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[HiveMindEmulator]

^"Always" is a strong word, though I don't imagine it's that far from correct. There was a thread about it a while ago though that outlined situations in which it might be better to go copper=>silver...

[GendoIkari]

^"Always" is a strong word, though I don't imagine it's that far from correct. There was a thread about it a while ago though that outlined situations in which it might be better to go copper=>silver...

Man I remember being a Dominion noob, and thinking I was all smart for having figured out the secret to Mine... that whether you choose to Mine a Copper or a Silver, either way your current hand increases by $1, and your entire deck increases by $1, therefore the 2 choices are identical in every way! Except of course that you don't want to risk drawing your Mine with nothing but Gold, so I cleverly always chose to Mine Copper instead to avoid that!

Then again, that was a time when I was convinced that Village + Smithy had to be the strongest opening ever!

[DG]

Doing some maths (of the type that wasn't appreciated earlier) the cache seems to be a better improvement to treasure density than silver providing the treasure density is less than 3/2. This means that it's good up to the point where you're buying provinces but not beyond, which is convenient. The are some other features although I wouldn't go so far as to call them considerations:

- Once you've added these three extra cards to your deck the impact on your money density from any other new cards is decreased. This is bad if you're adding treasures and good if you're buying victory cards.
- The deck cycles slower once you've added 3 more cards. You will always have to draw through more old cards before you can draw your new (presumably improved cards) into hand. The stepwise improvement in your deck quality when you shuffle will get delayed.

[painted_cow]

Nice theoretical article, but I never actually calculated something like this ingame. Its kind of worthless imho. The practical things are right so, that slim decks have more problem with greening than larger decks.

[WanderingWinder]

To add to the cache vs silver thing, think about what hands that buy provinces look like. Unless you're going for a really heavy silver strat like trader or double jack, you basically need either a gold (or cache) or a +cards card to hit $8. And if you have 2, you're basically guaranteed a province. Given reasonable money density, gold (+ cache) density actually becomes more important than money density. Similarly with buying golds. Pre-greening, a gold (or cache) in hand basically allows you to buy another gold almost regardless of what you draw it with.

So I assume that this means also that in a hand of Mine + Copper + Silver, Silver -> Gold is always better than Copper -> Silver?

Always, no. Usually, yes... except that you're less likely to have a mineable card with your mine if you have golds and coppers than if you have silvers and silvers.
But generally, you want to have more imbalance in your deck when you have lower money density, less imbalance when it's higher. And for classic BM strats, that generally means more imbalance is better.

[Asklepios]

Always, no. Usually, yes... except that you're less likely to have a mineable card with your mine if you have golds and coppers than if you have silvers and silvers.
But generally, you want to have more imbalance in your deck when you have lower money density, less imbalance when it's higher. And for classic BM strats, that generally means more imbalance is better.

Ah, now this is interesting.

So simulation-wise, we've established that Cache is a marginally better buy on $5 than silver if thats the only difference over a whole game.

Is there a simulation that will show us the best point when its best to stop buying caches and to go back to silvers?

Instinct tells me that by the time we reach that point, we're probably spending the $5 on Duchies...

[Loschmidt]

^"Always" is a strong word, though I don't imagine it's that far from correct. There was a thread about it a while ago though that outlined situations in which it might be better to go copper=>silver...

Man I remember being a Dominion noob, and thinking I was all smart for having figured out the secret to Mine... that whether you choose to Mine a Copper or a Silver, either way your current hand increases by $1, and your entire deck increases by $1, therefore the 2 choices are identical in every way! Except of course that you don't want to risk drawing your Mine with nothing but Gold, so I cleverly always chose to Mine Copper instead to avoid that!

Treasure variance is an odd thing, but in general higher variance is good. This is because when you're greening its better to sporadically hit $8 then to consistently hit $7 (if your hand is ECSSX, do you want X to always be a silver or to be a 50/50 split between gold/copper?). Treasure variance is even better when you have sifting cards like warehouse and embassy.

Situations in which you'd prefer to have silver/silver over copper/gold would be things where you had a huge deck and were trying to consistently hit a smaller target. So gardening.

[Jack Rudd]

Situations in which you'd prefer to have silver/silver over copper/gold would be things where you had a huge deck and were trying to consistently hit a smaller target. So gardening.

The other situation where you'd want silver/silver over copper/gold is where you'd draw big hands but get the worst cards from them. So: Envoy.

[DG]

Is there a simulation that will show us the best point when its best to stop buying caches and to go back to silvers?Instinct tells me that by the time we reach that point, we're probably spending the $5 on Duchies...

No. If there was a bad cache to buy it would be the first cache, and even the first cache is better than silver in a money game.