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[Deadlock39]

I'm going to try to post the Empires games I play here.  I probably won't say much about them, because that takes work, but if others are enticed to talk about a board, I'll pitch in as much as I can remember about what happened when it was played.

Anyway. First Board:

Deadlock vs. IguanaIguana:

I used Sacrifice and Plan on Patrician/Emporium for thinning, Iguana² opened Plan/Monument, later moving Plan to Patrician/Emporium.

+Buy is only Farmers' Market and Fortune here (Cities did not reach max level), and terminal space was limited (plus managing your Farmers' Market buys when they self trash), so we were both running with less +Buy than we probably wanted.

I think the main deciding points here were that I was able to thin a bit faster and won the City Split 6/4.

[Chris is me]

There's quite a lot going on here, it's hard to decide where to start.

I think you want two Farmers' Markets kind of soon, for the +Buy, economy spikes, and VP payoff. I would consider Plan on Farmers' Market as an open maybe? Maybe just get both to open, Arena helps with collision. I guess you aren't buying them often enough for Plan to be great on that. Patrician is something you get later on a spare Farmers' Market buy I think. Maybe FM / Sacrifice is the ticket, and you grab another FM fast.

You want one Gladiator, it's really good for hitting $5 and you eventually need a Fortune. Two is unnecessary.

I think a lot of what you do is opponent dependent here - if one of you ignores FM / Wild Hunt then the other should focus on it. Hunting Party versus WH / City for draw is a simile dilemma. You should probably use Patrician as fodder for good $5s?

Empires is good and fun.

[Deadlock39]

I think you want two Farmers' Markets kind of soon, for the +Buy, economy spikes, and VP payoff. I would consider Plan on Farmers' Market as an open maybe? Maybe just get both to open, Arena helps with collision. I guess you aren't buying them often enough for Plan to be great on that. Patrician is something you get later on a spare Farmers' Market buy I think. Maybe FM / Sacrifice is the ticket, and you grab another FM fast.

I really like Sacrifice here, and waited a bit to get Farmers' Markets, but waiting might not have been good.  (I really like Sacrifice everywhere. I might overrate it.) I agree that 2 is about where you want to keep them. It makes for hard decisions when you trash one because you may not want to spend that buy on getting it back. Arena does give you a consolation prize for over terminal-ing early, but you don't want to go overboard and slow your build too much. 2 points now is not worth losing a significant amount of pace.

You want one Gladiator, it's really good for hitting $5 and you eventually need a Fortune. Two is unnecessary.

I got one Gladiator. Iguana² did not, but we both got Fortune once I trashed the rest. I had bad luck with Gladiator early running into cards he had a lot of and got blocked the first 2 or 3 times.

You should probably use Patrician as fodder for good $5s?

I did Advance one Patrician into City to get 3 when I had $10 and 3 buys, but it was a difficult decision. I considered trashing Sacrifice instead there because my Patricians were hitting more often than not at that point.

[Deadlock39]

Deadlock39 vs Iguana Iguana:

With Shelters

A big engine here.  I did not thin fast enough and got pretty far behind. I had to gamble on building a bigger payload with a third set of Crown/Capital. I got lucky with a couple of unfortunate duds from Iguana² and finally got my City Quarters to line up and draw all my payload. I Salted 3 Provinces and bought the 4th, barely stealing the win. The end game with Salt the Earth and explosive engines is going to be really tricky.

[Seprix]

Salt The Earth is going to make so many people pissed off. I can tell already.

City Quarter/Crown/Capital payload seems strong. Open Chariot Race/Temple I think, getting as many Ironmongers as possible.

[Limetime]

Salt The Earth is going to make so many people pissed off. I can tell already.

City Quarter/Crown/Capital payload seems strong. Open Chariot Race/Temple I think, getting as many Ironmongers as possible.

Salt the earth is a terrible event. I am fine with milling provinces exept now you can do it without any effort.


I would open temple silver.
Pick up 2-3 wild hunts and city Quarters and a couple capitals.
Pick up a bunch of crowns
Pick up iron mongers on 4 and Chariot races on 3.
Keep watching your opponents buying power and play around pile outs.

[Deadlock39]

We did both open Temple/Silver because Chariot Race is super bad early. I was actually the only one with a Chariot Race for most of the game, and I'm pretty sure it never hit.

Limetime's line is pretty much what we did. We only got as many Crowns as we had Capitals though. More might have been better, but I am not sure if there was time.  I never had any Wild Hunts because I was struggling to keep up. The end game is definitely the big challenge here. You have to stay far enough ahead that your opponent can't just Salt all the Provinces and win. Iguana² was that far ahead, but accidentally let the pile get low enough that I could buy one and still Salt the rest.

[Deadlock39]

Deadlock39 vs. IguanaIguana:

With Shelters

Openings were Wishing Well/Horse Traders. I got #theDream first shuffle and hit 5/5 for two Counterfeits. I went hard for Wishing Wells and won the split 7/3. I went for Wishing Well/Minstrel with a Poor House payload.  Iguana² was hoping to build up and attack with Legionary each turn, which would have put some major hurt on my deck. I got out to a huge lead and Iguana² resigned. It's hard to say what would have happened if the thinning had been more even. What do you think the best strategy is on this board?

[Limetime]

Hitting two counterfeits turns 3/4 is really good.
After that I would pound wishing wells till they are gone and then get poor houses /minstrel till you are in the 14 range.
Triumphal arch rewards this strategy a lot.

[Chris is me]

If it weren't for Throne Room, Crown would be enough reason to skip Poor House in favor of Legionary, which provides basically the same payload with the 1 Counterfeit you can't get rid of. I guess you can discard it with Horse Traders and then pick it back up with something else. Winning the Wishing Well split for draw is clearly super important though.

