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[mxdata]

What would the maximum number of cards you could gain with a single purchase of Populate be?  Obviously under normal circumstances, that would be 10.  If there's a Looter and Young Witch, you'd add the Ruins pile and a Bane, making it 12.  Plus ten Horses per Livery you have in play (Ruins and the Bane are both too cheap to gain Horses)

But some cards also have additional on-gain triggers.  For example: when you gain Border Village, you also gain another cheaper card, so you could potentially gain two copies of an Action card - one from BV's on-gain and the other from Populate itself.  If what it gains is greater than $3, then you'd also get an 11th Horse

The maximum I can come up with is 61, requiring 2 (or more) Liveries in play and the following kingdom: Border Village, Hunting Grounds, Skulk, Young Witch, Death Cart, Catapult/Rocks (Rocks on top), Knights (Sir Vander on top), Catacombs, Graverobber, Livery, with Watchtower as Bane and the Innovation project having been purchased previously

• 12 cards from Populate itself
• All but the bane and the Ruins are $4 or more, so we gain 20 Horses (32 total)
• Skulk comes with a Gold, which in turn comes with 2 Horses; a total of 3 more cards (35 so far, incl. 22 Horses)
• Border Village gains you a cheaper card, which we choose to be Catacombs, which we then trash with a Watchtower in hand to gain a Skulk, which comes with a Gold, and all in turn come with 2 Horses each, for a total of 9 extra cards (44 cards; 28 Horses total)
• Death Cart gains you two more Ruins.  Since Ruins are $0, they don't bring any additional Horses (46 cards)
• Rocks gains a Silver when gained (47 cards)
• But wait, it also gains a Silver when trashed, so let's suppose we have a Watchtower in hand and we trash the Rocks we just gained; that gives us a second Silver (48 cards)
• Port gives us a second Port, which in turn comes with the last 2 Horses (51 cards, all 30 Horses)
  
• The top knight is Sir Vander.  We use the Watchtower to immediately trash Sir Vander, gaining us a Gold (52 cards)
• We trash our Catacombs with the Watchtower.  We gain Skulk.  Which comes with a Gold (54 cards)
• We trash our Hunting Grounds for 3 Estates (57 cards)
  
• We use Innovation on a Graverobber.  Graverobber gains a Border Village out of the trash.  Border Village comes with Catacomb, which we then trash for a Skulk and a Gold, 4 gained cards (61 total, including all 30 Horses)

So, 61 total cards, including all 30 Horses, 5 Golds, 2 Silvers, and 3 Estates.

Potentially all three Ruins are differently-named, so we have a total of 18 differently-named cards gained.  If we also buy Commerce, we'd get 18 Golds, for a total gain of 79 cards with just two buys - including 23 Golds!  We've probably emptied out the Gold pile at this point

Just for the fun of it, let's suppose we have the Tomb landmark also in play, and we trashed all of the cards, not just the ones specifically mentioned as being trashed.  That gives you 79 VP in one turn!  Or if we stuck with the 2 landscapes per game recommendation, we can leave out Commerce, and thus "only" 61 cards being gained and trashed for VP at a cost of just $10!

EDIT: Wait, just realized Port's extra Port is an on-buy effect, not on-gain, so that's 60 total, not 61, and 78 total with Commerce

[Jimmmmm]

What about using Cemetery to trash Hunting Grounds/Catacombs from your hand?

[Jimmmmm]

What about King's Court/Beggar for Innovation?

[Jimmmmm]

What about Duplicate?

[Jimmmmm]

What about King's Court/Beggar for Innovation?

Or King's Court/Trader with Colonies.

[crj]

Port only gives you a second Port when you buy it, not gain it.

Experiment, on the other hand...

[Chris is me]

Populate can't gain Rocks, it's not an Action.

[chipperMDW]

Populate can't gain Rocks, it's not an Action.

But it is in an action supply pile, which is what Populate cares about.

[Jimmmmm]

Sorry for the successive posts. Here's my solution:

Kingdom:

King's Court
Hunting Grounds
Catacombs
Livery
Sculptor
Death Cart
Dismantle
Trader
Young Witch/Squire
Beggar
Innovation


Innovation has been bought.
Hand: 9 King's Courts, 4 Sculptors, 5 Beggars, 10 Hunting Grounds, 10 Catacombs, 9 Squires
In Play: 2 Liveries

Gain King's Court, play with Innovation, play 9 more King's Courts 3 times each, play...
    4 Sculptors 3 times each, gaining to hand 2 Traders, 10 Dismantles
    5 Beggars 3 times each, gaining 45 Coppers
    10 Dismantles 3 times each, trashing...
        1 Beggar and 9 Squires, gaining 9 Young Witches / 10 Golds, 10 Curses
        10 Hunting Grounds, gaining 8 Estates, 7 Duchies / 10 Golds, 1 Duchy, 5 Sculptors, 4 Liveries
        10 Catacombs, gaining 9 Death Carts, 10 Ruins, 1 Copper / 10 Golds, 3 Beggars, 7 Traders
Gain Livery
Gain Sculptor
Gain Death Cart
Gain Trader
Gain Young Witch
Gain Beggar
Gain Squire

Meanwhile, use Trader to gain the 40 Silvers instead of Horses, then gain the 30 Horses.

