Topic: Trading Post/- or Vault/- (Read 7006 times)

cherdano · « **on:** June 25, 2011, 09:44:31 am »

I had this decision in a Colony money game (I assume in Province games it's usually obvious to go for Trading Post). There were no attack cards, and no good engine cards. What would you go for?

Here are the details: I was in second position, my opponent opening 4/3 (buying a monument at turn 1). The board was:

Contraband
Horn of Plenty
Upgrade
Trading Post
Vault
-------------
Baron
Monument
-------------
Steward
Watchtower
Trade Route

(If you wonder about the result: I went for Vault, and got incredibly lucky by drawing it at BOTH turn 3 and 4. Needless to say, the game was over, and I got my 3rd Colony at turn 13.)

nemryn · « **Reply #1 on:** June 25, 2011, 11:52:38 am »

I usually find Trading Post to be slow and awkward, eventually it turns into a dead card, and there are better ways to trash things on this board. I definitely would have gone with Vault.

michaeljb · « **Reply #2 on:** June 25, 2011, 11:57:48 am »

Presence of Steward for (edit: also, Upgrade, for non-terminal) trashing --> Vault over Trading Post for me.

guided · « **Reply #3 on:** June 25, 2011, 02:46:28 pm »

Trading Post AINEC.

You might have an argument for Vault in a Province game.

Kirian · « **Reply #4 on:** June 25, 2011, 03:34:05 pm »

IMO Upgrade > Trading Post under any circumstance. I'd actually have been tempted to go Upgrade/-.

guided · « **Reply #5 on:** June 25, 2011, 05:40:48 pm »

Your opinion lies in stark contrast to practical reality, I'm afraid

http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=trading%20post%2Cvault%2Cupgrade%2Cmountebank%2Cwitch

Trading Post is in the top tier of power openers, right up there with Witch and Mountebank. Upgrade and Vault are not remotely in the same league. TP is a unique card in that it's elite as an opener, merely good at turn 3/4, and pretty much crap after that.

cherdano · « **Reply #6 on:** June 25, 2011, 08:12:01 pm »

Quote from: guided on June 25, 2011, 02:46:28 pm

Trading Post AINEC.

You might have an argument for Vault in a Province game.

Interesting that you think so - I thought Vault would be better in a Colony game since:
- a Trading Post is (besides the Trashing) good for getting Silvers, which will slow you down in the end of the Colony game, and
- a Vault is an automatic Gold every turn, and doesn't need that much (a gold + something) to get a platinum.

Kirian · « **Reply #7 on:** June 25, 2011, 09:35:58 pm »

Quote from: guided on June 25, 2011, 05:40:48 pm

Your opinion lies in stark contrast to practical reality, I'm afraid

http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=trading%20post%2Cvault%2Cupgrade%2Cmountebank%2Cwitch

Trading Post is in the top tier of power openers, right up there with Witch and Mountebank. Upgrade and Vault are not remotely in the same league. TP is a unique card in that it's elite as an opener, merely good at turn 3/4, and pretty much crap after that.

Bah, you with your math, and statistics, and facts! I reject your reality... and substitute my own!

That graph is quite interesting, though. It's funny that TP falls below Upgrade on 3 and Vault on 4.

DG · « **Reply #8 on:** June 25, 2011, 09:57:17 pm »

The trading post is a strong card and it doesn't matter if it is a colony or province game; you'd rather have two silver in your deck than 4 copper. The problem in this kingdom is that it is working on only 5 cards hands and a trading post style deck gets less benefit from an opponent's vault. You can have also an extra action with the vault knowing you can discard it for a coin at worst.

I'd go perhaps for trading post then vault later. No reason why you can't have both.

Teproc · « **Reply #9 on:** June 26, 2011, 03:17:12 am »

I'd go with Trading Post, because it really is deceiptively powerful as an opening buy, as CouncilRoom data shows it. The presence of Steward makes it interesting though, but I still like Trading Post t1 better than Steward t3.

ShuffleNCut · « **Reply #10 on:** June 26, 2011, 03:24:04 am »

Quote from: cherdano on June 25, 2011, 08:12:01 pm

Quote from: guided on June 25, 2011, 02:46:28 pm
Trading Post AINEC.

You might have an argument for Vault in a Province game.
Interesting that you think so - I thought Vault would be better in a Colony game since:
- a Trading Post is (besides the Trashing) good for getting Silvers, which will slow you down in the end of the Colony game, and
- a Vault is an automatic Gold every turn, and doesn't need that much (a gold + something) to get a platinum.

The thing about Vault in a Prov game is that it pretty much combos with itself. Any time you draw a vault you at least get a gold and then every time you draw a vault and a gold or two silvers you get a province. The engine can start as soon as turn three and Prov>>Dutch(if prov <4)>>Gold>>Vault>>Silver has about a <14 turn goldfish off of a first turn vault.

I spent some time working the simulations to try to make a first turn TP bot that could beat the first turn Vault bot but was unsuccessful. Best I could come up with was a 38%.

