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Author Topic: Question about bridge  (Read 6112 times)

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Jfrisch

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Question about bridge
« on: May 23, 2012, 03:23:13 pm »
+1

when you have a good engine going, bridge is a power card. In particular with a combination of decent draw and good +action, bridge can be a power card. I'm less convinced that, in general, bridge has the same utility but often find myself buying it anyways when there is no +draw. Which leads me to my question, when (if ever) is bridge worthwhile when there is no card draw. (cyclers, like warehouse/inn are perfectly fine).

Clearly Bridge is a good source of +buy, so if you really want +buy bridge is fine. And KC makes bridge mega-turns much easier (and, with cantrips, can acts as a source of pseudo +cards). But, in what circumstances without KC would you buy a bridge when you wouldn't buy a woodcutter?



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Grujah

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2012, 03:26:45 pm »
0

Native Village.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2012, 03:32:05 pm »
0

Bridge is only better than woodcutter if you buy more than one thing that originally cost more than $0. Every extra buy is another money out of each bridge, compared to woodcutter.

werothegreat

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #3 on: May 23, 2012, 03:59:28 pm »
0

Bridge with Market is very nice. 
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jomini

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #4 on: May 24, 2012, 01:33:15 pm »
+2

I'd buy bridge, but not wood cutters in draw-less games if there are strong 2's I want to mass. Notably: haven, xroads (don't know if you count this as draw or not), and cellar. This is particularly true of vine yards games, as well as silk roads (woodcutters can't hit silk roads + estate, bridge can and does even better if you can play 2). Another shot are goons games where village x4/bridge x2/goons x3 lets you spam free cantrips and get cut rate prices on more expensive ones; I will rarely use woodcutters to juice a goons deck in a drawless game (nothing better than cantrip); I will juice goons decks with bridges to make markets (grand markets), worker's villages, etc. all easier to spam for a killer game ending turn.

Another option is monkeying around with cost reduction. For instance bridge/quarry can get me 3 coin cards and half price 6's like goons or border villages. These can then be fed to trash for benefits next turn at full price. Card gainers can also be juiced with village/bridge to get some strong cards in atypical fashion (e.g. bridge/IW can gain dukes TR/Bridge can mine coppers to ventures). Horn of Plenty can also benefit a lot from bridge as it effectively counts twice and can let you go off on a megaturn driven by cantrips a turn or two earlier than you could with wood cutters. These are rare, but can be doable ways to work bridge.
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Jfrisch

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #5 on: May 24, 2012, 02:38:23 pm »
0

@Grujah, sure, though the native village effectively acts as a massive +draw at some point.
@WW, I get that bridge is better if and only if you use the extra buys, however in what circumstances (minus the already mentioned ones) is that difference enough to make me buy bridge. in general, I only buy woodcutters if I have a major engine in play, with no +draw, this engine is unlikely to materialize.
@werethegreat if you want even more cheap cards sure, bridge already gives you a +buy though so it's much less of a deal than, say, highway.

@jomini, This is what I was looking for, alt-vp games and other cost reducers can make bridge worthwhile.

To clarify, the general question I want to know, is when is bridge worthwhile when the game does not have a draw engine and when is it a trap.
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O

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #6 on: May 24, 2012, 02:42:50 pm »
0

When you need to gain lots and lots and lots of cheap engine components! It's on par with haggler for that. This case doesn't intersect with bridge-engine components when the engine involves very little +actions.
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DG

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #7 on: May 24, 2012, 06:39:17 pm »
0

Quote
To clarify, the general question I want to know, is when is bridge worthwhile when the game does not have a draw engine and when is it a trap.

The question is really whether other terminals actions are stronger in the kingdom. In a basic treasure game many other terminals are likely to be stronger, starting with something simple like a smithy. In this sense the bridge is no more a trap than any other terminal action. A bridge can still be useful in a kingdom where the extra buy is genuinely strong. Strategies involving silk roads, gardens, fool's gold, potion cost cards, and so on, can all be improved by buying more cards cheaper.

