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Author Topic: Prosperity 2E Preview 3  (Read 23679 times)

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infangthief

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #100 on: June 13, 2022, 02:17:51 am »
0

Quote
Collection+Stampede results in both players starving to death
I don't know how it is for you but I can eat and play Dominion at the same time. Sleep deprivation will play a bigger factor ;)
The full post from Awaclus did allow for the possibility that one of the players might not starve to death:
, unless one of them failed to do it.
:P
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Gherald

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #101 on: June 13, 2022, 02:58:03 am »
0

My comment was not about the case of "one of them failing to do it" so no idea why you're quoting me, but ok.
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infangthief

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #102 on: June 13, 2022, 03:56:50 am »
+3

My comment was not about the case of "one of them failing to do it" so no idea why you're quoting me, but ok.

It was a joke, which I will now try to explain.

[explanation]
Awaclus's post said "Collection+Stampede results in both players starving to death, unless one of them failed to do it". The caveat was clearly intended to refer to doing the Collection+Stampede thing. But I wanted to deliberately misinterpret it as if it referred to starving to death. Then you said you could eat while playing Dominion, so it sounds like if any player could fail to starve to death in a Collection+Stampede game it would be you.
[/explanation]
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Holger

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #103 on: June 13, 2022, 05:08:13 am »
+4

What makes Collection + Stampede different than Fortress+Bishop, for example? Even if Collection gives far more points-per-turn, that shouldn't matter, should it? All that matters is that you've build a deck which generates any number of points per turn where you don't want to buy any card to add to the deck.

The difference is that you can beat Fortress+Bishop by building an engine that uses Fortress and Bishop to score points faster than the golden deck can, whereas Stampede's 5-card limit prevents you from incorporating it in an engine, and nothing can beat 50 VP/turn.

I think most Bishop/Fortress kingdoms won't have an engine alternative that gets more than 12 VP per turn and can be set up as fast as the Golden deck.

IMO, the best solution is to just add an official rule to resolve games in which neither player can force a win - which can happen not just with golden decks, but also with Possession, Smugglers and others.
 
Such games should either be declared a tie, or the game should end after a certain number of turns in which the game does not make any progress - say, when the total number of cards in the supply has not decreased over 20 consecutive turns, and the VP difference between the players has not changed either.

Either solution would mirror chess rules (the stalemate rule / the 50-turns rule), a game which has been known for centuries to produce lots of "un-endable" games by design.

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Holger

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #104 on: June 13, 2022, 05:30:45 am »
0

I seem to remember reading this exact same conversation many years ago, when Prosperity first came out and people discovered KC+Goons+Masquerade.

KC+Goons+Masquerade was fine because as soon as someone was doing that, you had a clear winner and the other player could resign. Collection+Stampede results in both players starving to death, unless one of them failed to do it.

Yes, the Masquerade pins did not usually* lead to unending games (only to very unfun ones). But still Donald later changed Masquerade to a much more complicated wording just to get rid of those pins...

*Except in combination with VP tokens, when the pinned player has an unsurmountable lead...
« Last Edit: June 13, 2022, 05:32:58 am by Holger »
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dpm

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #105 on: June 13, 2022, 10:15:56 am »
+5

How about just adding a new end condition: if someone amasses 1000 VP tokens, the game is over? 
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GendoIkari

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #106 on: June 13, 2022, 10:45:56 am »
+1

What makes Collection + Stampede different than Fortress+Bishop, for example? Even if Collection gives far more points-per-turn, that shouldn't matter, should it? All that matters is that you've build a deck which generates any number of points per turn where you don't want to buy any card to add to the deck.

The difference is that you can beat Fortress+Bishop by building an engine that uses Fortress and Bishop to score points faster than the golden deck can, whereas Stampede's 5-card limit prevents you from incorporating it in an engine, and nothing can beat 50 VP/turn.

I think most Bishop/Fortress kingdoms won't have an engine alternative that gets more than 12 VP per turn and can be set up as fast as the Golden deck.

IMO, the best solution is to just add an official rule to resolve games in which neither player can force a win - which can happen not just with golden decks, but also with Possession, Smugglers and others.
 
Such games should either be declared a tie, or the game should end after a certain number of turns in which the game does not make any progress - say, when the total number of cards in the supply has not decreased over 20 consecutive turns, and the VP difference between the players has not changed either.

