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Author Topic: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade  (Read 8603 times)

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werothegreat

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Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« on: March 23, 2016, 09:16:32 am »
+4


"Wait a minute, we're supposed to haggle!"

-When is the best time to buy this?
-How does it compare to other trashers?
-How is it as a Feodum enabler?
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JThorne

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2016, 10:49:24 am »
+2

Not a fan.

You want to trash early and trash often, and this card lets you do neither. And keep in mind, it's not really a "trasher." It's an upgrader. It can't reduce your deck size and doesn't even give you the Silver in hand like Trading Post. Even using it to get rid of Estates is difficult, requiring a hand like Silver/Silver/Copper/Estate/Estate (or replace a Silver with a terminal silver action, etc.) So it's unlikely early without a lucky shuffle. Sure, it's "up to" two cards, but would you really pay 5 to turn one Estate into a Silver? Maybe if Harvest is the only 5 in the kingdom.

I feel like this should cost 4. At 3 it would be a broken opening, so I get that the price point is important. I just think it's nerfed into being almost unplayable.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2016, 10:55:52 am »
+6

The first version I played with trashed your whole hand, giving you a Silver for each card. I could pretty reliably get to 4 Provinces in 9 turns just using Smithy and Trade.

And that's really the key for Trade: increased hand sizes. You need to have enough cards in hand to both have $5 and junk you want to trash. At that point, trading two Estates (or one Estate and one Copper) for two Silvers is fantastic in many, many decks.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2016, 01:20:28 pm by LastFootnote »
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shark_bait

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2016, 11:39:26 am »
+4

As LFN said it benefits from increased hand sizes.  IMO that is so important that I will say it again.  Trade is best when you have a larger hand size.

The obvious comparison is with Trading Post which costs $5 for an action card that does a similar thing.  The difference with Trade is that you need to obtain $5 on the turn which you have desirable goods to trade in for Silver.

This card isn't going to help your engine reliability at all hence some of the un-love for it.  However it will help your general buying power immensely.  Sloggy games without heavy trashing will allow Trade to thrive.  IMO you can usually hit $5 reliably even in heavy Curse/Ruin games if you just keep getting an influx of Silver/other $4 actions in pace with junk.  This can make for fantastic mid game buys.

The other note is that since this is on buy, you could get a very handy turn 3 or 4 buy given a good draw.  Getting a good turn 3 or 4 Trade is a great way to significantly increase your money density.  In the lucky scenario of opening Silver/"Silver equivalent action" and trashing 2 Estates on turn 3 or 4 you practically increase your money density to $1.3/card as opposed to approximately $1.1/card if you just bought 4 Silver/Silver equivalent.  This is a big early difference and early differences allow for easier snowballing into larger and larger mid/endgame advantages.

Now I know that BM is frowned upon but getting Silver isn't just for BM ***gasp***.  Even in an engine you want to generate more $$$/card.  Swapping out junk for Silver is great for engines especially when you can utilize it with +Buy.  Early game Estate swapping also makes it so much less likely to draw a dead hand of less than $5 which is usually a key engine price point.
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markusin

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #4 on: March 23, 2016, 11:49:32 am »
0

I wanted to compare this with Upgrade, but the comparison doesn't seem all that apt because you can buy Upgrade with no junk in hand and still make Upgrade useful, but you can't do the same with Trade.

But like, trading two Estates for two Silvers increases the money in your deck by $4 without increasing your deck size. Also, you get the benefit on your next shuffle though, so that's good.

Works well with Magpie, Storyteller, and as mentioned previously draw in general.
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Seprix

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2016, 11:51:53 am »
0

Not a great Event. Not terrible, but spending $5 to get two Silvers isn't fantastic at all. Silver is just more junk most of the time. In Big Money boards for example, it's worth $5 to sack a Copper/Estate or Estate/Estate to get two Silvers rather than buy Silver or an Action card. But overall, you'll know when to use this, and I don't think it'll be all that often.
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Dingan

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2016, 12:13:30 pm »
0

This reminds me of Trader more than anything (hence why it's called Trade??).  If you're turning Coppers into Silvers, then it's like Taxman and Mine.

