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Author Topic: Dark ages combos?  (Read 5635 times)

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NateDominion

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Dark ages combos?
« on: July 27, 2015, 07:47:00 am »
+2

So I was playing with strictly dark ages cards last night and went the market square/ hermit route. My opponent crushed me with getting Feodums and hermits ( buying out the pile and trashing some with hermits, and buying silver when he had 3 in his hand.
any fun strategies to counter that?

Cheers,
Nate
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AdamH

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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #1 on: July 27, 2015, 07:59:25 am »
+6

My spidey senses tingled when you said this, because Hermit/Market Square is much more powerful than Hermit/Feodum. When I was first trying out Hermit/Market Square unmirrored, I found myself losing to some pretty awful strategies, most of them trying to contest Hermits early.

The reason H/MS is so good is because it's so fast, and I found that I was not play H/MS anywhere near correctly, and it was way too slow. I wanted to post "what do you do if your opponent goes for Curses? Sure you can trash them with Hermit but the pile runs out and that makes the game over before you can go off" but what I've found since then is that if the Curses are running out and you haven't gone off, you're doing something seriously wrong.

For me, it was not turning my Hermits into Madmen quickly enough. I'd say a good rule to follow is that you should always get a Madman on your turn unless it means losing the Hermit split, then you have to think more carefully about it. If you aren't able to go off by turn 10, then you are either hideously unlucky (YMYOSL) or you've done something wrong in your execution -- this combo is very strange to actually play and can be affected by lots of other kingdom cards in strange ways.

A lot of these ways come up in mirrors, or especially when you're contested on Hermits -- many times you want to just make all of your Hermits into Madmen if there's some other trasher on the board, but this mostly matters in mirrors.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #2 on: July 27, 2015, 08:25:21 am »
0

How much would it hurt the combo if Hermits were exchanged for Madmen instead of being trashed? With the stipulation that you can't buy anything still in place.
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AdamH

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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2015, 08:30:55 am »
+1

How much would it hurt the combo if Hermits were exchanged for Madmen instead of being trashed? With the stipulation that you can't buy anything still in place.

I would imagine that would help the combo quite a bit. Then it becomes a race for Madmen instead of a race for Hermits.
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #4 on: July 27, 2015, 08:33:14 am »
+3

I think Hermit/Feodum could easily beat Hermit/Market Square if it gets 5-6 of the Hermits. So I'd say prioritize getting Hermits.
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AdamH

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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #5 on: July 27, 2015, 08:47:10 am »
+1

I think Hermit/Feodum could easily beat Hermit/Market Square if it gets 5-6 of the Hermits. So I'd say prioritize getting Hermits.

I'd say this is affected a lot by the presence of other trashing in the kingdom, but yeah with only 4 Hermits, H/MS isn't so hot.
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werothegreat

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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #6 on: July 27, 2015, 09:13:16 am »
+2

H/MS came up in my last league match last night.  I botched it rather spectacularly.
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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #7 on: July 27, 2015, 10:36:25 am »
0

I know how to play H/MS quite well, and you can too if you look it up on the Wiki! :D

You need to get 7 or 9 Hermits to kick off quickly. You want 2 Hermits left alive and something to trash so your MS can gain golds.
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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #8 on: July 27, 2015, 11:03:21 am »
0

I know how to play H/MS quite well, and you can too if you look it up on the Wiki! :D

You need to get 7 or 9 Hermits to kick off quickly. You want 2 Hermits left alive and something to trash so your MS can gain golds.

The number of Hermits you leave alive depends on the Hermits you can acquire (the formula is hermits alive = (hermits acquired - 3)/2). You don't necessarily need more than 5 Hermits, but getting 7 instead of 5 helps a ton. Getting 9 instead of 7 is a waste of time.
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Seprix

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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #9 on: July 27, 2015, 11:05:52 am »
0

I know how to play H/MS quite well, and you can too if you look it up on the Wiki! :D

You need to get 7 or 9 Hermits to kick off quickly. You want 2 Hermits left alive and something to trash so your MS can gain golds.

The number of Hermits you leave alive depends on the Hermits you can acquire (the formula is hermits alive = (hermits acquired - 3)/2). You don't necessarily need more than 5 Hermits, but getting 7 instead of 5 helps a ton. Getting 9 instead of 7 is a waste of time.

I suppose. I can never piledrive all 8 provinces when I have only 7 Hermits, though I guess having 6 Provinces is already crazy strong.
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AdamH

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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #10 on: July 27, 2015, 11:36:21 am »
+1

I know how to play H/MS quite well, and you can too if you look it up on the Wiki! :D

You need to get 7 or 9 Hermits to kick off quickly. You want 2 Hermits left alive and something to trash so your MS can gain golds.

The number of Hermits you leave alive depends on the Hermits you can acquire (the formula is hermits alive = (hermits acquired - 3)/2). You don't necessarily need more than 5 Hermits, but getting 7 instead of 5 helps a ton. Getting 9 instead of 7 is a waste of time.