Either solution would mirror chess rules (the stalemate rule / the 50-turns rule), a game which has been known for centuries to produce lots of "un-endable" games by design.

There's also the unrealistic but possible situation where it's literally impossible for the game to end, as opposed to the game won't end because a player would have to choose to lose in order to end the game. Both players trashed all their Copper and then bought a debt-cost card, etc.
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Awaclus

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #107 on: June 13, 2022, 11:41:43 am »
+1

What makes Collection + Stampede different than Fortress+Bishop, for example? Even if Collection gives far more points-per-turn, that shouldn't matter, should it? All that matters is that you've build a deck which generates any number of points per turn where you don't want to buy any card to add to the deck.

The difference is that you can beat Fortress+Bishop by building an engine that uses Fortress and Bishop to score points faster than the golden deck can, whereas Stampede's 5-card limit prevents you from incorporating it in an engine, and nothing can beat 50 VP/turn.

I think most Bishop/Fortress kingdoms won't have an engine alternative that gets more than 12 VP per turn and can be set up as fast as the Golden deck.

It doesn't have to be set up as fast as the golden deck, you have infinite time as long as you can, at some point in the future, play more than 4 Bishops per turn on average.
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Honkeyfresh

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #108 on: June 13, 2022, 12:33:37 pm »
0

Collection + Stampede

With any trasher in the kingdom, this is a 50 VP/turn golden deck.

Technically, you can make this into a Golden Deck without trashing. If there's no handsize/drawing attacks, the 10 Horses you will gain will eventually turn into 15 cards. If those are your starting 10 + 5 copies of Collection, you still get the 50 VP per turn Golden Deck. This will rarely be the optimal strategy, as it prevents you from buying any other non-one-shot card. Being able to play 3-4 (and occassionally 5) Collections and making the rest up with Silver is good enough, especially if you can win the Collections split. On the other hand, in a Collections - Stampeded - Ride - Experement deck, if you open $5/$2, it might we worth trying to grab 5 Collections without buying anything else.

Collection + Stampede

With any trasher in the kingdom, this is a 50 VP/turn golden deck.
If both players do this the game never ends.

Unless one wins the split and gets 6 copies. Then the other person can either resign, or the split winner can run up the score so much (able to score 50 points per turn to their opponent's 40) that the other player can't make it up in 8 turns, and the first player can buy out the Provinces (or whatever). But that would take forever, so the split loser should probably resign.

But if there was a clean split, you are correct.

Now imagine it also has storyteller and tribute.
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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #109 on: June 13, 2022, 12:43:10 pm »
0

Collection is brokenly strong with Supplies, isn't it?
Feels like it has major problems with Horses in general. It's also quite insane with Livery. Would it have been good to restrict it to "when you gain an Action from the supply"?

good suggestion!  This fixes the horses/collection debacle.
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trivialknot

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #110 on: June 13, 2022, 02:11:54 pm »
+1

There's also Collection / Way of the Horse, which only uses actions from supply piles.
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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #111 on: June 13, 2022, 05:52:54 pm »
0

So I feel like Stampede is probably the worst offender here, since you can’t Collect Horse Spam while also out-engining your opponent. Any Way of the Horse board with a couple of $2 Actions like Pearl Diver allows you to essentially stampede but can scale to how many Buys you have.
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Gherald

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #112 on: June 13, 2022, 06:54:35 pm »
+2

Can we just errata Collection to be excluded and replaced with another 5 cost pile anytime the word "Horse" is mentioned anywhere else on the board and be done with this nonsense forever?

(this includes Horse Traders or the like.. no I don't care :P )
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Imrahil3

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #113 on: June 13, 2022, 07:28:10 pm »
+3

Can we just errata Collection to be excluded and replaced with another 5 cost pile anytime the word "Horse" is mentioned anywhere else on the board and be done with this nonsense forever?

(this includes Horse Traders or the like.. no I don't care :P )

Absolutely not.
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Holger

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #114 on: June 14, 2022, 08:24:40 am »
0

What makes Collection + Stampede different than Fortress+Bishop, for example? Even if Collection gives far more points-per-turn, that shouldn't matter, should it? All that matters is that you've build a deck which generates any number of points per turn where you don't want to buy any card to add to the deck.

