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Author Topic: Avoiding Familiar  (Read 2269 times)

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Tdog

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Avoiding Familiar
« on: May 04, 2012, 03:07:14 pm »
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I played this game against a highly ranked opponent, in which I elected to skip familiar. My thoughts were to set up an engine, and then trash away the curses he game me with the trading post. I was able to with the game, but was skipping the familiars the right move or did I just get lucky?
Log: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120503-134345-5063fdcd.html
Key Cards: Familiar, Border Village, Lab, Nobles, Trading Post
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ftl

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Re: Avoiding Familiar
« Reply #1 on: May 04, 2012, 03:25:27 pm »
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Well, he did draw 2p on his turn 4. So there was definitely some luck in that. Oh AND his opening silver (and a copper) missed the reshuffle, being drawn turn 5; his opening was 3, 4, 4, 2p, 4p. By contrast, yours was 4,3,6,3,6. By the time he got his first familiar, you'd already gotten two $6 hands.

Based on the results, I suspect that skipping familiars was the wrong move - you won 30-25, not a big lead, and that's with 1st player advantage AND your opponent having some unlucky draws early. I would have expected that in this setup, all the cards you need are a little too expensive to go the route of 'skip cursing, just trash' - the trading post and lab are 5, border village/nobles are 6. Warehouse is pretty cheap though, I guess the warehouses can make it work, and you got draws which were on the nice side compared to his.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Avoiding Familiar
« Reply #2 on: May 04, 2012, 03:54:29 pm »
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The interaction between Militia and Familiar is interesting because Militia can make it pretty hard to buy Familiar Here he drew 2P, but what if it was 3P on the Milita turn? Almost as bad. I think the combined probability of these events might be big enough that you might not want to open Potion.

What's the right way to handle this? Like open Militia and get a Potion on the second time through the deck, counting on the Militia to slow the game down enough that the later cursing is still early enough to be impactful? Just stick to Militias for attacks? Or open Potion and cross your fingers?
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ednever

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Re: Avoiding Familiar
« Reply #3 on: May 04, 2012, 09:16:11 pm »
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On a simple board with just Familiar and Militia:

Opening with a single Militia and then going Potion to Familiar loses to straight Familiar 58.6% vs 38.7%

So not the right choice in isolation.

Throw in Trading Post though: Militia open, then a single Trading Post (otherwise Familiar) wins 59.2% vs 38.9% (Even better if the TP player  opens 5/2 - then it wins 75.7% vs 22.8% )

For HiveMind's question: If you just go Militia you get killed vs. Familiar. But if you do Trading Post + Militia you win 60-37, or 74-23 opening 5/2.


So:
It seems like when you have a great trasher like Trading Post and a discard like Militia - the combo is a better choice than Familiar. But if you throw a Familiar into the mix it doesn't seem to hurt (adding the familiar takes the win rate from 59% to 60%, or drops it 76% to 74% on a 5/2 - pretty marginal either way)

Note: Stand alone Trading Post vs. Familiar loses on 4/3 but wins on 5/2.


ed
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DG

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Re: Avoiding Familiar
« Reply #4 on: May 04, 2012, 09:39:57 pm »
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I'm not surprised by that game. Labs and caravans are just about the best partners for trading posts. Throw in border villages to give you extra actions and it all seems fine.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Avoiding Familiar
« Reply #5 on: May 04, 2012, 10:01:23 pm »
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Simming it up a bit, it looks like while straight Militia loses (slightly) to straight Familiar, adding some good card to mitigate the effect of curses makes it a winner, often pretty handily. Examples I tried are Trading Post, Upgrade, Venture, Hunting Party, Cache, Treasury, Vault, and Stash. Lookout, however, doesn't seem to cut it. Note that I didn't do any fine tuning, just picked values that seemed reasonable.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2012, 10:08:58 pm by HiveMindEmulator »
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ftl

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Re: Avoiding Familiar
« Reply #6 on: May 04, 2012, 10:10:59 pm »
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Huh. Thanks for correcting me, guys.
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Morgrim7

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Re: Avoiding Familiar
« Reply #7 on: May 05, 2012, 11:30:42 am »
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I'm not surprised by that game. Labs and caravans are just about the best partners for trading posts. Throw in border villages to give you extra actions and it all seems fine.
Labs and Caravans are best friends to almost anything that can trash more than one card i.e.  Forge, Chapel, Trading Post, Steward.
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