if they cost $6 each.


But if the kingdom contains Counting House, Travelling Fair and Gardens, I bet the killer strategy is to keep buying Copper for as long as possible then three-pile Copper, Gardens and something else.

Starting with your example for the early rounds of the game, assuming two players and assuming the remaining 6 Copper from your draw pile gradually filters into your discard pile, we begin turn 9 with 23 Copper in your deck, 30 in the supply; 2CH in your deck, 8 in the supply:

• Turn 9: $17; Buy CH and 6 Copper
• Turn 10: $23; Buy CH and 9 Copper
• Turn 11: $34; Buy CH and 14 Copper
• Turn 12: $50; Buy CH, final Copper, 7 Gardens
• Turn 13: $51; Buy final Gardens, all 8 Estate, 3 Province

Final deck: 11 Estate, 53 Copper, 6 CH, 8 Gardens, 3 Province = 81 cards.

Result: 93VP!