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[Wolphmaniac]

So last night I posted another thread and someone replied with this:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/30/game-20120330-033612-268bb72b.html
http://i.imgur.com/5njuh.jpg

which totally blew my mind.  But then I got to thinking...

What would happen if you maxed out Pirate Ship?

Let's see....

Kingdom:
King's Court
Pirate Ship
Grand Market
Philosopher's Stone (to get potion into the game)
Colony/Platinum is available

after that, any 6 other treasures will do.  Let's just say Loan, Bank, Venture, Royal Seal, Harem, Fool's Gold. 

Rules:
You control everything, including opponent play and the shuffle of your deck.

Gameplay 
-You take the 10 King's Courts and 10 Pirate Ships and 9 Grand Markets. 
-Your opponent acquires 52 coppers (his original 7 plus 45 of the 46 kingdom coppers), 39 silvers, 15 potions, 29 Golds, 11 Platinums, and 9 each of P-Stone, Loan, Bank, Venture, Royal Seal, Harem, and Fool's Gold...all for your Pirate Ships to chomp on.  Pirate Ship's final value is $209.

On the big turn, your hand starts with KC/KC/KC/KC/GM.  Your deck has rest of the KC's and GM's alternating until you get down to the 10 Pirate Ships after that, then your coppers and estates at the bottom.  You get 28 total KC plays this way and the math works out perfect: 9 are for the other KC's besides the first, 9 are for GM's, and 10 are for the PS's.  The 27 total GM plays are enough to draw the 6 KC's + 8 GM's + 10 PS's that didn't start in your hand.  You also get $54 from the GM's.  You should end up with 10 Pirate Ships and 3 coppers in your hand with enough KC's still chaining to KC all the PS's.  Taking all the money from the PS's would net you 30*$209 or $6,270 + $54 from GM's + 3 coppers = $6,327 and 27 buys.

Is there any flaw in this?  This would work, right?  And can anyone top this?

[michaeljb]

Possession/Pirate Ship can lead to infinite coinage.

edit: oh wait, no it can't...never mind, nothing to see here.

[GendoIkari]

Possession/Pirate Ship can lead to infinite coinage.

edit: oh wait, no it can't...never mind, nothing to see here.

Actually I think it can...

[Davio]

Possession/Pirate Ship can lead to infinite coinage.

edit: oh wait, no it can't...never mind, nothing to see here.

Actually I think it can...

No, it can't.

You only regain trashed stuff if the Possessed player trashes it himself, not when it is trashed by the other player.
If a Possessed player plays Pirate Ship, it attacks the non-Possessed player so the Treasure is still trashed.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Ambassador/Masquerade to pass your starting coppers to your opponent and BM containing YW and all other kingdom treasures can both increase the value of your Pirate Ships.

[michaeljb]

Possession/Pirate Ship can lead to infinite coinage.

edit: oh wait, no it can't...never mind, nothing to see here.

Actually I think it can...

No, it can't.

You only regain trashed stuff if the Possessed player trashes it himself, not when it is trashed by the other player.
If a Possessed player plays Pirate Ship, it attacks the non-Possessed player so the Treasure is still trashed.

Yup, didn't figure that out till I actually tried setting it up on iso :p

[Wolphmaniac]

Ambassador/Masquerade to pass your starting coppers to your opponent and BM containing YW and all other kingdom treasures can both increase the value of your Pirate Ships.

No, this does not work I'm afraid.  You lose more than you gain when you eliminate kingdom treasures. Ambassador or Masquerade would allow you to pass your 7 coppers to the opponent, but if the Amb/Masq pile were a treasure pile instead then there would be 9 treasures he could just take from it.  So that would be a net loss in the end.  (If you're doing the numbers, every treasure in the kingdom is worth $270 on the final hand: 9 of them get trashed for +$9 on Pirate Ship, then Pirate Ship gets played 30 times. $9*30=$270.  Replacing a treasure pile with Amb or Masq would result in a net loss of $2 on Pirate ship value, thus a $2*30=$60 net loss on the final hand.)  BM is also a good thought but it also does not work because there would need to be at least 10 other kingdom treasures that you could put in the BM deck to justify replacing a treasure pile with BM.  Right now there are not 10 other kingdom treasures in addition to the 6 that you would already have out there.

Can anyone point out why my original strategy is flawed, or how it could be topped?

[Thisisnotasmile]

You get your Ambassador or Masquerade from the BM itself, not by replacing a whole kindom pile, and you get the space for the BM pile by having the Young Witch in the BM, thereby effectively creating a whole new kingdom pile which you can stick the Treasure pile you removed for the BM straight back into.

[MainiacJoe]

-You take the 10 King's Courts and 10 Pirate Ships and 9 Grand Markets. 

...

You should end up with 10 Pirate Ships and 3 coppers in your hand with enough KC's still chaining to KC all the PS's. 

With only coppers, how are you buying your GMs in the first place?  You need to buy at least three silvers it seems to me.  In that case, you should have these in your final hand, not the three coppers.  So that's $3 more.

[Algebraist]

-You take the 10 King's Courts and 10 Pirate Ships and 9 Grand Markets. 

...

You should end up with 10 Pirate Ships and 3 coppers in your hand with enough KC's still chaining to KC all the PS's. 

With only coppers, how are you buying your GMs in the first place?  You need to buy at least three silvers it seems to me.  In that case, you should have these in your final hand, not the three coppers.  So that's $3 more.

With the pirate ships.

