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[Accatitippi]

Today I played a very interesting game against Angalagon91. Unfortunately, he had to leave and the game was really going to be a slow one, but I'd have loved to play it out.
The game number is 10475297. Unfortunately my subscription has run out so I cannot load it, but going by memory:



Not entirely sure about mine, but it's irrelevant.

We both stumbled a lot in the beginning, he tried to curse me with IGG-Catapult (which is definitely inefficient thanks to Donate) and I bought cards a bit randomly before spotting the triple Goons golden deck. (Donating each turn, and ending the game on Estate, Curse and Chapel/Beggar)
As I was getting ready to fire the deck, Angalagon had to leave.
Now the interesting part: the simple Dip-Goon golden deck needs your opponent to play Goons to work. So, I believe an appropriate response for Angalagon would have been to stop playing goons and switch to Wild Hunt-Money. He was ahead on points so he might have been able to put toghether the golden deck before I caught up, I'm not sure. I got ready to make the switch to WH, but I don't think it was the right move.

After the game I noticed that using Artificer, the golden deck wouldn't need the opponent's goons. So I think the deck here is 3x Goons, 2x Diplomat, 1x Artificer and a Gold which is not strictly necessary but speeds up the endgame.
Still, it was a fun board to try and figure out.

Edit: fixed IGG's image in kingdom

[aku_chi]

I like the plan to play a bunch of Goons and Donate away the stuff you buy (only worth it with 3+ Goons in play, probably).  But, there's no need to stop at 3 Goons.  With N Diplomats, you can play N+1 Goons.  The Diplomat draw engine is a little finicky, but Artificer should help reduce handsize and gain additional Diplomats.  You should have enough coins to add in an extra Goons or Diplomat buy in with the Donate occasionally, and the more the Goons you are playing, the easier it will be to add more while Donating.  I'd probably grab a Wild Hunt if my opponent threatens to build up those points, but Goons VP should outpace it and provide more pile control.

The opening is puzzle, like on most Donate boards.  I'd consider an early Donate keeping some Copper, because I plan to Donate again in the future.  Maybe:

Turn 1: Silver
Turn 2: Donate (keeping 3 Copper)
Turn 3: Pay off Debt
Turn 4: Artificer
Turn 5: Goons
Turn 6: Diplomat (2 Diplomats if you weren't attacked)

This was just my first thought, it can probably be improved.  In the face of an early Catapult attack, I'd want a second Silver before Donating (keeping 1-2 Copper).

[Cave-o-sapien]

I like the plan to play a bunch of Goons and Donate away the stuff you buy (only worth it with 3+ Goons in play, probably).  But, there's no need to stop at 3 Goons.  With N Diplomats, you can play N+1 Goons. 

I guess the trick there is ensuring you get an Artificer every turn. A hand of N Goons and 5-N Diplomats would suck (unless your opponent is attacking).

[terminalCopper]

 I strongly believe you want a catapult here. I’m not sure about the optimal realisation; the best version I can spot is

T1 buy catapult
T2 donate, keep 5 coppers
T3 catapult copper, pay debt (granted, there‘s a 1/6 risk to miss catapult, but I think the extra coin is worth trying).
T4 catapult copper,  buy silver
T5 catapult copper, buy silver
T6 catapult copper, buy goons
T7 play goons, buy artificer

In the next turns, we get diplomats/artificers/goons while catapulting the remaining copper and the silvers.

I think that this beats any non-catapult-strategy handily which will have a hard time to get a T6 goons under permanent attack, and still has some leftover coppers on top.

In practice, it will play out quite differently if both players get catapults, but that‘s the whole point: you need a catapult here.

[Accatitippi]

 I strongly believe you want a catapult here. I’m not sure about the optimal realisation; the best version I can spot is

T1 buy catapult
T2 donate, keep 5 coppers
T3 catapult copper, pay debt (granted, there‘s a 1/6 risk to miss catapult, but I think the extra coin is worth trying).
T4 catapult copper,  buy silver
T5 catapult copper, buy silver
T6 catapult copper, buy goons
T7 play goons, buy artificer

In the next turns, we get diplomats/artificers/goons while catapulting the remaining copper and the silvers.

I think that this beats any non-catapult-strategy handily which will have a hard time to get a T6 goons under permanent attack, and still has some leftover coppers on top.

In practice, it will play out quite differently if both players get catapults, but that‘s the whole point: you need a catapult here.

My opponent hit 6 on turn 3 so this would probably not have applied in my game, but in general Silver/Silver/[Silver/Donate/Payback]/Goons would be unaffected by the discard attack, right?
aku_chi's version gets Goons one turn earlier than our solutions but it suffers from the catapult.
Of course later in the game you get to catapult the Silvers, but between Diplomat and Donate I was suprised by how little the curses hurt me.