Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[WanderingWinder]

This is a game I played yesterday against theory where the two openings were played. I was on the silver side, while theory took the double ambassador.
cards in supply: Ambassador, City, Fairgrounds, Feast, Festival, Harem, Laboratory, Minion, Pirate Ship, and Salvager
(If somebody can tell me how to make a table in here, I'll reformat this).
    WW                                                                          theory
3. 4->Amb                                                               Amb (estate x 2)
4. 5->Lab                                                                Amb (copper x 2)
5. Lab, Amb(estate x 2), 3->silver                              Amb (copper x 2)

At this point, theory's had more or less the ideal draw, though I've been fairly lucky too. I have more power in my deck (the lab, 3 silvers to none) but also more bloat.

6. Amb(copper x 2)                                                  Amb (estate), 3->Silver
7. 4->Feast                                                             Amb (copper x 2)
8. Amb(copper x 2)                                                  Amb (copper), 3->Silver
9. Lab, Amb(copper x 2)                                           Amb (copper x 2)
10. 4->Silver                                                           Amb (estate)

theory has continued to get good draws here, having played one of the ambassadors every single turn. I wonder now whether my turn 7 play was the best - maybe I should have grabbed a silver instead. In any case here's what our decks looked like:
WW (Lab, Feast, Amb x2, Lab x3, Estate x3, Copper x6)
theory (Amb x2, Silver x2, Copper)

11. Lab, Amb, 5->Festival                                         Amb (copper x 0) 5->City
12. Amb (estate x2)                                                 City, Amb (estate), Amb (copper)
13. Lab, Feast (Lab), 7->Gold                                    City, Amb (estate x 0), Amb (estate), 4->Silver
14. Festival, 5->Lab                                                  City, 6->Lab
15. Amb (copper x2)                                                 Lab, City, Amb (cop x 0), Amb (cop), 6->Festival
16. Lab, Lab, Festival, 6->Amb x 2                             City, Festival, 6->Lab

I think this 16th turn from me was a definite overreaction. I should have gone for a gold. theory's now had a couple turns where he didn't play an ambassador, but he's still played 17 in his 16 turns.

17. Lab, 8->Province                                                 Lab, Lab, City, Festival, 8->Province
18. 3->Silver                                                            City, Festival, Amb(Amb), 6->Lab
19. Lab, 4->Feast                                                     Labx3, City, Festival, 8->Province
20. Lab, Amb (Copper x 0), 8->Province                      6->Lab
21. Festival, Amb (Cop x 0), Amb (Cop x 2)                 Labx3, City, Festival, Amb (Cop x 2), 6->Lab
22.Lab, Festival, Amb (Cop x 0), 8->Province               Labx5, Festival, City, Amb (Cop x 2), 8->Province

Let's take stock here. Decks:
WW (Province x 3, Gold, Festival, Lab x 3, Feast, Amb x 5, Silver x 4, Estate x 4, Copper x 8) Total: 22
theory(Province x 3, City, Festival, Lab x 5, Amb, Silver x 3) Total:18
So I'm up by 4 with 2 provinces left, but I'm in a very difficult position; I've got a much worse deck, I need to grab basically all the VP I can get, and I still need to be able to get one of the last two provinces. As a note, after theory played all his actions on 23, he took a long think (maybe  a minute or two) and then we started talking. He didn't want to hurt his engine, but he didn't want to leave himself vulnerable to me hitting a good hand and ending the game. At this point, I knew my hand for turn 24 and that he was fine to grab the penultimate province, but I made suggestions to him based on what I'd do in his position - basically Harem. Well, you'll see what happened.

23. Amb (Copper x 0), 2-> Estate                                 Lab x 5, Festival, Amb (Cop), City, 8->Duchy
24. 7->Harem                                                              Lab x 5, Festival, City, 8->Duchy, Silver
25.Lab, Lab, Feast (Duchy), 2->Estate                           Lab x 5, Festival, City, 10->Duchy x 2
26. Amb (Copper), 2 ->Estate                                       Lab x 4, Festival, 8->Province
27. Amb (Copper), 2->Estate                                        Lab, City, 4->Estate
28. Lab x 2, Festival, Amb (Cop x 0), 7->Duchy, Estate   Lab x 3, Amb(Copper x 0), 6->Fairgrounds
29. Lab, 4->Estate                                                       Lab x 3, Festival, Amb(Prov x 0), 7->Fairgrounds

Game Over: theory 45, WW 42

[rrenaud]

+10 for posting a game report in which you didn't win

I agree that the double ambassador buy turn 16 going overboard. 

