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[Galzria]

I generally kick back and relax with some fast games on Androminion, and nothing really jumps out at me. I find it's a decent way to test out new ideas, and generally crush the AI. But I'm always thinking competitively too, for Iso or F2F. I came across this board, and don't even know where to start:

Chapel, Duchess, Alchemist, Spice Merchant, Treasure Map, Embassy, Wharf, Bazaar, Hunting Party, Nobles

My opening hand is $5. Thoughts?

Wharf + BM?
HP + Duchess?
Chapel into engine? (actions, buys, +$ all available on action cards)

What would be fastest? I'm pretty sure Alch and TM are dead cards here, but don't know where to go with it. If this where a competitive game, what would be fastest to 4 Provinces? Would that strategy hold up to Duchy Dancing?

Help!

[Robz888]

Forget the Chapel. The dominant strategy here is certainly going to involve Wharf or Hunting Party, and none of them require wasting time on heavy duty trashing.

Yeah, I'm looking at either a Hunting Party/Duchess opening or a Wharf/Duchess opening, and then either way you want more Wharfs and you want Bazaars. You could pick up a Spice Merchant if you have $4. That's how I would play it. Hunting Party/Duchess might be decently strong way to start a Hunting Party engine, but Wharf is tough to ignore, especially with Bazaar backing it up I think (maybe?).

[kn1tt3r]

I think this is one of the rare boards where Hunting Party is just a support and not a dominant card. Simple reason: Wharf. I'd try to get something going around Wharf/Bazaar, possibly with a HP here and there.

As for the opening, I don't really know what's best here. Maybe Wharf/Chapel to just do some light trashing? Or even Bazaar/Chapel to build into Wharfs later? Maybe it's even best to open Wharf/nothing and just ignore Chapel here.

The only concern is probably whether this engine bulding is too slow to compete against  HP/Duchess or Wharf/Money.

[SevenSpirits]

I'd worry about Duchess being a poor terminal for a Hunting Party deck, as if you flip the whole thing and then play Duchess your deck is suddenly a pile of crap. Never tried it though.

[ftl]

I bet Wharf is the right answer.

I'm not sure whether that's Wharf+Money, or a Wharf+Bazaar engine, because both components are $5, and with no attacks, a pure BM+Wharf with a Wharf opening will just be so fast.

I guess it depends on draws? Lots of $5s = pick up bazaars after two wharves, 6/3 draws = get gold and go BM? It's what I'd end up doing, but I have no idea whether it's right.

Dangit, I've played so little Dominion lately...

[RisingJaguar]

I think there needs to be SOME form of trashing involved with wharves strategy (except BM).  If it was FV/Wharf, then it wouldn't be neccessary because they come at two separate costs and they can be bought quite easily.  However since the village and + card are both $5, hitting $5 consistently can be hard, so when you inevitably hit $4, spice merchant would be a decent trasher. 

The other option of taking chapel to start could work, although you would have to be very careful not to over-trash (taking out 3 coppers and being reduced to $4 would really hurt). Chapel might actually be better being bought on T3/T4 depending how the shuffle went down. 

I would think the plan would be to transition over to a double TM buy one turn, another reason to trash.  (possibly twice?)

Hunting party + X loses to whatever wharf can create solely because the X is duchess. 

[Galzria]

The reason I wasn't as worried about the effect of duchess, is that if you don't overplay your Hunting Parties, how often will you really find yourself with a 0 card deck (thus forcing the reshuffle to view top-card)? If your intent is to hit $8 with unique cards (C/S/G/Duchess), unless one of them is the bottom card of your deck, I just don't see it being a major problem.

Am I incorrect?

If Wharf is the way to go, do you aim to trash (some) into TM's as RisingJaguar suggests, or is it faster to run BM? Does Embassy fit in anywhere, or is it outclassed by Wharf?

So many ways to go that are *good*, it's just tough to get a read on what's best.

[DG]

With a 5/2 split it's pretty straightforward. Chapel with wharf (or other good 5) moving into treasure maps is plainly good. With 4/3 you could do a number of ways but I suspect that chapel/silver trying to get the 5 cost card then the treasure maps is still the risky high reward strategy.

[chwhite]

Wharf/Bazaar seems like your best bet here, starting with Wharf and then alternating the two.  Get a Gold or two as well, and probably also some Nobles eventually to keep yourself in draw-your-deck mode and because the VPs might be necessary against a BM-Wharf player.  Transition to double-Province when you have $16 in your deck, and consider Spice Merchant if the opportunity arises.

Despite costing $5, Bazaar is one of the very best Villages for a Wharf engine, so engine it is.

[Galzria]

Sooo... I've gotten rather varied responses from many very good players. I think the general consensus is Wharf over HP, but where to go from there seems to be up for debate. Very very interesting, and very very insightful so far, so thank you all.

[shark_bait]

I've played some solitaire games and with a 5/2, Wharf/Chapel is very powerful opening.  Basically, you want to chapel down your starting deck while purchasing a bazaar, some more wharfs, with the goal of activating TM's.  Here's solitaire game I played which gets province on turn 11 followed by double province on the next 3 turns.  In a game vs. a real opponent, those double province turns could be modified with duchies based upon the number of provinces left.

Also, I think I may have some sort of unofficial record with this solitaire game.  Has anyone else had a solitaire game take that long to reach 5/2?

[RisingJaguar]

I've played some solitaire games and with a 5/2, Wharf/Chapel is very powerful opening.  Basically, you want to chapel down your starting deck while purchasing a bazaar, some more wharfs, with the goal of activating TM's.  Here's solitaire game I played which gets province on turn 11 followed by double province on the next 3 turns.  In a game vs. a real opponent, those double province turns could be modified with duchies based upon the number of provinces left.

Also, I think I may have some sort of unofficial record with this solitaire game.  Has anyone else had a solitaire game take that long to reach 5/2?

Persistence!

[Lionel]

Chapel/Wharf seems obvious and then go for TM.

[SevenSpirits]

The reason I wasn't as worried about the effect of duchess, is that if you don't overplay your Hunting Parties, how often will you really find yourself with a 0 card deck (thus forcing the reshuffle to view top-card)? If your intent is to hit $8 with unique cards (C/S/G/Duchess), unless one of them is the bottom card of your deck, I just don't see it being a major problem.

Am I incorrect?

There are two other situations where the Duchess is a liability.

1) Your last Hunting Party draws the last distinct card with its +1 card and thus flips the rest of your deck.
2) You had a bad discard pile going into the turn which then became your draw deck before you reached $8, in which case you WANT to flip your deck so your next turn is OK.

I can't speak to how common these are though. Don't have much experience.

[gorgonstar]

I played a few games of solitaire with this board and it was really fun.  Wharf/bazaar/light trashing/treasure maps is really fast on this board.  You don't need to open with chapel though.  You can buy it later and still get rid of all of your starting cards easily, since wharf gives you large hand sizes to find all of your junk.  If you get lucky you'll get $7 and be able to buy a wharf and a chapel.  If you play a wharf when you activate your treasure maps, the next turn you will have 4 golds and plus buy.  4 golds is only $12, so at a minimum you'll need another gold and a bazaar to get you to $16 to buy double provinces.