[Wolphmaniac]

-You take the 10 King's Courts and 10 Pirate Ships and 9 Grand Markets. 

...

You should end up with 10 Pirate Ships and 3 coppers in your hand with enough KC's still chaining to KC all the PS's. 

With only coppers, how are you buying your GMs in the first place?  You need to buy at least three silvers it seems to me.  In that case, you should have these in your final hand, not the three coppers.  So that's $3 more.

With the pirate ships.

^That.  You definitely do not want to take ANY treasures away from the opponent!  That's not $3 more, it's actually $177 less because you lose $30 every time you take a treasure away from the opponent. (THEN you get +$3 for a net of -$177)

[Wolphmaniac]

You get your Ambassador or Masquerade from the BM itself, not by replacing a whole kindom pile, and you get the space for the BM pile by having the Young Witch in the BM, thereby effectively creating a whole new kingdom pile which you can stick the Treasure pile you removed for the BM straight back into.

Ah, I get it.  Love it.  Very crafty!  Yes, this makes sense.  The one to play is ambassador because the two-way passing from Masquerade would get very messy.  OK, so you load the Black Market deck with YW (for the extra kingdom pile where BM sits), Ambassador (for passing your 7 coppers), all the other kingdom treasures you haven't used yet (Quarry, Talisman, Contraband, Hoard, Stash, Bank, Ill-G-G, Cache, Horn of Plenty) and Tournament so somewhere along the way the opponent can gain Diadem.  That's 17 more treasures for Pirate Ship to chomp on, resulting in +$17 for Pirate Ship's final value and with 30 Pirate Ship plays that's an extra $510, for a total of $6,837.    It would also be possible to tease out a few more $ by loading the BM deck with +$ action cards that you play at the every end of the turn, but I don't feel like thinking through the optimal strategy for that right now. 

Overall you're looking at about $6,875 from this.  I wonder if that's beatable?

[Algebraist]

You get your Ambassador or Masquerade from the BM itself, not by replacing a whole kindom pile, and you get the space for the BM pile by having the Young Witch in the BM, thereby effectively creating a whole new kingdom pile which you can stick the Treasure pile you removed for the BM straight back into.

Ah, I get it.  Love it.  Very crafty!  Yes, this makes sense.  The one to play is ambassador because the two-way passing from Masquerade would get very messy.  OK, so you load the Black Market deck with YW (for the extra kingdom pile where BM sits), Ambassador (for passing your 7 coppers), all the other kingdom treasures you haven't used yet (Quarry, Talisman, Contraband, Hoard, Stash, Bank, Ill-G-G, Cache, Horn of Plenty) and Tournament so somewhere along the way the opponent can gain Diadem.  That's 17 more treasures for Pirate Ship to chomp on, resulting in +$17 for Pirate Ship's final value and with 30 Pirate Ship plays that's an extra $510, for a total of $6,837.    It would also be possible to tease out a few more $ by loading the BM deck with +$ action cards that you play at the every end of the turn, but I don't feel like thinking through the optimal strategy for that right now. 

Overall you're looking at about $6,875 from this.  I wonder if that's beatable?

This is still assuming you have grand markets taking up a kingdom pile, right? That's not necessary: you can use cards from the black market (say council room and governor) to draw your deck for the ultra-turn. You also don't need all ten king's courts to triple-play all your pirate ships, so your opponent can empty a treasure pile for another point of piracy.

That should give you 234 points on the ships, for $7020 just from piracy, before you start loading the rest of the BM deck with money-making actions.

[O]

Our old friend scrying pool (in the BM deck) comes to our aid here..

Ambassador back the potion along with your coppers, scrying pool draws 9KC-10PS- Whatever +coin actions you want.

Also, we can squeeze in two more tokens in a 3player+ game, placing Harem in the supply.

[Davio]

Overall you're looking at about $6,875 from this.  I wonder if that's beatable?

Multiplayer?

If you do a 6p game IRL or 4p game on Iso, is the Copper pile still 60?

[Wolphmaniac]

Loving all these tweaks.  Thanks for the feedback.  Makes total sense to have one Scrying Pool from the BM deck drawing your entire deck, so GM can leave the kingdom and a treasure can sit in that spot for +$9 on PS thus +$270 on final turn.  And yes, this would also free up 9 King's Court plays to play on other +$ action cards.  We're definitely reaching the bounds of all potential here.  I feel like we're track athletes who are already as fast as anyone has ever seen, and now trying to figure out how to take that extra .01 second off of the 100 meter, or that extra minute off of the marathon.  (Or maybe I'm just obsessed with my upcoming Boston Marathon run on April 16.  #22202!) 

Anyways, is there some totally different system that can approach $7,000 like this, or is "All The King's Pirates" the best one?   

[Wolphmaniac]

Also, we can squeeze in two more tokens in a 3player+ game, placing Harem in the supply.

You mean 4 more tokens.  8 ---> 12

[Algebraist]

Also, we can squeeze in two more tokens in a 3player+ game, placing Harem in the supply.

You mean 4 more tokens.  8 ---> 12

No, two more, since before Harem was in the BM deck, and now we've swapped it into one of the kingdom piles.

[O]

Also, we can squeeze in two more tokens in a 3player+ game, placing Harem in the supply.

You mean 4 more tokens.  8 ---> 12

No, two more, since before Harem was in the BM deck, and now we've swapped it into one of the kingdom piles.

To clarify: We swapped Harem (12) for something like Venture (10), and not Harem ( 8 )