This is what I was talking about regarding the presence of other trashing on the board. If there's any other trashing at all, you don't need Hermits for trashing, so you can convert more into Madmen and have a bigger turn -- this is especially relevant in a mirror and I've lost games because I wasn't thinking about this.
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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #11 on: July 27, 2015, 01:20:22 pm »
+5

Was the OP about any Dark Ages combo, or just about Hermit-MS?  Off the top of my head, here are some simple DA-only combos:

Storeroom + Poor House
Procession + Fortress
Graverobber or Rogue + Knights
Graverobber + Cultist
Double Scavenger can kind of be a thing when there's not much besides BM going on
Rebuild
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ancientcampus

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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #12 on: July 28, 2015, 10:32:27 am »
0

I've still got a few questions regarding the combo:

1) No villages, and it's a mirror match: Do you still buy Hermit over MS every time until you get 5 or more - even though you'll start drawing them dead frequently? I assume yes.

2) No villages, not a mirror and opponent isn't strongly contending the Hermits: This is a weird scenario, because there's probably not an engine on the board, so hermit/MS is probably the strongest, but I still want to know: You're going for 7 or 8 hermits - when do you start picking up MS over hermits? I suppose when you hit 7 hermits?

I'd say a good rule to follow is that you should always get a Madman on your turn unless it means losing the Hermit split, then you have to think more carefully about it.
3) This is an area I'm pretty shaky on, and I know the simple answer is "it depends". But in a mirror, I've always gone: priority 1 is acquire hermits until they're gone (or you've got 5 or 6 minimum). Priority 2 is make madmen. Priority 3 is get MS. (you can often do #2 and #3 at the same time). If it's a true mirror, I assume winning the split will wreck their strategy, buying the time to make madmen. Can someone critique my approach?

4) How many MS is enough? I've usually gone with 3.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2015, 10:34:38 am by ancientcampus »
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AdamH

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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #13 on: July 28, 2015, 12:03:24 pm »
+1

I'd say you have a pretty good handle on things. The only thing I'd add is that I don't really think the presence of Villages really affects the answers to your questions. Also, this:

4) How many MS is enough? I've usually gone with 3.

A static number is definitely not the answer to this question. Usually the answer is "as many as possible/all of them" and the big exception is pile danger. The reason for this is because more Market Squares means more buys which means more endgame control. Particularly in a mirror, threatening to pile the Estates because you have/can gain enough Market Squares (or actually doing it) is usually game-decisive, and more Market Squares usually puts you on the better end of this.

What you should really do is, every turn you could possibly kick off, think about what happens if you do and if you don't. Every turn when you buy cards, think about what your opponent can do and if they can force a win next turn, and if you can prevent that. I know that's super-generic, but anything more specific depends so much on the kingdom and the game state that it isn't really worth talking about.
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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #14 on: July 29, 2015, 03:02:56 pm »
+1

rats-death cart is the big obvious fraudulent combo.  trader-rats seems better than that but still, the trasher being terminal just seems to make it too tough to work

liopoil

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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #15 on: July 30, 2015, 12:03:11 pm »
0

Wait, Hermit/MS will almost always be able to get 5 of the hermits in a mirror or against anything else. And 5 is enough. Will that really lose to feodum? When you kick off, you gain the remaining feoda, which will be ~3 by my estimation, and then more good cards. Market squares are at most half empty I would guess, so you should have enough time to catch up with a superior deck. I mean I've never tried this, but that's my guess.
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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #16 on: July 31, 2015, 06:22:47 am »
0

I can hardly imagine Hermit/MS, being properly executed, will ever lose to Hermit/Feodum.
If you see that Hermits are uncontested you can afford start getting Madmen earlier, if not wait until you have at least five(preferrably seven) Hermits.
Even if Hermit/Feodum player loads on Hermits like a Madman (look what I've done here), he won't be able to do it as fast as Hermit/MS player, who will have less stop cards.

NateDominion

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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #17 on: July 31, 2015, 07:55:12 am »
0

How much would it hurt the combo if Hermits were exchanged for Madmen instead of being trashed? With the stipulation that you can't buy anything still in place.
how?
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jomini

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Re: Dark ages combos?
« Reply #18 on: August 06, 2015, 04:09:47 pm »
0

Wait, Hermit/MS will almost always be able to get 5 of the hermits in a mirror or against anything else. And 5 is enough. Will that really lose to feodum? When you kick off, you gain the remaining feoda, which will be ~3 by my estimation, and then more good cards. Market squares are at most half empty I would guess, so you should have enough time to catch up with a superior deck. I mean I've never tried this, but that's my guess.

Why would we assume that you will "almost always" get 5 Hermits? I get that it is the most common outcome, but no by some massive percent.

There are quite a number of cases where P1 ends up with an easy 6/4 split:
1. One player gets a 5/2 split, particularly P2. If P2 gets the bad split here, at most they can nab 4 Herms by the end of T4; P1 will have very high odds of being at 5 by then and then dropping to 6.
2. P1 hits Herm/3C on both T3 & T4. T3's expected hand is 2.92 Coppers, .83 Herm, and 1.2 Estates. Going with the nearest whole numbers that is 3C, Herm, 1E. For T4 the expectation numbers are then 2.86 C, .71 Herm, and 1.4 E. Sure 4 Hermits on T3&4 for P1 is not the majority case, but it is the mode outcome.
3. P2 hits Herm/<3C or no Herm on both T3 & T4. In which case, again the turn order advantage goes to P1.
4. Both of one player's Hermits get buried to T5.
5. Both players singleton on T3/4 & P1 doubles (as they are down an estate or two) on T5 for a 6:4 split.

I'm curios what the sims actually bear out, but I doubt that 5:5 is going to pop up 90+ % of the time.
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