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[AdamH]

I've been reading a good bit recently about how Goons fundamentally changes things in certain games it's in. This sounds a lot like people talking about chapel in the same way.

I didn't get chapel until it was explained to me, and I doubt I'll understand goons until the same thing happens there. I feel like goons is one of those cards where I'm outplayed by my opponent whenever it's present.

Perhaps the brilliant minds here would consider a write-up on goons in the near future? I searched around for some discussion on how to play goons, what really enables it, etc. and I didn't come up with much.

Thanks in advance :-)

[michaeljb]

In simplest terms, being able to consistently play more than one Goons per turn leads to many points and the ability to disregard green cards.

To consistently play multiple Goons you'll need +Actions and some combination of drawing and trashing. Cheap kingdom cards (Hamlet/Pearl Diver/Scheme/etc; 2 or 3 cost cantrips are the main thing here) let you build up more and more points before the endgame; you usually want to wait on buying Coppers for points until the last turn or two.

edit: for clarification, my advice applies to engine decks, where Goons can pick up an insane amount of points; in money decks Goons is still strong, as the next few comments discuss. I'm more of an engine player than BM, so naturally that's the advice I thought to give first 

[jonts26]

Even if there are no action chains possible, it's likely you still want Goons to be your primary non-terminal action. I'd get some (depending on how much non-terminal card draw you have) before Gold. Then follow normal big money buy rules. The attack part of Goons combined with the extra points allows you to let the game go longer and not really worry about losing the province split. You can make up that difference in Goons Points.

The real question to ask is when do you start using those extra buys on coppers? I'd say not right away, but don't wait too long in a big money deck. (Wait a lot longer in an engine deck, don't let it stall too soon). Once you have a couple goons, feel free to start buying copper for the extra points. And pick up some more goons over Gold once your deck starts expanding. Don't be afraid to over-invest in the card. It's much better to be able to play a Goons consistently than to worry about collisions.

[tlloyd]

Watchtower is a key combo card to look for: it can (in combination with +Actions) allow for decent to excellent card draw (especially if you expect to be hit by your opponent's Goons), and it allows you to maximize your VP without slowing your deck by buying coppers/curses and instantly trashing them.

[Geronimoo]

In a money deck you should probably buy Coppers right away when you played Goons. The extra VP is really good and the extra Copper is really not that bad in a money deck. Also, you'll be growing the deck so less chance of your Goons colliding. I would probably not buy Coppers until late in a Colony game though.

[DG]

You can play goons as an expensive monument, expensive militia, or expensive woodcutter. That can be ok in some games. One situation where goons excel though would be a kingdom with many cheap or mid price engine cards. Each turn you can try to play one or more goons and split your buys to get more engine cards. This allows you to strengthen your deck continually and acquire points without green cards congesting your deck. Eventually the deck gets strong enough to play a number of goons and buy out the cheap supply piles for a 3 pile ending and lots of points. A strong engine deck with multiple buys can also usually control the endgame.

[jotheonah]

The real question to ask is when do you start using those extra buys on coppers? I'd say not right away, but don't wait too long in a big money deck. (Wait a lot longer in an engine deck, don't let it stall too soon). Once you have a couple goons, feel free to start buying copper for the extra points. And pick up some more goons over Gold once your deck starts expanding. Don't be afraid to over-invest in the card. It's much better to be able to play a Goons consistently than to worry about collisions.

This is the part that always gets me. I can't resist buying those early Coppers and then I wonder why my engine isn't firing.

[Asklepios]

Hmmm... Geronimoo, seeing as you're on the thread:

4$ + Goons in a game with no +action. Whats the optimal buy here? Goons/Copper? Gold/Copper? Silver/Silver?

[blueblimp]

Hmmm... Geronimoo, seeing as you're on the thread:

4$ + Goons in a game with no +action. Whats the optimal buy here? Goons/Copper? Gold/Copper? Silver/Silver?

I don't know what's optimal (and it's going to depend on the situation), but at minimum you should also be considering Goons/nothing and Gold/nothing. If you take that copper, basically you're buying a "$1, 1 VP" card (a sort of half-Harem), which is probably not something you want unless the game is close to ending.

[jonts26]

Here is the code for what Geronimoo's simulator has as the optimal Goons + BM bot.

Code: [Select]

<player name="Goons"
 author="WanderingWinder"
 description="The optimized Goons strategy that buys no other actions.">
 <type name="Optimized"/>
 <type name="Attacking"/>
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
 <type name="BigMoney"/>
 <type name="SingleCard"/>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Gold"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Goons">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Goons"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Gold"/>
         <extra_operation type="plus" attribute="2.0" />
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
   <buy name="Copper">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInPlay" attribute="Goons"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
</player>

It looks like it buys 3 Goons then alternates Gold/Goons with $6 buys. It holds off on the first province until you have your first Gold and starts buying coppers when there are 6 provinces left (and a Goons in play). I think this seems about right. You don't want to wait too long to start buying those coppers. It's not that bad a card in big money.

[Asklepios]

Thats interesting - I would have bought just 2 goons before going gold waited till 4 Provinces left before buying coppers.

The Simulator is always teaching me new things!

What about for a classic Goons Engine deck? I presume thats harder to simulate, as you need to be able to react and create the 3 pile ending when you're ahead. But I've always played that I don't buy copper till I think the game is going to end on this turn or the next. Is this sensible?

[chwhite]

What about for a classic Goons Engine deck? I presume thats harder to simulate, as you need to be able to react and create the 3 pile ending when you're ahead. But I've always played that I don't buy copper till I think the game is going to end on this turn or the next. Is this sensible?