I suppose that players can 'trap' themselves by trying to force bridge combinations onto an unsuitable deck. The card combinations are unlikely to pay off unless you can control your deck or control your draws.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #8 on: May 24, 2012, 06:54:23 pm »
+1

Basically, you want in a deck where you want to be buying lots of things (and if there's some way to play a zillion - TR, KC, NV). So, in a deck where there's lots of 2s/3s/4s that are important to your engine, it's great. Or if you need buys. But with no drawing power... rarely.

cherdano

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #9 on: May 26, 2012, 01:42:43 pm »
0

In addition to jomini's post:

- When Peddler is on the board (cantrip+bridge -> $3 peddlers is pretty cool)
- With Fishing village on the board - you can safely spam FV/bridges with your $3/4 buys, and just one double bridge turn probably makes it worth it.
- Obviously when I want to get a conspirator engine going.
- When I can aim for multiple bridge turns by starting with heavy trashing.
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Jfrisch

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #10 on: May 26, 2012, 08:48:36 pm »
0

@cherdano, in general I have tested most of these and they haven't worked. bridge is a terminal and thus does not work that great with peddler (also it's not a huge fan of trash for benefits which peddler loves). It is a bit better than silver because it's an action, but the bonus price drop isn't that important when ideally your peddlers are already at 0 (in which case, you are golden). Admittedly in the situation where you get your peddlers down to 2 it's pretty nice but that's pretty limited utility.
FV, don't really agree. Without draw your fv/bridge chains don't have a particularly high yield and a double bridge when you are going for vp isn't all that great. Without draw the combo doesn't synergize well.
Conspirator suffers the same problem as peddler, you don't really want terminals to activate it, again, possibly better than silver (though somewhat less clearly 1 terminal and a conspirator in hand is pretty awful)
the original reason I wrote this post is because multi-bridge turns without draw tend to be pretty meh for me. Heavy trashing enables them but, in my experience, without +draw it's not that great.
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cherdano

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #11 on: May 27, 2012, 07:32:28 am »
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@Jrisch: I am not sure we really disagree much. You asked when I would buy bridge when I wouldn't buy woodcutter, which is a pretty low bar.
FV, don't really agree. Without draw your fv/bridge chains don't have a particularly high yield and a double bridge when you are going for vp isn't all that great. Without draw the combo doesn't synergize well.
Agree it's not a great synergy, but good enough to make it worth buying over other non-exciting strategies.
Quote
Conspirator suffers the same problem as peddler, you don't really want terminals to activate it, again, possibly better than silver (though somewhat less clearly 1 terminal and a conspirator in hand is pretty awful)
Now here I really disagree - probably you want to buy many cheap cantrips to activate your conspirators, and a bridge helps you to pick them up (and is of course great to have once you get conspirators going).
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Piemaster

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #12 on: May 29, 2012, 12:54:37 am »
0

Personally I've found Bridge to be one of the most over-rated cards in the game.  To really be a dominant card it needs a way to play many several of them in one turn which means you need +actions, +draw and, of course, a bunch of Bridges.  There are certain cards that combo extremely well with Bridge and turn it into a monster, such as KC, NV and Scheme - I think we all remember a couple of games where either us or our opponent have had all the pieces in play and have bought 8 Provinces on turn 10.  But more often it is basically a Woodcutter.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #13 on: May 29, 2012, 08:52:53 am »
0

Personally I've found Bridge to be one of the most over-rated cards in the game.  To really be a dominant card it needs a way to play many several of them in one turn which means you need +actions, +draw and, of course, a bunch of Bridges.  There are certain cards that combo extremely well with Bridge and turn it into a monster, such as KC, NV and Scheme - I think we all remember a couple of games where either us or our opponent have had all the pieces in play and have bought 8 Provinces on turn 10.  But more often it is basically a Woodcutter.
Why scheme?

Piemaster

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #14 on: May 30, 2012, 02:26:27 am »
0

Just because if you do have a Bridge combo within your deck it makes it much easier to put the pieces together.  Probably not a great example looking back on it, but it was early at the time :P
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jomini

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Re: Question about bridge
« Reply #15 on: May 30, 2012, 10:16:31 am »
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Another shot that can work for bridge is highway. Bridge makes a good terminal for highway as it gets you the +buy you need for double highway turns and it also contributes the cost reduction. Figure on 4 coin (counting the one from bridge) from any given hand. This means that you need a 3 coin discount to hit a double highway turn. Bridge gets you that discount a turn sooner than woodcutters and once you have exhausted the highway pile, still gives a discount so you can stop at one fewer highways and get some other enabling cards (like a market) and move on to provinces a turn sooner as well. If chained highways are a viable option, then bridge makes for a very strong terminal to exploit them; even with no draw better than cantrip (though some sifting like warehouse is very useful).
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