I think Legionary's attack is vicious enough that it is worth considering over Poor House here. It's absolutely brutal, especially with Relic to also limit their draw. It's practically a pin with those two together.

[Seprix]

Chris is me is right. Legionary + Relic is too brutal to ignore, especially with poor drawing options. You got very lucky/Iguana played poorly or something like that. Poor Houses can get to an early lead, but Legionary is going to prevent anything from happening if you can play it every turn.

[Limetime]

Chris is me is right. Legionary + Relic is too brutal to ignore, especially with poor drawing options. You got very lucky/Iguana played poorly or something like that. Poor Houses can get to an early lead, but Legionary is going to prevent anything from happening if you can play it every turn.

I don't see how you can play an activated Legionary with olny 3 ww.
The Legionary route is reasonable but it won't make a difference if one person wins the well split like you did.

[Seprix]

Chris is me is right. Legionary + Relic is too brutal to ignore, especially with poor drawing options. You got very lucky/Iguana played poorly or something like that. Poor Houses can get to an early lead, but Legionary is going to prevent anything from happening if you can play it every turn.

I don't see how you can play an activated Legionary with olny 3 ww.
The Legionary route is reasonable but it won't make a difference if one person wins the well split like you did.

True.

[Deadlock39]

If it weren't for Throne Room, Crown would be enough reason to skip Poor House in favor of Legionary, which provides basically the same payload with the 1 Counterfeit you can't get rid of. I guess you can discard it with Horse Traders and then pick it back up with something else. Winning the Wishing Well split for draw is clearly super important though.

I think Legionary's attack is vicious enough that it is worth considering over Poor House here. It's absolutely brutal, especially with Relic to also limit their draw. It's practically a pin with those two together.

I only had 1 Counterfeit in quite a large deck, and it gets discarded by Minstrel. Most of my Poor Houses were playing for $4 because I can play them as I go with the extra Minstrel actions. If the WW and MW split evenly it is a tougher call, but I don't really see Legionary as a payload. The Poor Houses cost 1 and got added to my deck easily for free.  I also only had 1 Throne Room, so supplementing the lost split with those is an option. It doesn't work as well because you want to alternate WM/WW, but if it is the only option, it is better than nothing.

I don't think Relic adds anything remotely significant to the Legionary attack. You start with a 4 card hand, discard to 2 and then draw a card. Starting with 5 feels like a minor difference to me. (This was wrong. Relic comes after you draw your hand.) Now, if you could play Relic with Black Market, and then attack with Legionary... that would be unbelievably brutal.

I didn't ever get hit by the attack, so I don't know for sure what would happen, but I still felt good about my position if I could keep 1 Minstrel and 1 Well to start the turn. There was also only 1 Minstrel and 6 Poor Houses that I was watching for a potential pile out.

[Seprix]

I think you underestimate Legionary's attack combined with Relic. Not only are you left with three cards, but the first draw card you play draws you one less. It's horribly cruel. The only problem is that draw in general is not very strong on this board.

[Deadlock39]

I think you underestimate Legionary's attack combined with Relic. Not only are you left with three cards, but the first draw card you play draws you one less. It's horribly cruel. The only problem is that draw in general is not very strong on this board.

Okay... I was wrong here. Was thinking of things that give you your own -Card token, which give you a 4 card starting hand.  This would hurt a lot. Iguana didn't have any Relics yet, and I think getting all of those things together would be difficult when Minstrel is discarding your Gold and Relic.

[Seprix]

Yes, as I found out. I tend to agree with Chris without looking to see if things are correct. 

[Deadlock39]

A think one thing that matters here is that we were not reliably drawing every card in our decks. Even with 7 Wishing Wells, I think I only drew everything once or twice on my peak turns. I ended up leaving my Counterfeit in the discard once or twice because there was too much other junk in with it.

The attack combo is possibly too brutal to ignore, but I'm not sure how fast/reliable it is in the average game. I might try playing this board out a couple times if I can find time, to see what happens when the early game is even.

Edit: You could test a close approximation on Making Fun by subbing Militia, and picking a random card from your hand that you are not allowed to discard when it is played (standing in for the drawn card). Crown seems Ignorable, so replace it with Scout. The points from Dominate and Landmarks can be tracked manually.

[Deadlock39]

Deadlock39 vs Ravalanche:

Using Basilica with extra money and buys is nice since you have more than remaining after your first buy. I can't remember if I swapped Arena for a different Landmark that we had not already played with on this one, but whatever it was, didn't effect the game significantly. Draw is a bit awkward here, and the Familiars draw the mid-game out with weak Curse trashing. Royal Carriage can give tons of control on Farmers' Market plays for large payload.  I purchased ~4 Farmers' Markets to end this one on piles (Curse/Royal Carriage/Farmers' Market).

[Seprix]

This is an Archive game. I could also see Engineer spamming Silver for Apprentice, though that is probably a bit weaker.

[Deadlock39]

Archive can increase your handsize, but the trashing is slow, and the decks are very bad until you get the Familiar curses cleaned up and some of your Coppers thinned, so the cards it is getting you aren't all that good until the late game. I think I only had one. Maybe should have had more, but Royal Carriage just seems better.  I recall taking something over one of the last Carriages in this game, and immediately regretting it because I realized my opponent would get it instead.

Engineer for Apprentice food seems completely not worthwhile. By the time you play the Engineer, and trash a Silver to Apprentice, you haven't even increased your hand size. Also your Village is only Royal Carriage, so terminal space is valuable. You could gain Potions instead of Silver and it would increase hand size by 1, but it still seems like too much work for too little gain.