Trader over Trade:
- Only have to spend $4 once
- Can thin out Coppers, if that's what you want to do
- Reaction benefit
- Combos with things like Peddler/Feodum

Trade over Trader:
- It's not using up terminal action space in your deck
- It can turn Coppers into Silvers, if that's what you want to do
- Probably combos with things? (I can't think of any right now, but I'm sure there are)

All in all, it feels weak.  But I haven't played with it yet.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2016, 12:14:49 pm by Dingan »
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Chris is me

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2016, 12:40:16 pm »
+1

Trader isn't great, but events don't have to be great to be useful. The low opportunity cost and instant payoff is what makes events good. You can't compare them to Actions at all ("slowness", etc).

Trade, much like Quest and that silver gainer event attack thing, is a card that helps slogs and TDBM more than engines, but is situationally useful in really any deck. After a Silver / terminal Silver opening, you'll often be able to trash 2 junk for 2 Silver with this, and it is sometimes worth it just to trash a single card.

They can't all be the best $5 event ever. Trade has its place.
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Beyond Awesome

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #8 on: March 23, 2016, 12:55:44 pm »
+4

I think this card is being underestimated. I find that when I buy it, the spike in economy can be pretty huge. Okay, it is far from a great trasher, but it's not a horrible card either.
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AdrianHealey

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #9 on: March 23, 2016, 02:07:35 pm »
0

It's a double trading post. And trading post is not a bad card.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #10 on: March 23, 2016, 02:22:18 pm »
0

It's a double trading post. And trading post is not a bad card.

Not quite.  Double Trading Post would let you trash 4 cards.
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mameluke

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #11 on: March 23, 2016, 02:51:39 pm »
+3

The biggest problem is still hitting $5 with still something left in your hand you want to trash. On most boards, this makes it a mid-game trasher, but do you really want the Silver at that point? This is probably a lot better with other Adventures shenanigans that let you hit $5 early or have a larger hand size early (Borrow, Save, and Expedition come to mind, along with Baker tokens or early Lost City buys).
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Accatitippi

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #12 on: March 23, 2016, 03:21:21 pm »
0

It's a double trading post. And trading post is not a bad card.

Not quite.  Double Trading Post would let you trash 4 cards.

Actually 3, in a way, since Double Trading Post itself would be left in your deck.
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DG

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #13 on: March 23, 2016, 06:28:35 pm »
+2

Surely this compares fantastically well to buying a gold in the right circumstances? Buying a gold adds 3 coins income to your deck and adds one 'stop' card to the deck. Trade adds up to 4 coins income, adds two stop cards, but also removes two stop cards from the deck.
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jomini

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #14 on: March 23, 2016, 10:32:06 pm »
+3

Big draw - be it Smithy or Labs is good for upping your money density to easily hit $5 and higher price points (e.g. $9 with 2 buys).

But let us not underestimate the power of late game Trade. Got curses in your engine (Spice merchant, Loan, etc.)? Well Trade is 1 VP less than a duchy and gives you much better cash density (by far better than the Harem/Gold/Duchy tradeoff). This is also a nice option to convert an early card (like Hag or Chapel) it something that buys Provinces without increasing your number of stop cards; this is particularly nice when you have two early cards to kill (e.g. Moneylender/Workshop after you are done with coppers and villages) - more space & cost efficient than a gold buy. Even buying coppers to Trade away is not always bad, it is slightly less space efficient than buying golds (and far less gain efficient) ... but it is more cost efficient if you can sport an extra card of draw. Not something too common, but it is a tactical move to make when you are rapidly growing your buying potential.

The other option is that this is a nice way to gain value and trigger on-trash effects. With Feoda you will have plenty of hands with Silverx3 Feoda that are best used to gain 4 silvers from popping a Feoda. Plats & Forge on the other hand makes nice for value gain, 3 Trades and you end up with 2 Plats, this is a very cost effective way to grow the deck if you have bought Forge for something else earlier.

One strong combo is with Storyteller. High cash density lets you get big hands, which Trade lets you use to get higher cash density. Storyteller + 3 silvers is three Labs worth of nice.

Trade is also a pretty strong counter to Torturer. Yeah you might end up picking up a curse, but gaining the whole pile is pretty easy once you can hit 5 and have 6 or 7 card hands.

Trade is also a nice option for downgrading your deck in Possession match. It can be well worth it to Trade away a Gold or a Remodel to poison your deck. Using things like Remodel or Forge to build Possession decks is always risky - too easy for the other guy to get Provinces; making your deck hit exactly $6P is idiotically good and you will want want to spend a $5 at some point if the other guy is about to start playing your deck a bunch.

