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[WanderingWinder]

Merchant Ship: An old card that never changed.

...

Wharf: The original version didn't have the +1 Buy. It got that to compare more favorably to Merchant Ship.

Merchant Ship (I will refer to it, perhaps unfortunately, with the abbreviation MS) is one of my favourite cards. It's a great card. But I think it's often underrated, because it's such a simple card. It's a solid card. Let's break it down.
First of all, it's a duration card, which has a big impact on how you look at it. Beyond this, it's a terminal action. And it provides virtual coins. Now, being a non-drawing terminal duration tells you a good idea of how many of these you can sustain. But how good of a card is it, when do you want it, and apart from how many you CAN have, how many do you want?

Well, the effect of giving $4 split up over two turns is typically stronger than gold, which gives $3 in one turn. Yes, concentration can help things, but that's a whole extra money. The big drawback, and THE reason you want gold over merchant ship sometimes, even with the higher cost, is that MS is terminal. But, being a duration card, and being non-drawing, you can sneak some more of these into your deck than you would with normal terminals.

And just by itself, big-money wise, you can get it to be roughly on par with BM-Smithy, BM-Envoy, BM-Oracle, these kinds of decks. It can form the backbone of an economy. Most BM decks rely mostly on golds to be able to get to that province. Jack decks rely on a billion silvers, but even there, gold is important. In MS decks, Gold is very nice, but the MS are key. 2 MS (you can have 2 in play at once - the benefits of duration terminals!), and 4 copper or more commonly a silver and 2 copper, there's your province. And a 2-coin head start next turn.
Of course, like many duration cards, the MS effect is the same now and later - which makes it better on your next turn than it is now. Now, it's just a terminal silver. Next turn, it's like you've played two treasuries before your turn starts. Which hey, ain't bad.

But the real strength of MS, I think, is in how it plays with other actions. BM-Smithy, it's really hard to add other actions and have them help you out. BM-Merchant Ship, on the other hand, you can add all kinds of other stuff to. Swindler on the board? Slide over to opening that, and ease up on the merchant ships a little bit later. The same is true with lots of other good opening terminals. And merchant ship also plays nicely with cantrips, which a card like smithy won't. So a lot of times, this non-engine deck that still relies on a good number of actions, but plays more like a money deck, is possible. And MS is great here. Especially since those MS you shave off, you can usually do by getting gold over MS on 6 (in BM-Merchant ship, you want to prioritize MS>Gold a good bit).

I would be remiss, of course, if I didn't mention how it plays in engines. It plays fine in engines, but not great. I mean, it's a terminal, and one which doesn't give +buy or +actions or +cards or any kind of attack to slow the opponents down. In short, it doesn't really give you any of the things engines really need to be viable. BUT, if there's an engine already around that you want to play, and you can spare an action here and there, 1-2 MS are a great addition to provide coins, not needing as many actions or taking as much space up as other terminals, while still providing coin at least on par with gold.

Overall, a very nice card, not so often super-stellar, but most often a strong, nice addition to your deck.
And as for that Donald X. quote... no, it's not in the same league as wharf. But switch around which one has the buy...


Works with:
Non-draw terminals
Money decks
Anything that needs consistent coin production
Cantrips
Generally useful cards, so long as they're not terminal draw

Doesn't work with:
Terminal draw

[WanderingWinder]

By the way, it was way too much work getting that quote exactly right. Except that it was also a lot of fun...

[Galzria]

I love Merchant Ship, so versatile.

[Young Nick]

Generally useful cards, so long as they're not

You lost me with this one. This too:

Especially since those MS you shave off, you can usually do by getting gold over MS on 6 (in BM-Merchant ship, you want to prioritize MS>Gold a good bit).

Regardless, this is a very nice article. I think the average rank of f.ds members would be 1-2 lower if not for you and your gazillion articles, WW.

[WanderingWinder]

Generally useful cards, so long as they're not

Should say terminal draw. Fixed now.

You lost me with this one. This too:

Especially since those MS you shave off, you can usually do by getting gold over MS on 6 (in BM-Merchant ship, you want to prioritize MS>Gold a good bit).

Regardless, this is a very nice article. I think the average rank of f.ds members would be 1-2 lower if not for you and your gazillion articles, WW.

What I mean here is, you buy other cards, which means you need to buy fewer MS, because you want to avoid terminal collision, right? I think you're following me here. The part that I am probably not phrasing very clearly is the next one. So you want to buy fewer MS. But of course, you don't buy nothing instead of MS. What I'm saying is, the thing that you're buying instead, some kind of reverse opportunity cost, you can often work it out so that that thing you're buying instead of MS, is a gold. Which is a pretty darn good 'downgrade' to have to make.

[Robz888]

Merchant Ship is definitely one of those cards I never would have given the time of the day if not for WW and others arguing that they are good.

[Kahryl]

Poor merchant ship. You deserved the +buys, not Wharf.

[Galzria]

Poor merchant ship. You deserved the +buys, not Wharf.

MS would be WAY to strong with +buy. It allows for a consistency that is only really balanced by it's natural ability to only purchase one thing. Wharf, because it can draw itself and other cards dead, survives on it's + buy (although I would think it more balanced if it dud not provide that benefit as a duration).

[WanderingWinder]

Poor merchant ship. You deserved the +buys, not Wharf.

MS would be WAY to strong with +buy. It allows for a consistency that is only really balanced by it's natural ability to only purchase one thing. Wharf, because it can draw itself and other cards dead, survives on it's + buy (although I would think it more balanced if it dud not provide that benefit as a duration).

Are you really trying to argue that MS with buy would be better than wharf as-is?
Looks like I need to go write the wharf article.

[Galzria]

Poor merchant ship. You deserved the +buys, not Wharf.