So we have gained
30 Golds
40 Silvers
46 Coppers
8 Duchies
8 Estates
10 Curses
10 Ruins
30 Horses
1 King's Court
5 Liveries
6 Sculptors
10 Death Carts
10 Dismantles
10 Traders
10 Young Witches
4 Beggars
1 Squire

Total: 239

[Doom_Shark]

Sorry for the successive posts. Here's my solution:...

But that doesn't use populate, which is the point of the thread

[mxdata]

Port only gives you a second Port when you buy it, not gain it.

Experiment, on the other hand...

Right, I corrected that.  And, yes, Experiment would work better for that.  So swap out Port for Experiment in that kingdom

[vishwathg]

Sorry for the successive posts. Here's my solution:

Kingdom:

King's Court
Hunting Grounds
Catacombs
Livery
Sculptor
Death Cart
Dismantle
Trader
Young Witch/Squire
Beggar
Innovation


Innovation has been bought.
Hand: 9 King's Courts, 4 Sculptors, 5 Beggars, 10 Hunting Grounds, 10 Catacombs, 9 Squires
In Play: 2 Liveries

Gain King's Court, play with Innovation, play 9 more King's Courts 3 times each, play...
    4 Sculptors 3 times each, gaining to hand 2 Traders, 10 Dismantles
    5 Beggars 3 times each, gaining 45 Coppers
    10 Dismantles 3 times each, trashing...
        1 Beggar and 9 Squires, gaining 9 Young Witches / 10 Golds, 10 Curses
        10 Hunting Grounds, gaining 8 Estates, 7 Duchies / 10 Golds, 1 Duchy, 5 Sculptors, 4 Liveries
        10 Catacombs, gaining 9 Death Carts, 10 Ruins, 1 Copper / 10 Golds, 3 Beggars, 7 Traders
Gain Livery
Gain Sculptor
Gain Death Cart
Gain Trader
Gain Young Witch
Gain Beggar
Gain Squire

Meanwhile, use Trader to gain the 40 Silvers instead of Horses, then gain the 30 Horses.

So we have gained
30 Golds
40 Silvers
46 Coppers
8 Duchies
8 Estates
10 Curses
10 Ruins
30 Horses
1 King's Court
5 Liveries
6 Sculptors
10 Death Carts
10 Dismantles
10 Traders
10 Young Witches
4 Beggars
1 Squire

Total: 239

I assume everything was triggered by Populate. But how do you get that hand in the first place?

[Jimmmmm]

Obviously I used Populate; that's the point of the thread. The OP made no mention of how the initial state was reached: how Innovation was bought or the Liveries were played so I assumed that wasn't part of the challenge.

[mxdata]

Obviously I used Populate; that's the point of the thread. The OP made no mention of how the initial state was reached: how Innovation was bought or the Liveries were played so I assumed that wasn't part of the challenge.

True, I didn't specify.  But how do you have the $10 to buy Populate in that scenario?  You've only played two Liveries, which give you only $6.  At first I thought, maybe a Death Cart that had trashed itself, but your total requires that all the Death Carts be in the Supply.  And how did you play two Liveries anyways with no village in play and no villagers possible (the only card there that gives you villagers is Sculptor, but your total assumes that no treasures have been gained)

Still, you're definitely on to something there!

[bitwise]

You could just add Exploration to have all the initial starting $ and Villagers that you need.

Does gaining the same card multiple times count? You can start the turn with Innovation and Capitalism bought, and Mandarin in the trash. Then buying a Populate and gaining Storyteller with Watchtower in hand should let you trigger an infinite loop with Storyteller, Rogue, Mandarin.

[Jimmmmm]

Say you've gained 2 Silvers from Sculptor previously, so you can play 3 Liveries and a Silver to make the $10.

The starting hand has 51 cards (including the Liveries and Silver). You can start the turn with the 30 Horses (should be possible given all the expensive cards you've bought with your Liveries), which will give you a 35-card hand. So I guess you'll need to sacrifice two King's Court/Sculptor plays to play Hunting Grounds. This will give you a 59-card hand, enough to account for the 6 extra cards you're not gaining with Sculptor, with 2 spare. So let's say you also have 2 Provinces which you can trash instead of the Hunting Grounds to get the $5 cards from Dismantle

So, if I'm not mistaken, the gains we've lost are 2 Silvers from Trader, 2 Duchies from trashing Hunting Grounds and 6 cards from Sculptor, bringing our total to 229.