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[JW]

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Poor House, Chapel, Haven, Smugglers, Farming Village, Herald, Duplicate, Royal Carriage, Laboratory, Giant
Three other Kingdom cards are Duplicate, Royal Carriage, and Giant. I played this three player game (Provinces/Shelters) yesterday. It was my first game with Royal Carriage and my first game where I gained Duplicate.

The player to my right got a 5/2 opening for Laboratory/Chapel and quickly assembled a deck with 2 Poor Houses, 2 Farming Villages, Lab, and Chapel.  I knew if I bought Provinces I wouldn’t be able to catch him. In fact, he bought Province 5 turns in a row. The third player overloaded on Poor Houses, emptying the pile, and couldn’t find the actions to get to Province reliably, which meant the game wouldn’t quickly end on Provinces.

So I picked up Duplicate and Heralds, Duplicated for 2 Giants and went to work attacking, trashing my Poor Houses used for early cash. Then I picked up more Heralds, 2 more Duplicates, Royal Carriages (particularly to copy the Giants) and Laboratories, before I gained the Duchies four at a time (with 3 Duplicates). Farming Village had done good work for him so my main opponent had 7 Provinces, with Farming Villages, Heralds, and Curses all low. On my last turn I played 2 Giants (plus 2 Royal Carriages) to empty the last 3 Curses and gained the last 4 Duchies with Duplicate. The 7-Province player had 7 curses (had trashed ~3 with Chapel), so I won by a point, 36-35.

In hindsight, I should have gained more Duplicates (5 left in the pile, I could have taken 2 more to gain 6 Duchies a turn without adding extra risk of three-piling, and this would have avoided needing to go off with 8 Duchies in my deck the last turn). I was able to stow some Royal Carriages on my mat at the end of each turn, which helped me go off with many Duchies in my deck (I didn’t want to copy Giant as much at the end because I couldn’t afford to empty the Curses too early). My greatest Dominion win IRL. These Adventures cards are great fun.

Thoughts? How would people open here on 4/3? How should this play out, and would it be different in 2p as opposed to 3p?

[SkippyPDX]

WOW! Truly and epic comeback. I love Duplicate and Royal Carriage, particularly for their mega-turn enabling strategies.

I can't say I can add anything to analyzing this particular game. Seems like you really found a great strategy. I can share that today I was 2nd in a 4 player game where the winner used a duplicate strategy to gain nearly all the duchies. That strategy seems really strong. My strategy relied on Transmogrify, Fortress, and Apprentice, with late Wine Merchants for extra cash and buys. At first I thought it wasn't working fast enough, but then it finally lined up and I had two turns over which I bought 5 provinces. Still, wasn't strong enough to beat the Duplicate + Duchies.

Has anyone run some simulations on a Duplicate-Duchy 3 pile rush in general. Sounds like it would be a useful baseline for comparison to both these games.