The difference is that you can beat Fortress+Bishop by building an engine that uses Fortress and Bishop to score points faster than the golden deck can, whereas Stampede's 5-card limit prevents you from incorporating it in an engine, and nothing can beat 50 VP/turn.

I think most Bishop/Fortress kingdoms won't have an engine alternative that gets more than 12 VP per turn and can be set up as fast as the Golden deck.

It doesn't have to be set up as fast as the golden deck, you have infinite time as long as you can, at some point in the future, play more than 4 Bishops per turn on average.

I thought you were referring to an engine that gets >12 VP at least partially from VP cards, which would have to be fast enough to compete against the golden deck.
However, if you manage to play more than 4 Bishops per turn forever at some point, you've just created an even better golden deck. If the opponent also mirrors that better deck, you get the same stalemate problem, only at a later point. ;)
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Awaclus

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #115 on: June 14, 2022, 09:10:32 am »
0

I thought you were referring to an engine that gets >12 VP at least partially from VP cards, which would have to be fast enough to compete against the golden deck.
However, if you manage to play more than 4 Bishops per turn forever at some point, you've just created an even better golden deck. If the opponent also mirrors that better deck, you get the same stalemate problem, only at a later point. ;)

You haven't created a golden deck (the moment you add the fifth Bishop, there's a chance of drawing a hand of five Bishops, which means you don't get to play the functionally equivalent turn that turn), you've created an engine. You can play 5 Bishops per turn and buy Provinces.
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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #116 on: June 14, 2022, 01:38:40 pm »
0

I think the development team just should work on a third ending condition, namely if there have been 10 or 20 rounds with no progress (which obviously needs to be concreted), the game ends (and the winner is determined as usual).
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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #117 on: June 14, 2022, 02:27:03 pm »
0

ban stampede lol
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Holger

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #118 on: June 14, 2022, 06:04:11 pm »
0

I thought you were referring to an engine that gets >12 VP at least partially from VP cards, which would have to be fast enough to compete against the golden deck.
However, if you manage to play more than 4 Bishops per turn forever at some point, you've just created an even better golden deck. If the opponent also mirrors that better deck, you get the same stalemate problem, only at a later point. ;)

You haven't created a golden deck (the moment you add the fifth Bishop, there's a chance of drawing a hand of five Bishops, which means you don't get to play the functionally equivalent turn that turn), you've created an engine. You can play 5 Bishops per turn and buy Provinces.
No matter what we call such a "better than golden" deck, when both players build it, it will still produce a stalemate in many cases. Buying a province reduces the likelihood of drawing your deck, so you should only do it when your deck draws and plays your bishops very reliably. And buying the penultimate province is a losing move unless you have a lede of at least 21 VP, as the opponent can also play 5 bishops and buy the last province.

But if you have played a game where the Bishop/Fortress golden deck loses against an engine also based on Bishop and Fortress, I'd be very interested to see the log. ;)
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Awaclus

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #119 on: June 14, 2022, 07:07:47 pm »
0

I thought you were referring to an engine that gets >12 VP at least partially from VP cards, which would have to be fast enough to compete against the golden deck.
However, if you manage to play more than 4 Bishops per turn forever at some point, you've just created an even better golden deck. If the opponent also mirrors that better deck, you get the same stalemate problem, only at a later point. ;)

You haven't created a golden deck (the moment you add the fifth Bishop, there's a chance of drawing a hand of five Bishops, which means you don't get to play the functionally equivalent turn that turn), you've created an engine. You can play 5 Bishops per turn and buy Provinces.
No matter what we call such a "better than golden" deck, when both players build it, it will still produce a stalemate in many cases. Buying a province reduces the likelihood of drawing your deck, so you should only do it when your deck draws and plays your bishops very reliably. And buying the penultimate province is a losing move unless you have a lede of at least 21 VP, as the opponent can also play 5 bishops and buy the last province.

But if you have played a game where the Bishop/Fortress golden deck loses against an engine also based on Bishop and Fortress, I'd be very interested to see the log. ;)

Well, it is evidently a kingdom where trashing all of your starting cards is reasonably easy, since otherwise the golden deck wouldn't be playable. It's not hard to build a reliable engine when that is the case.

