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[def]

If you have a déjà vu now, your memory must be crazy, since this comes from a puzzle I posted in August.

In a solitaire game on isotropic, find the fastest way to set aside your whole deck but a Native Village and another card of your choice on the Native Village mat. Restriction: There is no trashing or pseudo-trashing allowed, so no Chapel, no Remake, and so on; and no Island, no Ambassador, no nay never.

Since I have more work to do than I thought, let's keep the rhythm by making the deadline Saturday, 9:00 a.m. GMT+1. Entries as a gamelog per private message, only one entry allowed per person.

Have fun!

[Rabid]

Not sure this works?
Turn 10, after playing your first action, you can't play any more?

EDIT: post this is a reply to has been deleted.

[def]

Thanks for removing the post, Morgrim. I edited my first post, too, to hopefully avoid all confusion.

[Powerman]

I want to make sure I'm getting this right... the deck is a single native village and one other card.  Every other card must be on the native village, and no card may be trashed?  Or does the game also have to end at this point (by piles or provinces?)

[def]

Yes for all questions but the last. The game doesn't need to end by Provinces or piles, you can resign on the turn you first have only native village and the other card in hand.

[def]

One day to go. So far some good looking attempts already, but not too many attempts at all. I got solutions with two different "helper cards", one of them being pretty obvious - but there are other possibilities, especially with one card I thought of still missing.

[GendoIkari]

One day to go. So far some good looking attempts already, but not too many attempts at all. I got solutions with two different "helper cards", one of them being pretty obvious - but there are other possibilities, especially with one card I thought of still missing.

I'm assuming that there's a 1 entry per person rule?

[def]

Yes, though you still can post an alternative solution after I'll post tomorrow if it's interesting.

[GendoIkari]

Yes, though you still can post an alternative solution after I'll post tomorrow if it's interesting.

Don't have one off the top of my head, just wondering what other sort of enablers there would be and if I wanted to spend time figuring it out. I did just now think of at least 1 other option, but it probably wouldn't be any faster (or slower).

[def]

Here we go.

3rd place goes to Powerman in 15 turns. Compared with the other solutions, it looks like opening with only one Native Village slows you down too much.

2nd place goes to GendoIkari, qmech and Schneau in 11 turns, with two of them going for Native Village + Oasis.

1st place goes to Fate and Hks in only 10 turns. Hard to tell what made the difference, but in otherwise similar ideas (Native Village + Hamlet, Nomad Camp opening or not), it looks like additional cycling proved to be the key, which Fate and Hks achieved by putting Warehouse or Watchtower to use.

So, what seemed to be the things you want to do here:
- Open with two Native Villages or Nomad Camp + two Native Villages. You want both of them in the first reshuffle.
- The amount of Native Villages is surprisingly unimportant. Fate got two and went for additional cycling, Schneau didn't buy anything but two Native Villages and one Oasis, while others went for up two five Native Villages other cards. The more cards you buy, the better your deck goes, but the more cards have to be put aside.
- The helper card: Oasis and Hamlet. They are obvious choices as cheap cantrips with the needed discard effect to put back cards once you have less than 6 cards in deck. I don't think there is any other card you can end with.
I thought about Courtyard until I just noticed that it doesn't work since you can't end with it since it's terminal. Still, maybe it would have helped early on for it's cycling and the ability to control which card to put away, but yeah, that was pretty stupid of me, especially since Thisisnotasmile already pointed out in my earlier puzzle of this that Courtyard doesn't work.

It looks like that there are no other options but to end with NV/Hamlet or NV/Oasis, unless I'm overlooking something again. Sorry if I created confusion there.

In both challenges, even if they were really good winning attempts, all participants scored points, so don't hesitate in sending in your attempt even if you think it won't be enough. The more, the merrier.

Anyway, nothing left but the points after two challenges:

Fate, GendoIkari, Hks, jonts26, Schneau 4
ftl, Powerman 3
qmech 2
theory 1

[qmech]

Ah, Hamlet.  The extra discard shaves off a turn compared to Oasis once you hit 5 or 6 cards.

[Schneau]

I hadn't thought of using Hamlet until after I submitted, but I do think it has the extra advantage over Oasis of being able to discard twice.

[GendoIkari]

It looks like that there are no other options but to end with NV/Hamlet or NV/Oasis, unless I'm overlooking something again. Sorry if I created confusion there.

I'm pretty sure you could also end with either Secret Chamber or Vault.

[Rabid]

Doesn't work, you need an action to play the last NV.

[Schneau]

Yeah, I also tried Inn and Warehouse, but no dice. You need to be able to discard exactly 1 card and get at least 1 action. The only cards I am aware of that do this are Hamlet and Oasis.