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Davio

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #15 on: March 24, 2016, 03:22:18 am »
0

They can't all be the best $5 event ever.

It's not great, but not useless. It just needs a specific kind of board (lack of engine possibilities) more so than other events.
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kn1tt3r

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #16 on: March 24, 2016, 04:33:37 am »
0

This is probably best in semi-good engines and simple money strategies, especially stuff like Smithy/BM, where hitting $5 is usually not the best thing ever. With Trade you might have a chance to trash 2 drawn estates and get 2 silvers for them, which is great for that kind of deck. Engines usually prefer other trashers, but those are not always available.
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Mr Anderson

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #17 on: March 24, 2016, 04:51:37 am »
0

In that regard, in Smithy-BM, would you rather buy a Gold or trash 2 Coppers for Silvers if you draw $7 and cannot or do not want to trash Estates?
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Davio

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #18 on: March 24, 2016, 05:55:35 am »
+2

2 Coppers for Silvers seems to be the best option.

It's easy to compare:
2 Coppers + 1 Gold vs 2 Silvers

The first is (sort of) Cache, costed at $5
The second is Masterpiece minus 1 Copper (MP itself), which is $5 with the Masterpiece included, so probably at least $6 without it for 2 Silvers straight up.
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kn1tt3r

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #19 on: March 24, 2016, 06:01:52 am »
+2

In that regard, in Smithy-BM, would you rather buy a Gold or trash 2 Coppers for Silvers if you draw $7 and cannot or do not want to trash Estates?
if I've calculated correctly, the money density after "trashing 2 coppers for 2 silvers vs. buying 1 gold" is almost equal (with a slight edge for the gold), but once you can trash even one estate with this, Trading is clearly better. If there is at least a small engine component to your deck, I also would always Trade.
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Davio

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #20 on: March 24, 2016, 06:45:23 am »
+2

Well, let's start with 3 Estates, 7 Coppers, 1 Silver and 1 Smithy and say you draw to $7 on T3 after playing Smithy, exactly 7 Coppers in hand.

Now let's take Smithy in consideration, here my math will get wonky.

With Gold, you have a deck of 13 cards, but you do have Smithy, so you can have a hand of 5 regular cards and another of 5, one of which is Smithy that draws the last 3. So effectively you have a 2 hand deck.
With the Coppers -> Silvers, you end up with 11 cards, but it takes less than 2 hands to go through them, starting with a Smithy hand (5 + 3 = 8 cards seen), you have just 3 cards left that we can count as 3/5th hand; it's probably slightly more since you can redraw the Smithy in this hand and go through faster.

Gold: $7 + $2 + $3 = $12 per 2 hands = $6 / hand
2 Silvers - 2 Coppers: $5 + $6 = $11 per 1 3/5 hands = $6.875 / hand

This gives a significant edge to the Silvers.

Still, taking into account Smithy makes the math wonky, so I hope I didn't make any glaring mistakes. But the gist is that a smaller deck is just worth it to rapidly increase spending power per hand.
« Last Edit: March 24, 2016, 07:03:05 am by Davio »
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trivialknot

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #21 on: March 24, 2016, 08:25:53 am »
+3

If you don't have a better way to trash estates, then trashing two estates for two silvers is like adding 4 peddlers to your deck.  It is worth going out of your way to get 4 peddlers.

Trashing two coppers for two silvers is like paying $7 for two peddlers.  This is decent, but not terrific.
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jomini

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #22 on: March 24, 2016, 09:09:01 pm »
+2

Well, let's start with 3 Estates, 7 Coppers, 1 Silver and 1 Smithy and say you draw to $7 on T3 after playing Smithy, exactly 7 Coppers in hand.

Now let's take Smithy in consideration, here my math will get wonky.

With Gold, you have a deck of 13 cards, but you do have Smithy, so you can have a hand of 5 regular cards and another of 5, one of which is Smithy that draws the last 3. So effectively you have a 2 hand deck.
With the Coppers -> Silvers, you end up with 11 cards, but it takes less than 2 hands to go through them, starting with a Smithy hand (5 + 3 = 8 cards seen), you have just 3 cards left that we can count as 3/5th hand; it's probably slightly more since you can redraw the Smithy in this hand and go through faster.

Gold: $7 + $2 + $3 = $12 per 2 hands = $6 / hand
2 Silvers - 2 Coppers: $5 + $6 = $11 per 1 3/5 hands = $6.875 / hand

This gives a significant edge to the Silvers.

