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[BraydonM]

Forts?

Forts is a bit odd to me because it is a rotate pile that doesn't have much synergy between the cards. (Only Hill Fort and Garrison working together). The whole group is also a big action suck.

First there's Tent!

-- Obviously Tent is a good card for your first two buys if there aren't any other terminal 3-4 cost you want
-- When would you pick it over other 3-4 cost terminal cards in your opening buys? When is it not worth it?
-- Is there ever a case when you want Tent past early game? What about multiple Tents?

Then there is Garrison!

-- This card ends up pretty underwhelming if you aren't gaining multiple cards in a turn.
-- When is this a worthwhile investment besides obvious shenanigans with Paddock?

Hill Fort!

-- Putting it into your hand is the same as playing Falconer.
-- The other option adds some flexibility in exchange for the lack of reaction ability.
-- Tent can rotate faster than most, is this a good early game goal?

Stronghold!

-- How does it compare to Nobles?
-- Is it worth it?

[mxdata]

Forts?

Forts is a bit odd to me because it is a rotate pile that doesn't have much synergy between the cards. (Only Hill Fort and Garrison working together). The whole group is also a big action suck.

First there's Tent!

-- Obviously Tent is a good card for your first two buys if there aren't any other terminal 3-4 cost you want
-- When would you pick it over other 3-4 cost terminal cards in your opening buys? When is it not worth it?
-- Is there ever a case when you want Tent past early game? What about multiple Tents?

Then there is Garrison!

-- This card ends up pretty underwhelming if you aren't gaining multiple cards in a turn.
-- When is this a worthwhile investment besides obvious shenanigans with Paddock?

Hill Fort!

-- Putting it into your hand is the same as playing Falconer.
-- The other option adds some flexibility in exchange for the lack of reaction ability.
-- Tent can rotate faster than most, is this a good early game goal?

Stronghold!

-- How does it compare to Nobles?
-- Is it worth it?

Stronghold is really good with Capitalism. But even without Capitalism, if you have enough villages, it's a pretty strong card.  +$3 this turn or +3 Cards next turn, plus the 2 VP, is a good combination

Garrison definitely shines in games where you can gain multiple cards, and Hill Fort can help there. Paddock is certainly one good combination. Livery is pretty strong too, especially with extra buys. Tent seems to mostly be good in the early game when a self-topdecking Silver comes in handy, but being terminal limits its usefulness later on

[pubby]

This pile is very strong with the +Action token or Capitalism, but Tent seems incredibly niche otherwise. I'd buy it in Duke games and a few slogs, but hardly ever else. And if it never gets bought, the other cards won't either.

Besides, it's not a good idea to buy Tent just to rotate the pile. First off, doing so gives your opponent access to those cards. Second, the other cards in the pile often anti-synergize with Tent.

Honestly, I'm wondering if this pile is a dud.

[BraydonM]

This pile is very strong with the +Action token or Capitalism, but Tent seems incredibly niche otherwise. I'd buy it in Duke games and a few slogs, but hardly ever else. And if it never gets bought, the other cards won't either.

Besides, it's not a good idea to buy Tent just to rotate the pile. First off, doing so gives your opponent access to those cards. Second, the other cards in the pile often anti-synergize with Tent.

Honestly, I'm wondering if this pile is a dud.

Personally I wouldn't label any card as a dud. (Except probably Explorer) With the addition of Swap I finally found myself on a board where I got good usage out of Duchess! (possible before with trashing, way of the horse, or other things but I hadn't seen it be worth it.) I don't think it's a question of if a card is useful just how often and when a card should be played. Some are definitely useful in more situations than others of course but there aren't really bad cards. (Though Duchess is insanely niche.)

I think Tent is definitely worth considering for the high early game potential especially when there is a good non-terminal 3-4 cost to use with it. Having a silver in hand every turn is great early game. Bounty Hunter, Iron Works, Quarry, Potion, Mill and many more will get you off to a strong start when combined with Tent though Tent can certainly be a burden later on. (Bounty Hunter just exiles it.)

What I'm having trouble understanding with Tent is when its worth going with Tent over another terminal option since obviously you don't want to combine any other terminal with tent early since they will collide.

You're definitely right about it being a bad idea to take a card just to rotate though! Usually that ends up giving equal good cards to the opponent while you ate a bad one so it's definitely better to leave it out in almost all cases over buying just to rotate. (If the opponent is invested in another strategy that benefits less from the good cards maybe its worth buying to rotate but that is still super dangerous.)

[Awaclus]

This pile is very strong with the +Action token or Capitalism, but Tent seems incredibly niche otherwise. I'd buy it in Duke games and a few slogs, but hardly ever else. And if it never gets bought, the other cards won't either.

Besides, it's not a good idea to buy Tent just to rotate the pile. First off, doing so gives your opponent access to those cards. Second, the other cards in the pile often anti-synergize with Tent.

Honestly, I'm wondering if this pile is a dud.

It's pretty good if you can get rid of the Tents with Battle Plan.