As far as a colony game testing is showing that vault nudges out TP by the tiniest of fractions when both are ~optimized. Upgrade is worse than either by far. The TP bot essentially bought TP first turn then turned into a vault bot. I also tried making it into a TP>Big money deck however this was much much worse. I then tried throwing in a steward or two at various points in the game however they only lowered the win% a few points.

Of course, as is obvious, if the buy orders are off (or if the robots are bad at playing cards) then the results could be far different. I also didn't include any other kingdom cards as none seem to synergize with the first turn fives.

DG · « **Reply #11 on:** June 26, 2011, 06:16:49 am »

Quote

I spent some time working the simulations to try to make a first turn TP bot that could beat the first turn Vault bot but was unsuccessful. Best I could come up with was a 38%.

If you're using Geronimo's simulator I'm afraid it doesn't make the right decisions on the trading post and vault discards.

guided · « **Reply #12 on:** June 26, 2011, 08:48:22 am »

The reason I poo-poo Vault for a Colony game is that it's disproportionately easier to buy Provinces with Vault than it is to buy Colonies. Vault still only gets $1 per discard even though the price of the VP card you want is higher. The reason I especially like TP for a Colony game is that they tend to be longer than Province games, and the longer the game the more benefit you get out of slow trashers. Presumably the extra benefit of the longer game is mitigated somewhat by the fact that Silver isn't good enough for a Colony deck that doesn't draw cards.

As DG said you can get a Vault later, though I'd be inclined to take Gold instead unless I had exactly $5.

Geronimoo · « **Reply #13 on:** June 26, 2011, 09:35:11 am »

Quote from: DG on June 26, 2011, 06:16:49 am

Quote
I spent some time working the simulations to try to make a first turn TP bot that could beat the first turn Vault bot but was unsuccessful. Best I could come up with was a 38%.
If you're using Geronimo's simulator I'm afraid it doesn't make the right decisions on the trading post and vault discards.

It's true my Simulator won't play TP perfectly, but it's close enough in most cases. And if you have a deck of only Vaults, money and green the Vault is always played correctly.

I was in fact able to create a Trading Post bot that beats the Vault bot in a Colony game if both have $5/$2 openings (TP/nothing 50% - Vault/nothing 47%). You can try these out yourselves:

Paste this in Player n°1 (use the VXML-button):
<player name="COL - TP/nothing">
<buy name="Colony">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Platinum"/>
<operator type="greaterThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Province">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Duchy">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Estate">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Platinum"/>
<buy name="Gold"/>
<buy name="Trading_Post">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Trading_Post"/>
<operator type="equalTo" />
<right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Vault"/>
<buy name="Silver"/>
</player>

Paste this in player n°2 (again with the VXML-button):
<player name="COL - Vault/nothing">
<buy name="Colony">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Platinum"/>
<operator type="greaterThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Province">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Duchy">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Estate">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Platinum"/>
<buy name="Gold"/>
<buy name="Vault"/>
<buy name="Silver"/>
</player>

Remember to force a $5/$2 start for both players to get the same results! Since the Trading Post is not played perfectly we can assume TP/nothing beats Vault/nothing by a larger margin than the Simulations indicate.

DG · « **Reply #14 on:** June 26, 2011, 10:52:17 am »

Quote

It's true my Simulator won't play TP perfectly, but it's close enough in most cases. And if you have a deck of only Vaults, money and green the Vault is always played correctly.

If the Geronimo bot has {trading post, silver, silver, copper, estate} in hand and the opponent plays a vault, the bot will discard a copper and estate, typically draw a copper, not play the trading post, and buy a silver. Compare that to trashing the copper and estate with the trading post, gaining a silver and buying a gold. The bot always misses the opportunity to trash silver + other for silver. The bot always misses the opportunity to discard the trading post and keep treasure for buys, even when there is no possible draw under which the trading post would be played (as in the example above). These decisions lose games as these situations regularly occur in play.

ImperialStout · « **Reply #15 on:** June 28, 2011, 01:11:46 am »

Quote from: guided on June 25, 2011, 05:40:48 pm

TP is a unique card in that it's elite as an opener, merely good at turn 3/4, and pretty much crap after that.

Cutpurse too, no?

rogerclee · « **Reply #16 on:** June 28, 2011, 02:09:24 am »

Quote from: ImperialStout on June 28, 2011, 01:11:46 am

Quote from: guided on June 25, 2011, 05:40:48 pm
TP is a unique card in that it's elite as an opener, merely good at turn 3/4, and pretty much crap after that.

Cutpurse too, no?

I would never consider cutpurse to be an elite opener, it is worse than Militia after all. It's something that I tend to open only when there is nothing better to do.

guided · « **Reply #17 on:** June 28, 2011, 07:44:05 am »

Quote from: rogerclee on June 28, 2011, 02:09:24 am

I would never consider cutpurse to be an elite opener

Agreed.

cherdano · « **Reply #18 on:** June 30, 2011, 06:31:45 pm »

Thanks all for your thoughts, this was instructive for me.

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Author Topic: Trading Post/- or Vault/- (Read 7006 times)