I don't see why PPR would be particularly stalematey here; requiring a 21 VP lead is not anything special in a game where you can gain 21 VP per turn (i.e. you only need a 1 VP lead at the start of your turn, and p2 only needs 0). What does make it special is that drawing your deck is beneficial on its own, so as soon as one player fails to do that, the other wins, which could mean that in some cases where you would normally break PPR for a small chance of winning, you instead keep playing in hopes of having your opponent dud first, so it can make the game take longer, but it also means that someone will inevitably dud sooner or later and that breaks the stalemate.

The only time I remember rolling a kingdom with Bishop and Fortress, I played the golden deck and got rekt. I'll try to see if I can retrieve the log but it might have been on Goko or Making Fun.
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NoMoreFun

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #120 on: June 14, 2022, 09:50:28 pm »
+1

Guys, just let the game have wild combos.

There are plenty of cards in the game that warp it so much your usual strategies go out the window.  Both players have equal access to the Collections and the Horses. If both show up at the same time, guess what? You get to contest a pile of good cards, just like every other game of Dominion.

If you’re playing for fun, there are exactly 0 people forcing you to use this combo. Replace Collections or replace the Horse gainer. If you’re playing ranked, the whole point of that game mode is to test your skills against other players in a variety of circumstances and see who is better able to adapt to unusual strategies.

No more errata. No more replacements or rules changes. Let the game be. If there’s a combo you don’t like, don’t put it on the board.

Agree on most of it. But there are cards that are so powerful and are powerful in such a way they render the rest of the Kingdom irrelevant, or where the winner comes down to FTA and shuffle luck. Cards that aren't fun to play. Cards that never get bought, taking up space, or give a sense of buyers remorse ("why doesn't this card work properly? Why do I lose when I buy it?). So replacements are good.

Dominion is a very resilient game but the sets as they existed on first print weren't perfect.
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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #121 on: June 15, 2022, 04:18:20 pm »
0

Collection can lead to some pretty quick bonkers scores.



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jomini

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #122 on: June 16, 2022, 05:55:01 pm »
+1

What makes Collection + Stampede different than Fortress+Bishop, for example? Even if Collection gives far more points-per-turn, that shouldn't matter, should it? All that matters is that you've build a deck which generates any number of points per turn where you don't want to buy any card to add to the deck.

The difference is that you can beat Fortress+Bishop by building an engine that uses Fortress and Bishop to score points faster than the golden deck can, whereas Stampede's 5-card limit prevents you from incorporating it in an engine, and nothing can beat 50 VP/turn.

Both of these depend on the state of the board. E.g. a Bish/Fort deck is the maximum VP possible on a board without any net draw. And if the Bish/Fort player sees any tricksy engine building, they can just mill a Bish or three from the pile and still make more than any possible setup.

Beating 50 VP/turn is quite doable. The simplest shot being Possession. Even absent truly bonkers stuff like Masq or Amb, it takes exactly one play per turn to nuke their deck and score 50VP for you should they be so foolish as to leave you the opening.

Attacks also allow you leeway. Afterall, absent trashing, Stampede slowly dies once you start junking them. A Stampede hand only draws 15 total and if you dump the curse pile they will fall apart. Militias will at least drop the VP gain/turn. Things like Barbarian, Swindler, and Bandit can shut the whole works down permanently.

And getting into edge-case territory, there are many ways to score well over 50 points per turn. Collection/Villa/Butterfly/Seaway/cost reduction is unbounded points per turn (and needs only a single copy of everything except the cost reduction). Treasurer/Bishop can build out to 5 VP per combo with Plats which can go above 50 VP with things like Kc. Cost reduction/Grand Castle/trash diving (e.g. Graverobber), and gain 20 VP per trash & gain per cycle (e.g. Inheritance can easily put 20 VP cards into play/hand). And Kc/Treasurer/Cache/Tomb/Donate clocks in at 27 VP/turn without draw/+buys.

And I have already won a game by going Paddock/Collection instead of Stampede/Collection. Splitting the Collections results in 100 VP per turn if they don't contest the Paddocks at all.

The problem with Collection/Stampede is just that the combo is easy, obvious, and quick. There are many, many setups out there where you can generate truly insane amounts of VP repeatedly for turns. And many of those do not reward further engine building (e.g. at some point your deck caps out for Grand castle cycling). We don't care because they show up in something like 1/10,000 games once we account for alternative enablers.