I don't know if you had the opportunity here, but a good way to beat a super ambassador player who is spamming you with estates is to pick up a salvager and start salvaging provinces for more provs.  I am almost always the hyper amb player, but the turbo salvage provs for end game sometimes catches me.  Usually the hyper amb player is going for a super long, 25+ turn game to make their investment pay off, and if you make the game not go super long, you take away the return on their investment.

[boloni]

This report makes me thinking that my usual Ambassador/Silver opening may not always be the best choice.

I also agree that buying ambassadors on turn 16 was a bad decision. According to councilroom.com, ambassador and lookout become the worst 3-cost-cards after turn 8. They are worse than silver after turn 4.
I think people buying ambassadors late in the game almost certainly loose. You won't play them often enough to improve your deck more than buying silver would do.

[Personman]

Hey, cool game!

My initial reaction is that your turn 16 was so much worse than Gold that we can't really draw conclusions about your opening. In fact, given how close it was, maybe we should even conclude that that Amb/Silver is better, since a) theory got really quite ridiculously lucky in the opening and b) you only lost by 3 points despite making a pretty major mistake.

Oh, and you might want to edit the OP, click on 'Attachments and other options', and check 'Don't use smileys.' You have a misparsed 8) in your report :P

[WanderingWinder]

Hmmm, for some reason I can't get in to edit my OP - the Buttons aren't showing up.
Yeah, Turn 16 was horrible. For some reason I didn't realize during the game that theory was quite as trimmed as he was, and of course, trying to bounce stuff out of my deck against such an opponent is futile. But because his deck was so much stronger at the end, I don't think I would have had *great* chances even with the gold, though this is probably due to theory's good luck in the beginning. So it's interesting, but I still like Ambassador/Silver over Ambassador/Ambassador, but it's really close. Probably if no terminal collision, the latter has a somewhat better chance to win, but if there is a terminal collision, then the former has a somewhat larger advantage than that. Very close though.

[Randal FTW]

WW,

I think there is a time limit on editing posts

 
I have nothing to back this up with but it just feels stronger when I am spamming ambassador constantly opposed to having the early extra treasure. And im buying a second ambassador 95% of the time if my opponent buys 2 early.

[Death to Sea Hags]

I think people buying ambassadors late in the game almost certainly loose. You won't play them often enough to improve your deck more than buying silver would do.

I think this causation is backwards. People who are losing to ambassadors buy more ambassadors late in the game to try to fight back.  The late ambassador purchase is a symptom of a lost game, not a cause.

After all, ambassador is an under-rated card by new players, so they skip it (or fail to play it often enough when they do buy it).  The deck bloats, the amb doesn't come up as often - "oh crap!  I need another ambassador!"  But its usually too late - dead deck walking.

[ARTjoMS]

I sometimes open ambassador ambassador, but this deck would not be the case, i would rather open ambassador-silver or even ambassador-feast.

On turn 4 i would rather buy city of festival and on 5th turn another (3rd) ambassador.

[timchen]

I always think ambassador+silver is quite a bit better than double ambassador.

The reason is that you will get the second ambassador in turn 3 or 4. And the double ambassadoring opponent is going to get a Silver during the same time. The question then boils down to, is it better to get that $5 powerful card one shuffle earlier, or to trim the deck (with around 1/3 probability that it is just a fail)?

With powerful cards such as Lab, I would say the two options are equally good, given that you don't draw two ambassadors together. Minus that, Silver becomes the better choice I think.

One other thing worth considering is that at 8-9 cards, it is very likely to draw double terminal actions again and again. That would be again against double ambassador opening.

[Taco Lobster]

I tried a double ambassador open the last time it showed up due to this thread, as did my opponent.  It was a crazy luck-driven game.  I received one ambassador in hand 3 and one in hand 4, meaning I thinned my deck and they both hit the reshuffle.  My opponent's ambassadors collided, and, after that, he couldn't catch up as my deck started cycling faster and faster, and his become more and more gummed up.  It was very much a "flip a coin" type game - we both went for the same strategy, and I was the one who got the luck to pull it off. 

[painted_cow]

As I stated in the good opening thread where we basically discussed the same matter i would go for Silver/Amb. Maybe someone could attach the posts there into this topic as well?

When your Ambassador is lost in reshuffle at the beginning and theory hit them both in turn 3/4 you basically cant do much...

turn 4 City is really debatable, but the its a really hard choice. Given the fact, that you are way behind at this point the Lab is the probably right (where you take some risk not having the Village-effect and hope for good draws and pick the City later on).