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Author Topic: Annex  (Read 18707 times)

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Awaclus

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Re: Annex
« Reply #25 on: August 25, 2017, 11:07:58 am »
0

You don't need it to "significantly improve", honestly, just improve enough to be worth taking a couple Debt vs outright buying a Duchy.

Improving enough to be worth taking a couple Debt means improving more than enough for that Debt to pay for itself in one turn. So if you're taking 2 debt and you have a $5 hand in your deck, you need to be shuffling in a $9 hand or two $8 hands worth of stuff. If you already have an $8 hand in your deck, you need to be shuffling in some crazy good stuff or otherwise you're missing out on a Province buy you would have normally had. If you don't have anything in your deck and you're shuffling in a hand, that hand needs to be $2 better than your average hand . That's a pretty significant difference.

If you're only taking 1 Debt, it's also that much easier to make it worthwhile.
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crj

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Re: Annex
« Reply #26 on: August 25, 2017, 11:50:22 am »
0

I think that - in the spirit of Delve - it could be just 5D and tilt our strategy towards getting more Duchies on that board.
Well, it's an Event not a pile, so it only takes a scrap of Post-It note for you to have that alternative card if you want it.

Given Donald X's stated policy that cards should only be as expensive as they need to be, I assume it got playtested, possibly extensively, at lower prices. There may be some reason why even <7> is too cheap.


I've not actually simulated how things go if you keep shuffling Copper back into your deck and leaving Estates in the discard pile, but it feels as though if you priced it all the way down at <5> it would be possible to buy a Duchy almost every single turn of the game. And if you got into a mirror, you could definitely all buy a Duchy every turn until they ran out. Is that fun?
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Annex
« Reply #27 on: August 25, 2017, 12:16:01 pm »
0

I think that - in the spirit of Delve - it could be just 5D and tilt our strategy towards getting more Duchies on that board.
Well, it's an Event not a pile, so it only takes a scrap of Post-It note for you to have that alternative card if you want it.

Given Donald X's stated policy that cards should only be as expensive as they need to be, I assume it got playtested, possibly extensively, at lower prices. There may be some reason why even <7> is too cheap.


I've not actually simulated how things go if you keep shuffling Copper back into your deck and leaving Estates in the discard pile, but it feels as though if you priced it all the way down at <5> it would be possible to buy a Duchy almost every single turn of the game. And if you got into a mirror, you could definitely all buy a Duchy every turn until they ran out. Is that fun?

I don't dispute that you could do this, but why would you? In the scenario you've described there's a lot of game left after that Duchy pile has been emptied and no other cards have been purchased.
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trivialknot

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Re: Annex
« Reply #28 on: August 25, 2017, 03:31:59 pm »
+1

The main situation where Annex seems okay:
-I have a BM deck with 25+ cards.
-I've been greening my deck is beginning to slow down.
-I'm near the bottom of the shuffle.
-I either don't have enough money for Province/Colony, or I don't want one (e.g. if it's the penultimate province).

So I buy Annex, and keep 5 green cards out of the shuffle, plus the Duchy, plus my current hand.  So for 15+ cards I get a relatively clean deck without the weight of those provinces.  The first turn I have to pay off debt so that's kind of a wash.  But on the next turn I can buy province.  And the turn after that, either Province or Annex again.

I've also toyed around with Annex to play key actions more often but this seems not to be very good.

Even when the value of Annex is non-zero, it's pretty subtle.  I can't imagine a kingdom where I would change the overall strategy just because Annex is present.  Even if Annex cost <5>, I think it would still be marginal.

If I were to modify Annex to "fix" it, I would allow it to gain any card costing up to $5.  It'd kind of overlap with Overlord, but Overlord is awesome so I'm fine with that.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Annex
« Reply #29 on: August 25, 2017, 04:29:31 pm »
+4

Given Donald X's stated policy that cards should only be as expensive as they need to be, I assume it got playtested, possibly extensively, at lower prices. There may be some reason why even <7> is too cheap.

Annex was an Event from late in development. It was never tested at any other cost. It was better than the other outtake Events tested around that time, what can I say. I liked it, though it was obvious at the time it was narrow. In retrospect it would have been nice to try at a lower cost, but I didn't personally push for doing that like I did with some other cards (Plunder, etc.).
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Donald X.

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Re: Annex
« Reply #30 on: August 25, 2017, 10:54:41 pm »
+6

Annex was an Event from late in development. It was never tested at any other cost. It was better than the other outtake Events tested around that time, what can I say. I liked it, though it was obvious at the time it was narrow. In retrospect it would have been nice to try at a lower cost, but I didn't personally push for doing that like I did with some other cards (Plunder, etc.).
The non-Duchy part was its own Event earlier, for both Adventures and Empires. I tried that effect on a Victory card in Hinterlands.