Frankly, I think this will go the way of the pins, most likely by dropping errata onto Horse at some point, but with a bunch of weird edge cases floating out there (e.g. you can still pin your opponent with Masq/B-crat or Masq/Cutpurse if you get the exceedingly rare combos for enablers to do it before the game ends).

The difference with Bishop/Fort and Stamped/Collection is just one of degree. Many times there will be nothing that can beat the quick and dirty golden run, sometimes there will be something that can. While I grant there are many more times where Stampede/Collection is untouchable, I doubt that there are all that many more boards where the other cards could beat Bish/Fortress all that often and if the raw point total is the concern, Paddock/Collection is a far worse offender.
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Awaclus

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #123 on: June 16, 2022, 08:21:39 pm »
0

Both of these depend on the state of the board. E.g. a Bish/Fort deck is the maximum VP possible on a board without any net draw. And if the Bish/Fort player sees any tricksy engine building, they can just mill a Bish or three from the pile and still make more than any possible setup.

The Bish/Fort player can't just mill a Bish or three from the pile without temporarily breaking the golden deck. Which is not a huge problem, but it slows down that process since you have to spend a turn trashing a Bishop every time your golden deck gets broken, unless you have good draws.

Beating 50 VP/turn is quite doable. The simplest shot being Possession. Even absent truly bonkers stuff like Masq or Amb, it takes exactly one play per turn to nuke their deck and score 50VP for you should they be so foolish as to leave you the opening.

I suppose Possession is a significant pain in the ASS if you haven't banned it and get matched against someone who also hasn't banned it, which probably isn't too often. You can't score the VP, however, you can only nuke the Horses.

Attacks also allow you leeway. Afterall, absent trashing, Stampede slowly dies once you start junking them. A Stampede hand only draws 15 total and if you dump the curse pile they will fall apart. Militias will at least drop the VP gain/turn. Things like Barbarian, Swindler, and Bandit can shut the whole works down permanently.

Trashing is not absent, it's not a golden deck without trashing unless you open 5/2 and never buy anything besides Collections and Stampedes (you don't technically have to open 5/2 to do that, but opening nothing/nothing is almost certainly a bad idea). The fact that you have to play your trasher and therefore can only play 4 Collections that turn could be annoying, but it's a temporary annoyance at worst.

Militias will not drop the VP gain/turn, they just force the golden deck to be a bit thinner than it otherwise would have to be.

Barbarian and Swindler can eventually deplete the Horse pile and therefore get the game to end (probably still in the Collection/Stampede player's favor, but that's fine, at least the game will end), but Bandit probably just discards two Horses, unless you can play at least three of them per turn, which is a lot of Gold to deal with.

And getting into edge-case territory, there are many ways to score well over 50 points per turn. Collection/Villa/Butterfly/Seaway/cost reduction is unbounded points per turn (and needs only a single copy of everything except the cost reduction). Treasurer/Bishop can build out to 5 VP per combo with Plats which can go above 50 VP with things like Kc. Cost reduction/Grand Castle/trash diving (e.g. Graverobber), and gain 20 VP per trash & gain per cycle (e.g. Inheritance can easily put 20 VP cards into play/hand). And Kc/Treasurer/Cache/Tomb/Donate clocks in at 27 VP/turn without draw/+buys.

I'm not very confident any of those will be present in a typical Collection/Stampede game, especially with Stampede (which is always present in a typical Collection/Stampede game, surprisingly enough) taking up half the landscape slots on its own.

And I have already won a game by going Paddock/Collection instead of Stampede/Collection. Splitting the Collections results in 100 VP per turn if they don't contest the Paddocks at all.

Sure, but you need a way to play the Collections before the Paddocks, which is not usually present, and neither is Paddock.

The problem with Collection/Stampede is just that the combo is easy, obvious, and quick. There are many, many setups out there where you can generate truly insane amounts of VP repeatedly for turns. And many of those do not reward further engine building (e.g. at some point your deck caps out for Grand castle cycling). We don't care because they show up in something like 1/10,000 games once we account for alternative enablers.

2-card combos show up a lot more than 1/10k games. Collection/Stampede also needs a trasher, but that's pretty often there. I have already had a Collection/Stampede kingdom and I can't have played more than like a hundred games with Prosperity 2E yet, even that's probably an overestimation. Sure, people get it disproportionately often right now since you can automatch for extra 2E, but even under normal circumstances, 2-card combos happen. I just had a Hermit/Market Square game not too long ago, and that was while automatching for extra 2E.

