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[faust]

If you take the lift down, you will find the hidden time machine.

In some way it is like Obelisk. This gives the first three actions you buy from a pile like 1.33 VP each. Of course it doesn't really work that way. Orchard is pretty interesting strategy-wise. With stuff like Museum or Fairgrounds, you can easily get away with just buying a single copy from a pile that just sits around in your deck being mostly dead. Orchard forces you to change your strategy much more; if you're going to have 3 copies of a card in your deck, you better have some plan for what to do with them.

The easiest thing to get for this are cheap cantrips. It gets interesting with many payload cards. If you think Cursers, Haggler, Altar, all kinds of things, the sweet spot for how many you want is frequently 2, sometimes 1, but rarely 3. So do you change the structure of your deck early to accomodate another copy, or do you hope to pick the missing piece up while greening?

[McGarnacle]

I really like this. It's pretty much like a more fun Fairgrounds which actually makes you change your strategy and doesn't get as out of control with split piles, etc.

[mameluke]

This is also one where you should pay attention to what Ruins you are receiving. Especially if there is no trashing or Ruins aren't terrible. If you've already got two Abandoned Mines, if there's another one on top, you might just want to buy it with an extra Buy.

You should also consider if there's just something better to do. 4 VP is a lot, but don't go out of your way to buy 3 Forges when you could pick up a Province instead.

[mameluke]

Well, turns out Orchard is amazing. I just played a game where my opponent opened 5/2 on a Cultist board, and I think I ended up with 8 Ruins. Now, it helped a ton that it was a University board and I picked up plenty of Action cards even though my deck was terrible, but I ended up with 36 points on Orchard and won the game.

[jomini]

Rather than comparing Orchard to Fairgrounds, I think a much more instructive comparison is with the thematically twinned Vineyard.

Orchard is 1.33 VP/action for the first three actions; Vineyard is .33/action/vineyard (or the same with an even split). Yes the top end possible for most Orchard games is quite a bit lower than for Vineyard, and you need things to be some degree of viable to stock up ... but on the other side you do not need an otherwise useless potion, you never hit $5P and have to agonize between a strong action and small bucket of VP, and you need a far less green tolerant deck. Better still, you are far less worried about the other guy sucking up all the copies of the easily spammable actions or of needing to fish for exactly one card for a huge VP swing.

As a baseline I would at least give serious thought to running toward Orchard VP anytime I would consider Vineyards remotely viable. Yeah, there are a few cases where this does not apply (e.g. Rats/Fortress, Knights), but on many Vineyards boards, I would suspect you can do pretty nice with Orchards. I am optimistic that Orchards will prove to be more powerful than Vineyards on an average board - maybe fewer points, but less hassle getting them.

Even when you are not expecting Orchards to be a major VP source, you should remember the tactical options - three Duchesses are more cash efficient than a Duchy let alone adding in just two more Herbalists. Orchards can also make mass card gain setups extremely powerful for megaturns: Tr -> Smason (trash GG) can be 8 points per, and a lot of the normal tricks like Ball, Smason overbuy, Haggler, Bv, and the like can all offer potential for huge VP spike when busting your deck. Remember that in a standard megaturn game, the Orchard VP is just 2 VP less than the provinces and there are many times where it is far easier to pile up actions.

The real interesting play questions are not when is it worth it to get 3 mostly dead cards though, it is when do you swap from power cards to functional, but lesser cards for the Orchard points. At some point you obviously want to grab some Labs instead of pure Hparties. At some point you might want to mix Village and Shanty or Envoy and Smithy. I have not got a good handle on that as game length with Orchard seems a bit screwy - lots of points delays game end, but because it is pure engine growth you tend not to get much mileage out of attacks or green slowdowns. Knowing when to start picking just how bad of triplets will likely decide an awful lot of high skill Orchard games.

[werothegreat]

Rather than comparing Orchard to Fairgrounds, I think a much more instructive comparison is with the thematically twinned Vineyard.

Orchard is 1.33 VP/action for the first three actions; Vineyard is 1/action.

Uhhh Vineyard is 0.33/action

[Limetime]

Rather than comparing Orchard to Fairgrounds, I think a much more instructive comparison is with the thematically twinned Vineyard.

Orchard is 1.33 VP/action for the first three actions; Vineyard is 1/action.

Uhhh Vineyard is 0.33/action

vineyard is 1/3 per action per vineyard.

[werothegreat]

Rather than comparing Orchard to Fairgrounds, I think a much more instructive comparison is with the thematically twinned Vineyard.

Orchard is 1.33 VP/action for the first three actions; Vineyard is 1/action.

Uhhh Vineyard is 0.33/action

vineyard is 1/3 per action per vineyard.

1/3 = 0.33__

[Limetime]

Rather than comparing Orchard to Fairgrounds, I think a much more instructive comparison is with the thematically twinned Vineyard.

Orchard is 1.33 VP/action for the first three actions; Vineyard is 1/action.

Uhhh Vineyard is 0.33/action

vineyard is 1/3 per action per vineyard.

1/3 = 0.33__

My point is that you can have more than 1 vineyard.

[Davio]

Buy 3 Treasure Maps! And don't trash em.

[GendoIkari]

Well, turns out Orchard is amazing. I just played a game where my opponent opened 5/2 on a Cultist board, and I think I ended up with 8 Ruins. Now, it helped a ton that it was a University board and I picked up plenty of Action cards even though my deck was terrible, but I ended up with 36 points on Orchard and won the game.

Did you get super lucky and have 1 or 2 sets of 3 of a kind in those 8 Ruins?

[Limetime]

Yeah most times the ruins wont favor you that much.

[mameluke]

Well, turns out Orchard is amazing. I just played a game where my opponent opened 5/2 on a Cultist board, and I think I ended up with 8 Ruins. Now, it helped a ton that it was a University board and I picked up plenty of Action cards even though my deck was terrible, but I ended up with 36 points on Orchard and won the game.

Did you get super lucky and have 1 or 2 sets of 3 of a kind in those 8 Ruins?

Yeah, I did. But you're right, it won't always happen.

[ThetaSigma12]

Haggler + Charm = 40 from Orchard

[Mic Qsenoch]

I was the opponent who got beat up in the Cultist vs Orchard game, and the Ruins counts didn't matter at all, it wasn't a close thing where 4 or 8 VP mattered. It was just (in hindsight (probably in foresight too )) clearly better to play with Uni and pursue Orchard points.

[Jacob marley]

Makes Pearl Diver actually attractive (if you have the spare$ and buy to reduce opportunity cost).

[mameluke]

I was the opponent who got beat up in the Cultist vs Orchard game, and the Ruins counts didn't matter at all, it wasn't a close thing where 4 or 8 VP mattered. It was just (in hindsight (probably in foresight too )) clearly better to play with Uni and pursue Orchard points.

Indeed -- as I mention it was really about University, but the larger point I make here about Orchard is that scoring this way is very much resistant to a Cultist onslaught, which is otherwise a very strong strat. You can get enough points from Orchard to make other scoring somewhat irrelevant. Some Landmarks play this way, like Museum on a board with more than 10 cards sitting in Kingdom piles (e.g. split, black market, ruins, etc)

[GendoIkari]

Makes Pearl Diver actually attractive (if you have the spare$ and buy to reduce opportunity cost).

I mean, it makes all cheap cantrips more attractive, but this effect isn't special to Pearl Diver.