It's not quite that simple- if you've got lots of draw and trash you can often handle some coppers that'll just get discarded to your opponents' Goons anyway- but you're definitely on the right track.  In practice, most players seem to dilute their Goons engines with copper and green far too soon, and my reluctance to do that is (I suspect) the major reason Goons is one of my best cards.  I hesitate to give more detailed advice than that, because obviously it depends, but as a general rule of thumb you should be willing to forego more of your extra buys than you'd expect, in the engine-building stage at least.

[chogg]

What about for a classic Goons Engine deck? I presume thats harder to simulate, as you need to be able to react and create the 3 pile ending when you're ahead. But I've always played that I don't buy copper till I think the game is going to end on this turn or the next. Is this sensible?

It's not quite that simple- if you've got lots of draw and trash you can often handle some coppers that'll just get discarded to your opponents' Goons anyway- but you're definitely on the right track.  In practice, most players seem to dilute their Goons engines with copper and green far too soon, and my reluctance to do that is (I suspect) the major reason Goons is one of my best cards.  I hesitate to give more detailed advice than that, because obviously it depends, but as a general rule of thumb you should be willing to forego more of your extra buys than you'd expect, in the engine-building stage at least.

I'm a much more mediocre player, but I've noticed the same thing.  Whenever I see somebody buying Coppers on an early Goons turn, it always makes me glad.

[WanderingWinder]

The goons bot I wrote and is in the sim can probably be improved somewhat too, but there was a lot of trial and error on that stuff before working it out right, and a lot of conflating variables to work with.
At some point I had a simple Village+Goons built written up. Sadly it's been lost, but without any better draw than this, the chief differences were: buy villages decently early - I think sometime around when you have a goons, maybe two, village>silver, though I don't remember that very well. Don't buy coppers with a single goons in play until quite a bit later - around the time you'd buy duchies iirc. But always buy them if you have multiple goons in play. However, if you can build a drawing engine (without trashing) you sometimes might want to hold off even here. But as a pretty good rule of thumb, you generally want to buy them with double goons. And Big Money much earlier.

[^_^_^_^]

Any chance you guys could link us to some of your own games you won/lost in which Goons played a big factor? As of right now I refrain from playing games with it for the main reason that I don't know how to play it well and I don't have enough examples of how to play it to get a better idea.

[Taco Lobster]

One note about Goons Engines - make sure you mentally prepare yourself for a game ending on piles, not Provinces.  In particular, a Goons Engine is one of the rare instances where you may want to buy Curses to deplete the third pile and end the game. 

[ftl]

I refrain from playing games with it for the main reason that I don't know how to play it well and I don't have enough examples of how to play it to get a better idea.

Isn't that backwards? If you don't have enough examples of how to play it and don't know how to play it well.... play some Goons games! Either you'll win and figure it out, or you'll lose and therefore have an example of someone playing Goons better than you to learn from.

BTW, you could always just search CouncilRoom for games involving top players and goons. http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=Geronimoo&p2_name=&kingdom=goons - in the top page, there's a bunch of results where Geronimoo got 5 or more goons. Or http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=WanderingWinder&p2_name=&kingdom=goons .

[^_^_^_^]

I refrain from playing games with it for the main reason that I don't know how to play it well and I don't have enough examples of how to play it to get a better idea.

Isn't that backwards? If you don't have enough examples of how to play it and don't know how to play it well.... play some Goons games! Either you'll win and figure it out, or you'll lose and therefore have an example of someone playing Goons better than you to learn from.

BTW, you could always just search CouncilRoom for games involving top players and goons. http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=Geronimoo&p2_name=&kingdom=goons - in the top page, there's a bunch of results where Geronimoo got 5 or more goons. Or http://councilroom.com/search_result?p1_name=WanderingWinder&p2_name=&kingdom=goons .

Ahh thank you! I didn't know about that feature, mainly because I don't search councilroom often at all. I just look at it for my and my opponents' recent level/games/awards

[GreyICE]

Goons + Watchtower with lots of draw is beyond sick.  I used scrying pool.  Play 4 goons, buy what you want, then use the rest of the buys on copper and watchtower them away.  Bye little coppers, hello sexy victory points.

[jomini]

One note about Goons Engines - make sure you mentally prepare yourself for a game ending on piles, not Provinces.  In particular, a Goons Engine is one of the rare instances where you may want to buy Curses to deplete the third pile and end the game.

An important side note on this is to try, if at all possible, to be the player to end the game. In a 5/5 goons split you are looking at 30 chips to potentially go out on the last hand and maybe another 15-20 in VP cards. Leaving piles low enough for your opponent to empty them on his turn requires that you have a pretty large VP lead. If you have additional +buy floating around from markets, worker's villages, etc. then you need to dance carefully at the end - smart players with enough buys (say with TR/WV/Goons) will buy the entire curse stack in one go just to deny you a turn.

If you are going to tank your engine with dead card buys, you want to be sure that either your opponent is doing the same thing, or that he can't go for the long game and win before you can finish out the piles.

E.g. You play 5 goons off of villages and menages and buy two provinces and 4 coppers. This destroys your ability to cycle quickly with menage, but did just net you a whopping 38 points. However, your opponent ignores this and just buys two walled villages for 10 VP. He can keep doing this while you struggle to buy down the villages & menages for 2-3 VP each. So say you net 6 points per turn after you mostly kill your menages (say your deck has a remake that will allow you to slowly purge the duplicate coppers out). So each turn your opponent can pick up 4 points on you ... and at some point kill his engine for 30 some points as well.

Some engines are more resistant to end game spam, village/smithy/goons/chapel can kill a lot of coppers each turn and still draw & play all your components. Scrying pool and menage do very poorly.