The difference with Bishop/Fort and Stamped/Collection is just one of degree. Many times there will be nothing that can beat the quick and dirty golden run, sometimes there will be something that can. While I grant there are many more times where Stampede/Collection is untouchable, I doubt that there are all that many more boards where the other cards could beat Bish/Fortress all that often and if the raw point total is the concern, Paddock/Collection is a far worse offender.

It's also one of kind. Bishop/Fortress can do other things in addition to the Bishop/Fortressing, Stampede/Collection can't. Even if the "other things" doesn't involve building up to a bigger turn, it can e.g. involve a 3-pile ending with Fortresses and two other cheap cantrips which means you only have to be one full turn ahead of your opponent for the game to end.

The raw point total is not the concern, the concern is the stalemate. I don't see any reason why Paddock/Collection would lead to stalemates particularly often, since you can do it while you build an engine that buys VP and that will beat your opponent who is just playing Paddocks and Collections and whatever the thing is that lets them play the Paddocks after they have already played their Collections. I can see why Bishop/Fortress could theoretically lead to stalemates, but while I do remember people talking about this theoretical possibility a lot, I do not remember it ever happening to anyone in practice because the golden deck is far from unbeatable, and even in a mirror match, the player who gets ahead can almost always end it somehow.

I just did a quick search, skimming over posts that didn't look like reports, and found like a dozen game reports where a stalemate didn't happen, of which only a minority were golden deck mirrors at all, and the closest thing to a stalemate I found was this which was probably not a stalemate either because it doesn't mention being one, but it also doesn't say how it ended so I guess it could have been one. Not a very scientifically rigorous result obviously, but I would nonetheless expect stalemate reports to show up a lot more than they seem to if that was a thing that actually happened to a substantial degree.

You could argue that I'm just being theoretical about Collection/Stampede stalemates too and that it won't turn out to be a thing that happens in practice either, and I suppose that is true so far, but a lot of the reasons why Bishop/Fortress stalemates don't happen don't apply to Collection/Stampede or require the player who's ahead to be ahead by a lot more in order to happen.
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jomini

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Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3
« Reply #124 on: June 21, 2022, 04:43:39 pm »
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Both of these depend on the state of the board. E.g. a Bish/Fort deck is the maximum VP possible on a board without any net draw. And if the Bish/Fort player sees any tricksy engine building, they can just mill a Bish or three from the pile and still make more than any possible setup.

The Bish/Fort player can't just mill a Bish or three from the pile without temporarily breaking the golden deck. Which is not a huge problem, but it slows down that process since you have to spend a turn trashing a Bishop every time your golden deck gets broken, unless you have good draws.

Not at all. Golden deck is 5 Forts, 4 Bish. You can buy a 5th Bish and lose out only in the event that you bottom deck 2 Forts (i.e. 25% of the time). Unless the other guy is racing you to a golden deck, you still win out.

You can most certainly force endgame by sacrificing expected VP and depleting the Bish pile until they cannot gain enough VP/turn to matter.


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I suppose Possession is a significant pain in the ASS if you haven't banned it and get matched against someone who also hasn't banned it, which probably isn't too often. You can't score the VP, however, you can only nuke the Horses.
I don't play much Possession, but it does indeed counter.

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Trashing is not absent, it's not a golden deck without trashing unless you open 5/2 and never buy anything besides Collections and Stampedes (you don't technically have to open 5/2 to do that, but opening nothing/nothing is almost certainly a bad idea). The fact that you have to play your trasher and therefore can only play 4 Collections that turn could be annoying, but it's a temporary annoyance at worst.
Nonsense, you can use draw instead of trashing. Way of the Horse, Experiment, and even a single card of dead draw (e.g. Hunting grounds) off a Star chart.

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Militias will not drop the VP gain/turn, they just force the golden deck to be a bit thinner than it otherwise would have to be.
More they slow down the setup so you can do a megaturn or something else instead. Militia makes it quite painful to get the Collections, trash down, and draw through all while only ever playing 5 non-horse cards.

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Barbarian and Swindler can eventually deplete the Horse pile and therefore get the game to end (probably still in the Collection/Stampede player's favor, but that's fine, at least the game will end), but Bandit probably just discards two Horses, unless you can play at least three of them per turn, which is a lot of Gold to deal with.
Depends on how much you play them. Kc/Bandit/Apprentice can hunt and kill the Collections.

