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Author Topic: Weak +buy in engines  (Read 2397 times)

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dominator 123

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Weak +buy in engines
« on: November 23, 2015, 04:49:25 am »
+2

Let's say there is a lot of engine potential, with a ton of Villages and Smithies and strong payload like Ghost Ship. There is no strong trashing, but there is heave sifting (Warehouse or Cellar). However, the only +buy card on the board is something weak like Herbalist or Woodcutter. Is it normally better to open with the +buy card and then build, or try to build first then get the +buy card. How would this change if Workshop (or equivalent) is on the board? (engine component gaining is not slowed, but Province gaining is)
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eigensheep

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Re: Weak +buy in engines
« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2015, 05:24:42 am »
+2

You want the buy when you will get enough coin to gain two good cards in a turn with it. In the case of workshop, that's immediately.

One complicating factor is that woodcutter/smithy will frequently be better than village/smithy, even though woodcutter will only be a terminal silver to start with.

(Also, you don't need ghost ship for village smithy woodcutter warehouse to beat smithy big money)
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terminalCopper

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Re: Weak +buy in engines
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2015, 05:56:01 am »
0

try to build first then get the +buy card.

This.
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Awaclus

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Re: Weak +buy in engines
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2015, 06:09:26 am »
0

Get the +buy when you're starting to reliably almost draw your deck, generally. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later; you can tell that you need it earlier if you have enough coins to buy two engine components every turn, and if you're particularly unreliably almost drawing your deck, you might want it later.
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pubby

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Re: Weak +buy in engines
« Reply #4 on: November 23, 2015, 07:12:36 am »
+1

It's not terrible to open woodcutter here. You absolutely will draw it dead a few times, but village and smithy are cheap and so it's rare to have turns where you can't buy anything. I'd probably prefer it to  silver.
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Lammetje

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Re: Weak +buy in engines
« Reply #5 on: November 23, 2015, 08:00:15 am »
0

I always find the timing to buy it very hard. I often try to prioritize getting my engine running, once that works your suddenly buying a woodcutter for 12 dollars which doesn't exacly feel great.
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Chris is me

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Re: Weak +buy in engines
« Reply #6 on: November 23, 2015, 08:32:08 am »
0

I generally err on the side of buy it later rather than earlier, depending on the value of the engine components. Particularly Herbalist, which is basically only good for the +Buy. Woodcutter I would potentially buy earlier or even open it depending on the terminal space available; i.e. I would open Woodcutter / Fishing Village but not like Woodcutter / Smithy on a board where the only Village costs $5.
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DG

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Re: Weak +buy in engines
« Reply #7 on: November 23, 2015, 08:57:22 am »
0

If you are playing with ghost ship then that should be the priority and you are likely to have a hand where you can buy the woodcutter later (after being attacked).
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thespaceinvader

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Re: Weak +buy in engines
« Reply #8 on: November 23, 2015, 09:45:43 am »
+7

To paraphrase someone from way back, you know you're playing at high level when you spend £14 on a Herbalist.
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jomini

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Re: Weak +buy in engines
« Reply #9 on: November 23, 2015, 10:21:19 am »
0

Woodcutters is not a bad opening if you do not need to hit a lot of $5 hands. In this case you are looking at not too bad of odds to either hit $5 with CCCWood or Smithy (Smith hands are expected to earn $4.45) so you should get a Ghost ship on the first shuffle most of the time and almost certainly on the second (particularly as Gship can let you send back some terminal collisions or discard only estates).

However, the real question here is how many silvers are you planning on buying? With the setup proposed, the ultimate coin value of the engine should be $16 most likely. If we plan to draw all the starting coppers, then we need precisely $9 more to hit $16. 3 Golds is obviously more efficient than Copper/Silver/Gold x2 so the Wood opening looks even better ... but I am not convinced that the Smithy/Silver is inferior for an engine. Sure you need an extra card of draw ... but with strong sifting we may want to not have to stock up on extra villages/Smithies & sifters to be sure to we vacuum up all the coppers and leave an empty draw deck. Extra high density cash can let us sift out coppers to hit our cash more easily. If I am likely to want silvers regardless, then it is pretty trivial to add the +buy later.  I would be strongly inclined to take the silver here to have even higher odds of hitting Gship early and add in the Wood when I'm close to drawing deck.

So for me, the big questions when planning my engine build are: how important are early $5s? And is it worth it to skip a Silver for a terminal +buy (e.g. Woodcutters/Loan is often massively better than Loan/Silver) instead?
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