Still, taking into account Smithy makes the math wonky, so I hope I didn't make any glaring mistakes. But the gist is that a smaller deck is just worth it to rapidly increase spending power per hand.

Actually Smithy hands do not change expectations here. It is pretty straightforward to calc one Smithy.

Ignoring Smithy, you average card has $9/11 in buying power on T3. On a non-Smithy hand you then expect $45/11 or $4.09 per hand. That happens in 7/12 hands. Smithy hands happen 5/12, Smithy is worth 3 * average coin/card or 7*9/11 = $5.73. The weighted average then is $4.09*7/12+$5.73*5/12 = $4.77 per hand on average.

Adding a Gold makes it exactly $1/card (12/12)

Trashing two Coppers makes it $1/card (11/11)

For the Gold, 8/13 hands will not have a Smithy. 5/13 will. This means that our average hand is 40/13+35/13 = 75/13 or $5.77

For the Silvers 7/12 hands will not have a Smithy. 5/12 Will 35/12+35/12 = 70/12 = $5.83.

The big value here, up until you green or are junked, is that the Silvers move the whole deck faster thanks to needing one fewer card. As Davio noted, being 1/5th of a hand faster is pretty nice per shuffle, particularly given the breakpoints of the early game.

The other thing here is that your odds of crunching the Estates are better with the Silvers.  Odds that Estates show up in your Smithy hand are higher thanks to having one fewer card competing for slots. Remember there is no rule that you can only Trade once, so you need to also consider how much faster you will get to the big payout hands - and trashing the Estates to silver is pretty massively huge.

Think back to when we all had to learn the power of Jack -> engine. Jack is a beast precisely because it replaces Estates with Silvers, you want to do that with Trade and do it ASAP. And lest we forget, the variance is not all that terribly important when you are looking at high $5.X hands; Gold is much more likely to give you huge payouts ... which is pretty inefficient if you are buying gold at $7 anyways. It would have to be a very odd game to make the Gold option better.

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Davio

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #23 on: March 25, 2016, 08:17:04 am »
+5

I wrote a small simulator exactly for this problem, purely to satisfy my own curiosity and to make a simulator again. :)

I just made a single player with a deck of 7 Coppers, 3 Estates, 1 Smithy and let him play 1,000,000 turns without buying anything.
This just means optionally playing a Smithy and counting the spending power.

These are the results for adding a Gold:
Code: [Select]
Player 1
Turns: 1000000
Avg money / turn: 5.400541
Lowest money: 2
Highest money: 9
Money: 2, % of turns: 2.4031
Money: 3, % of turns: 12.0471
Money: 4, % of turns: 17.7718
Money: 5, % of turns: 18.6778
Money: 6, % of turns: 20.0394
Money: 7, % of turns: 19.0958
Money: 8, % of turns: 8.9616
Money: 9, % of turns: 1.0034

These are the results for replacing 2 Coppers with 2 Silvers:
Code: [Select]
Player 1
Turns: 1000000
Avg money / turn: 5.461457
Lowest money: 2
Highest money: 9
Money: 2, % of turns: 1.8627
Money: 3, % of turns: 7.426
Money: 4, % of turns: 16.2274
Money: 5, % of turns: 24.2917
Money: 6, % of turns: 25.1625
Money: 7, % of turns: 17.8867
Money: 8, % of turns: 6.6947
Money: 9, % of turns: 0.4483

So the avg of 2 Silvers is slightly higher, but maybe more interesting is the % of turns where you reach a certain price point.
Gold has a slight advantage in the 7+ area, unsurprisingly (28 vs 23), but the Silvers are more trustworthy for reaching $5 and $6, you will hit it about 50% of the time!
« Last Edit: March 25, 2016, 08:18:42 am by Davio »
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math

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Re: Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Trade
« Reply #24 on: April 13, 2016, 06:16:27 pm »
0

Thinking only in terms of money density, Trade is almost always going to be better than Gold if buying Trade is an option.  Even in the two-Copper scenario, buying a Trade increases the money in your deck by $2 with no extra cards, and Gold increases the money in your deck by $3 with one extra card.  The difference between them is equivalent to adding an extra Copper to your deck, which you almost always don't want.  This obviously only works in a Big Money deck; in an engine, I probably wouldn't buy Trade unless there wasn't any other good way to trash Estates.
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