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I'm not very confident any of those will be present in a typical Collection/Stampede game, especially with Stampede (which is always present in a typical Collection/Stampede game, surprisingly enough) taking up half the landscape slots on its own.
The point is that we have many, many other combos that replicate all the major concerns of Collection/Stampede. Highest possible repeatable point total? Not even close. Unable to deplete piles without taking a knock on VP/turn? Not close again. Immune to a lot of attacks? There are far better. Each and every supposed flaw is present somewhere else with some combo of cards.

The fact that one some boards Fort/Bish is utterly dominant is not a sign that the combo is utterly broke.

The difference with Stampede/Collection is one of degree, not kind. There are many, many ways to setup recurring VP loops and many of those are both the most powerful source of points and fragile to buying more cards. What makes Stampede/Collections "unique" is that it is quick and simple.

But we see the exact same dynamics with Collection/Ride. Assuming a 5/5 collection split, your deck can support 7 non-Collections (provided you generate $12 and have no discards) and once you file those slots up you just endless loop or risk missing out on 30 VP/Turn. Supplies generate 25 VP/turn and eat up all your draw slots. They again will have a lot of boards where it cuts into the VP gain to move the game further towards an end state.

Stampede/Collection is not the highest VP/turn possible (that is the unbounded VP from Villa/Butterfly). It is not uniquely prone to seizing it. It is not the only 2 card combo that can degenerate.

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Sure, but you need a way to play the Collections before the Paddocks, which is not usually present, and neither is Paddock.

2-card combos show up a lot more than 1/10k games. Collection/Stampede also needs a trasher, but that's pretty often there. I have already had a Collection/Stampede kingdom and I can't have played more than like a hundred games with Prosperity 2E yet, even that's probably an overestimation. Sure, people get it disproportionately often right now since you can automatch for extra 2E, but even under normal circumstances, 2-card combos happen. I just had a Hermit/Market Square game not too long ago, and that was while automatching for extra 2E.

I am still not seeing why Supplies/Collections is so terribly different. On a strict trashing/BM board both Stampede and Supplies generate far more VP/turn than alternatives. Both have very limited card slots and both cannot afford to much around with extraneous cards lest the VP train derail.

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It's also one of kind. Bishop/Fortress can do other things in addition to the Bishop/Fortressing, Stampede/Collection can't. Even if the "other things" doesn't involve building up to a bigger turn, it can e.g. involve a 3-pile ending with Fortresses and two other cheap cantrips which means you only have to be one full turn ahead of your opponent for the game to end.
How many boards have that? I mean you only need to buy one more Fort than your opponent to tank them instead. But same applies for Stampede, win the Collections split and call it a day.

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The raw point total is not the concern, the concern is the stalemate. I don't see any reason why Paddock/Collection would lead to stalemates particularly often, since you can do it while you build an engine that buys VP and that will beat your opponent who is just playing Paddocks and Collections and whatever the thing is that lets them play the Paddocks after they have already played their Collections. I can see why Bishop/Fortress could theoretically lead to stalemates, but while I do remember people talking about this theoretical possibility a lot, I do not remember it ever happening to anyone in practice because the golden deck is far from unbeatable, and even in a mirror match, the player who gets ahead can almost always end it somehow.

I just did a quick search, skimming over posts that didn't look like reports, and found like a dozen game reports where a stalemate didn't happen, of which only a minority were golden deck mirrors at all, and the closest thing to a stalemate I found was this which was probably not a stalemate either because it doesn't mention being one, but it also doesn't say how it ended so I guess it could have been one. Not a very scientifically rigorous result obviously, but I would nonetheless expect stalemate reports to show up a lot more than they seem to if that was a thing that actually happened to a substantial degree.

You could argue that I'm just being theoretical about Collection/Stampede stalemates too and that it won't turn out to be a thing that happens in practice either, and I suppose that is true so far, but a lot of the reasons why Bishop/Fortress stalemates don't happen don't apply to Collection/Stampede or require the player who's ahead to be ahead by a lot more in order to happen.

There are many possible stalemates. Most people do not see them, ever. I mean many engine setups routinely reach a state where gaining anything useful risks a game end and both players would be better off waiting for someone else to buy anything.

This one might be more common and obvious, but it is simply not sui generis.
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