The Debt and Duchy one was only ever 8D though.
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King Leon

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Re: Annex
« Reply #31 on: August 27, 2017, 04:35:07 pm »
+2

Edge Case: In Embargo games, where Embargo tokens are often put on Province and Duchy. Annex can be used to safely gain Duchies.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2017, 04:36:15 pm by King Leon »
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Chris is me

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Re: Annex
« Reply #32 on: August 27, 2017, 07:05:44 pm »
+2

Played a kind of sloggy engine game with Royal Carriage as the splitter and no +Buy or trashing. You'd basically play cantrips and Royal Carriages for 2-3 turns, then get a bunch of Wild Hint plays in a row off called RCs to score a bunch of bonus points and spike a Province. In this kind of game Annex proved very useful as it took several turns to get through a shuffle and you could get your RCs back on the mat very quickly this way. Plus the big payload turn would often give you more than $8 to pay off remaining Debt with.
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Re: Annex
« Reply #33 on: August 28, 2017, 07:30:16 am »
0

I just had a game I won thanks to Annex (bought it thrice). I don't know if it was an optimal play, but here you go:

Rebuild
Capital
Worker's Village
Trader
Scavenger
Workshop
Hermit
Apothecary
Pearl Diver
Hamlet

Game 6359903

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LaLight

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Re: Annex
« Reply #34 on: August 28, 2017, 07:30:38 am »
0

Actually I just needed Duchies and had no money to buy them
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Awaclus

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Re: Annex
« Reply #35 on: August 28, 2017, 09:40:24 pm »
+5

Today, I played a game where I used Annex to gain debt to make my opponent's Possessions useless.
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Qvist

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Re: Annex
« Reply #36 on: August 29, 2017, 04:48:15 am »
+5

Today, I played a game where I used Annex to gain debt to make my opponent's Possessions useless.

Oh my, not again one of these. Possession with Debt is the worst.

Seprix

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Re: Annex
« Reply #37 on: September 03, 2017, 10:48:18 am »
+1

I have found the most useful applications of Annex are...

1. A free extra Duchy on the last turn
2. Possession guard a la Debt while also scoring, making it one of the stronger Debt protection enablers
3. A weird turn guaranteer in a sloggish deck towards the end of the game while also being towards the end of the shuffle.

I also think Annex will rise in power slightly. Surely it can be used more than it is right now (almost nothing). Currently it's viewed as a bad card-shaped thingy and it might be true, but it also might be a Rebuild/JoaT thing where the power of it isn't instantly realized.
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Awaclus

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Re: Annex
« Reply #38 on: September 03, 2017, 11:07:42 am »
0

it also might be a Rebuild/JoaT thing where the power of it isn't instantly realized.

It's not.
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BaumDZ

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Re: Annex
« Reply #39 on: March 02, 2018, 02:58:48 pm »
+2

First post. Also on cell phone so I apologize for weird wording/misspellings

Does anybody play in large groups of people? (4 or 5) It is much different play... we had 5 people with this kingdom.

Kingdom:
Goons
Ghost ship
Patrol
Militia
University
Rogue
Laboratory
Kings Court
Rabble
Distant Lands

Mission
Annex

There were plenty of attacks, but no curses. The winning play was universities for distant lands and then buying an extra turn and annexing the dutchies. We ran out on piles (4 piles for a 5 plager game). Annex was very powerful because you got to keep your university in your hand longer and cycle through your deck faster. It is much different than 2 person play. Fun thing for work lunch though...
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Awaclus

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Re: Annex
« Reply #40 on: March 02, 2018, 03:16:54 pm »
0

Does anybody play in large groups of people? (4 or 5)

Some people do, but almost all of the strategy discussion is centered around 2-player games.
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Kirian

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Re: Annex
« Reply #41 on: March 02, 2018, 06:25:48 pm »
0

then buying an extra turn and annexing the dutchies.

You can't buy Annex on a Mission turn.  Do you mean you were buying Mission/Annex on the normal turn, then paying the debt off on the Mission turn?
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Awaclus

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Re: Annex
« Reply #42 on: March 02, 2018, 06:43:34 pm »
+6

then buying an extra turn and annexing the dutchies.

You can't buy Annex on a Mission turn.

Yes you can, it's not a card.
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Re: Annex
« Reply #43 on: March 05, 2018, 11:22:49 am »
0

The only recommended kingdom involving Annex is the "Zookeepers" kingdom using Empires and Cornucopia:
Overlord, Sacrifice, Settlers, Villa, Wild Hunt, Fairgrounds, Horse Traders, Menagerie, Jester, Tournament   
Additional Cards:
Annex, Colonnade      

Obviously Donald X. designed this kingdom to reveal the secret superpower of the seemingly shitty Annex.

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Re: Annex
« Reply #44 on: March 05, 2018, 02:39:20 pm »
+3

So, I finally found a use for Annex. I bought it in a Rebuild game when I only had $4.
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