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[Elanchana]

It keeps coming to my attention that alt-VP card-based strategies are much harder to pull off when there are Colonies on the board. Rushes can be beaten if the Colony player gets to green point in good time, slogs can't hang onto the lead as easily, and slushes... well, they're normally half-forced anyway.

What factors do you guys consider in Colony games when there are other green cards around? How much bloating or extra gaining capability is enough to make you want to grab Gardens instead? How strong does the engine need to be to make you go for Vineyards? What kind of Black Market enablers would make you consider Fairgrounds? Etcetera, etcetera. Discuss.

[werothegreat]

Some alt-VP can get more points than Colonies - the one sticking out most in my mind is Feodum with an enabler.  If I see Masterpiece and Feodum on the board, I don't really care if it's a Colony game.

[AdamH]

There's an implicit assumption here that you can't go for multiple types of VP in the same game. Let me remove this burden from you.

It's especially true with Feodum -- if you aren't getting both Provinces and Feoda, you're going to lose to the guy who does.

A Vineyards deck is easily going to be able to pick up both Colonies and Vineyards if it's any good.

As for Gardens, these are usually good on a Colony board when there's no hope of hitting Colonies anyways, the main exceptions I can think of are Counting House and Phil Stone, in these cases you probably want to go for both and it won't be hard to do so.

I know I didn't hit all of the Alt-VP cards, but these are the ones I feel confident enough about to mention and I won't talk out of my you-know-what to fill in the gaps when there are plenty of people around here who know whatt hey're talking about.

[theblankman]

Hitting one or two that Adam didn't:
Fairgrounds: Well, Province often plays a role in Colony games, and a 6-point Fairground is like a cheaper Province (and doesn't end the game when emptied).  So if it's a board on which you're likely to get 6-point Fairground, that'll come into play.  And getting card variety is a little easier than in non-Colony games because Colony games tend to be longer on average. 
Silk Road: Scales with VP cards.  Colony is an extra pile of VP cards.  Silk Road can become a good value at just $4 on some Colony boards. 

Like the ones Adam mentioned, these work in concert with Colony; you'll get both kinds of VP.  So I guess the general rule is that you usually can't ignore Colony, but Colony doesn't mean you should blindly ignore alt-VP either. 

Probably the only Colony games in which I'll ignore Colony entirely are very fast rushes (e.g. IGG) and VP-chip engines: Goons or Bishop with the right support can outrace almost anything once it gets going. 

[DG]

In multiplayer there are some other considerations too. Firstly, there are 12 of each victory card in the supply so there can be a lot of points available.  Secondly, the game can end quickly on empty piles when players compete for key cards, creating an opportunity for alt-vp rushes to succeed. This doesn't actually make any decisions easier though. Your opponents might play in a way that leaves room to win with alt vp but they might as easily play in a way that makes it very difficult indeed.

[AJD]

And getting card variety is a little easier than in non-Colony games because Colony games tend to be longer on average. 

(And because there are more different cards in the supply in Colony games!)

[jomini]

There's an implicit assumption here that you can't go for multiple types of VP in the same game. Let me remove this burden from you.

...

A Vineyards deck is easily going to be able to pick up both Colonies and Vineyards if it's any good.

This seems a bit doubtful. Yes, it should not be that hard to ramp up a Vineyard engine to hit $11 or $22 ... but in the process of stocking your Vineyards up you will have left quite a few piles depleted. Getting Vineyards running often means that you present a nice easy three pile before you can build out to a Plat or two for colonies. This presents as an interesting problem - do you continue to overbuild your engine (which you want to be able to hold off at least 9 stop cards) or do you skip the Pot & greens to get a few colonies ... and enough +buy/gains to 3-pile before Vineyards can hit serious buying power/point totals?


Likewise, if you are using gains without +buy and where your gained cards don't generate (much) cash; it can take a pretty long time to build back to $11. Something like Village/Smithy/Iw/Wwell can go a long ways toward bulking up Vineyards, but until you want to start Iw'ing for cash, you have a hard time hitting $11. Vineyards can actually be a setup where you either rush it or slog out ... without touching the colonies.



As far as the other scaling VP:
Dukes are generally a poor choice. Outside of 3er or higher, they max out at 8. Thus all Dukes/Duchies tops off at 88 points. That is a hard win against provinces/estates, but relatively easy to beat with Col/Prov.

Fairgrounds can be suprisingly competitive given the strength you can build into engines in colony games. Sure there are Bm games, but don't overlook Ruins/Shelters/Travellers/Prizes. Basic colony setup is 19 cards (4 Green, 4 Treasures, Curse, 10 kingdom); 20 happens a lot of ways (Potion, Yw, Hermit, Urchin) so you can easily get to where Fairgrounds become cheap colonies if your engine can support it. Also of note, these tend to be really good when you need to dance down green cards if you cannot safely end it on colonies.

Similarly, Gardens are often not a bad thing to nab over duchies if you start green dancing down that low. Say you end up with 3 Col, 3 Prov, 6 treasures, attack, trasher, +buy and some draw combo that can draw all of that (say 4 Village, 4 Smithy, 2 lab). That is 25 cards and a very lean deck; colony games make a lot of fat deck engines actually viable. Keeping your starting estates (say with Loan as your only trasher) or even all your starting cards (no trashing) is quite doable. 4 VP gardens should be expected in any really close Col/Engine race.


The other big thing to remember about colony games and Alt-VP is that you often get a lot of setups that are dangerously close to a 3-pile. Colonies encourage deep, reliable engines. Iw/Worker's village/Smithy should likely build out to an engine for a Colony board ... but when you both try that you can find yourself looking at an easy 3-pile. This is particularly true if you have curses flowing. Alt-VP can be very handy to eke out a win when piling. Being able to Iw a few points off Gardens can be huge if you are stealing a win after the other guy first buys province.

[nate_w]

So, I'm pretty sure your post came up because of a game (unrated) we played where there was a colony board with lots of gardens enablers, and I said I doubted gardens would do well there because of the presence of colonies.  That's pretty much how the game went. 

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150708/log.5158580ce4b0ee7f08a58edd.1436383755117.txt

But then I played this game today, which I probably played incorrectly, in which there were also cultists.  I thought that with the extra pile easily emptied and swindler to slow them down a bit gardens could work.  I went for it and won.  But in hindsight, had he just ignored cultists and played, say, catacombs big money, I don't think I would have won.  Just too many points in the colony pile that can be gained before the piles run.