[trivialknot]

Tent is the obvious weak point in the pile, so I'm trying to imagine situations where it might shine.

You could build the golden deck with 3 tents + 2 merchant camps, or 4 tents + Capitalism.  But, this relies on specific combos and over half the tents, so I'm thinking this is rarely viable.

The other thing I can imagine doing with it is quick rotation.  The first time you draw Tent, buy Garrison.  Next turn, buy Hill Fort.  Next turn, rotate to Stronghold and leave it there.  Your opponent only has a small window of opportunity to get each card, and they might miss the price point or have to overpay.  Of course, you might miss the price point or overpay too, but Tent is good for hitting price points, and you can always opt not to rotate.

Is it good to have the only copies of Garrison/Hill Fort?  Garrison seems pretty strong to me, comparable to Livery--but I think having only one copy would be very spiky.  Maybe stop for two?  Having the only copy of Hill Fort seems great--maybe you could gain some villages to offset all those terminals you bought.

[trivialknot]

Oh, another thing you could do with Tent is Ways.  I'm not sure which way you would want to do every turn though.  Way of the Mouse with a good action, I suppose.  Way of the Owl?  Goat or Ox for a discount student/merchant camp.

[Timinou]

Has anybody calculated the probability of being able to afford two $5-cost cards on Turns 3 & 4 on a Tent/Silver open?

[BraydonM]

You could build the golden deck with 3 tents + 2 merchant camps, or 4 tents + Capitalism.  But, this relies on specific combos and over half the tents, so I'm thinking this is rarely viable.

This may be less powerful than you think. If you are playing 2 tents and 2 merchant camps and top decking them all you are likely only drawing one other card. This means if you have a bottom decked tent it could take 10 rounds to get the full 5 cards in hand. An even worse possibility is that a merchant camp is bottom decked as you won't be able to top deck all three tents without the actions and will then have to shuffle again and look for the tent. This makes it highly random as you may start getting a province a turn starting at turn 6 with perfect luck but with the worst luck you might not get one this way until turn 20.

Not to say this is never reliable because something like Forest Dwellers + Importer can easily help you find the cards but it is definitely rare for this to be as good as it seems at a glance.

Oh, another thing you could do with Tent is Ways.  I'm not sure which way you would want to do every turn though.  Way of the Mouse with a good action, I suppose.  Way of the Owl?  Goat or Ox for a discount student/merchant camp.

I hadn't considered this but something as simple as a village on way of the mouse makes tents something you want to buy as many as you can. A topdecking village for 3 is mostly as good as barracks for 3 and if you have nothing else to play its a top decking silver. Way of the Butterfly seems good to me as well as you could use the tent as long as it helps you and then lose it as soon as it doesn't. Way of the Pig also helps negate the downside.

[Awaclus]

Tent is the obvious weak point in the pile, so I'm trying to imagine situations where it might shine.

You could build the golden deck with 3 tents + 2 merchant camps, or 4 tents + Capitalism.  But, this relies on specific combos and over half the tents, so I'm thinking this is rarely viable.

I did 4 Tents + Capitalism once. In a vacuum, it was fine, but unfortunately it was not a vacuum and instead of being fine, it just let my opponent build a Garrison engine which could gain Provinces way faster than I could.

[Commodore Chuckles]

I think Tent can be compared to Lackeys - they both give a boost in the beginning but normally you don't want them unless you have a good way to get rid of them later on.

[trivialknot]

I played a game with Forts + Way of the Camel, and my opponent just went for it.  I built some weak engine and lost.  ...I feel like this shouldn't have been so hard to beat, but here we are.

Forts never got rotated because as the money player obviously it wasn't in his interest to ever give me access.

[Wizard_Amul]

I played a game with Forts + Way of the Camel, and my opponent just went for it.  I built some weak engine and lost.  ...I feel like this shouldn't have been so hard to beat, but here we are.

Forts never got rotated because as the money player obviously it wasn't in his interest to ever give me access.

That actually seems like a pretty good card in a money deck--it's a gold gainer that you can topdeck every turn in the early game (the golds do come slowly but still fine especially because of next point) or use as a terminal silver early on to hit a price point, and then you topdeck it as a terminal silver later on. If there's a better terminal that costs 4-5, you might go for that in addition to tent (or instead of tent), but if there isn't one, tent/camel seems reasonably good/fast there. There are probably faster engines but it seems like a reasonable option compared to some slower engines.

[Commodore Chuckles]

I just played a game with Lost City where Tent was pretty helpful. I was able to hit $5 on most (possibly all?) early turns. Lost City probably has one of the best interactions, because it gives the extra actions that Tent is going to need when you start adding more terminals. And the draw helps the anti-cycling problem.

[BraydonM]

Got 3 Garrisons on a populate board, and then chained populates. It had Page so once I got the Champion the Garrisons and large number of terminals on boards was fine and in 2 Populate turns I had gotten most of the VP cards in the game. The thing about Garrison is it's really just a combo piece though and while some cases show insane payoffs it is pretty bad on a lot of boards. If you're only drawing one coin of it it is super mediocre.