MS would be WAY to strong with +buy. It allows for a consistency that is only really balanced by it's natural ability to only purchase one thing. Wharf, because it can draw itself and other cards dead, survives on it's + buy (although I would think it more balanced if it dud not provide that benefit as a duration).

Are you really trying to argue that MS with buy would be better than wharf as-is?
Looks like I need to go write the wharf article.

I think Wharf is too strong as-is. I think MS with +buy would be on par with Wharf.

[Robz888]

I think Wharf is too strong as-is. I think MS with +buy would be on par with Wharf.

If MS stole both of Wharf's buys, they would be much closer. If it stole one of Wharf's buys, Wharf would suffer, but still be a really, really, great card.

But if MS simply also had a buy, and Wharf retained both its buys--they're not even close.

[Robz888]

Are you really trying to argue that MS with buy would be better than wharf as-is?
Looks like I need to go write the wharf article.

You definitely should. I thought Hunting Party was a better card as recently as... 2 weeks ago.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Really good article. I think you nailed the key point in italics, which is always good. Merchant Ship I think of as the standard "good" $5 card. It doesn't really need to be a starring card (e.g. in the Swindler case, you could argue that the Swindler is really the more important card in that deck), but it almost always fits in as a good way to use up your spare terminal action.

One thing I wish you'd say more about is when you prefer it to Gold. You say "In BM-Merchant ship ... a good bit", but can you say anything more about it?

[DG]

To take the article to the next level I think you need to look at some more situations where the merchant ship can be very impressive, perhaps in treasure less decks powered by tacticians or scrying pools where the big income for a single action is hard to match. It also only needs to be drawn into hand on alternate turns and that can be an advantage when drawing through the entire deck, perhaps with alchemists.

Another good use of merchant ship is in curse filled decks where drawing actions will just draw more rubbish. This also shows the value of having a card of cost 5 to enable a purchasing strategy since it can be hard to attain the 6 coins needed for the first gold. On the other hand, in a deck with good treasures any drawing action will typically generate more income than the merchant ship and cycle the deck faster.

The comparison between gold and merchant ship is interesting but again there could be more. In a game with a sharp fast increase in spending the merchant ship can be a bit slow, especially when there can be step increases in the quality of your deck upon shuffling. The merchant ship can miss out on those. There are also some complexities with hand size, deck size, deck quality, and so on that I wouldn't particularly want to quantify. Perhaps an article should though.

[WanderingWinder]

To take the article to the next level I think you need to look at some more situations where the merchant ship can be very impressive, perhaps in treasure less decks powered by tacticians or scrying pools where the big income for a single action is hard to match. It also only needs to be drawn into hand on alternate turns and that can be an advantage when drawing through the entire deck, perhaps with alchemists.

The reason that that's not in the article is that I don't think MS is particularly impressive in those situations, and I actually don't think that it's almost ever the 'wowza' card that you're talking about.

Another good use of merchant ship is in curse filled decks where drawing actions will just draw more rubbish. This also shows the value of having a card of cost 5 to enable a purchasing strategy since it can be hard to attain the 6 coins needed for the first gold. On the other hand, in a deck with good treasures any drawing action will typically generate more income than the merchant ship and cycle the deck faster.

The comparison between gold and merchant ship is interesting but again there could be more. In a game with a sharp fast increase in spending the merchant ship can be a bit slow, especially when there can be step increases in the quality of your deck upon shuffling. The merchant ship can miss out on those. There are also some complexities with hand size, deck size, deck quality, and so on that I wouldn't particularly want to quantify. Perhaps an article should though.

True, maybe. But I can't possibly hope to cover every little situation. Nor do I want to. I don't want to be too prescriptive in these things - you always have to be on the lookout for creativity yourself, and every little kingdom tends to add a little twist.

[jomini]

One place I think that might be worth mentioning for merchant ships and engines is where you want disappearing cash. MS loves menage/village engines. You can play duplicates and they take up half the space of most other action-cash cards. Likewise, for jack/lib/watchtower, MS takes fewer actions to play and unlike cash doesn't limit your draw. In general, MS is among the better terminal-cash cards for engines - you need half the villages to support it as other action payload and it takes up 50 - 75% of the deck space of actual cash (and is cheaper to boot than those space efficient golds).

[WanderingWinder]

To take the article to the next level I think you need to look at some more situations where the merchant ship can be very impressive, perhaps in treasure less decks powered by tacticians or scrying pools where the big income for a single action is hard to match. It also only needs to be drawn into hand on alternate turns and that can be an advantage when drawing through the entire deck, perhaps with alchemists.

The reason that that's not in the article is that I don't think MS is particularly impressive in those situations, and I actually don't think that it's almost ever the 'wowza' card that you're talking about.

I should probably elaborate. I actually think merchant ship actually anti-synergizes ever-so-slightly with tactician, because if you draw them together, you double miss the benefit of the ship, or you don't play the tactician. And if you play it in a tactician turn... I don't see how this is different from a generic joe schmo card like silver. I mean, I think it works more or less fine in tac decks and double tac decks, but it is not at all a sign for me to go that direction. Tactician decks are all about loading up from having spread out money to getting fewer turns that do you good, and just having them be lots bigger. Merchant ship is about spreading the goods around. So it's not something I see together. Of course, double tac decks give you both size AND consistency, but you need help to pull it off. And again, I'm not seeing a situation where I'm like 'ooh, merchant ship - I should go double tac'. But if I have a double tac deck, I might be like 'oh hey look, merchant ship; that can help.' But it won't be the star.
The scrying pool thing - well, usually I'd rather have different actions there. Because if I am building a scrying pool deck, I will be drawing roughly my whole deck every turn when I get running. And this lessens merchant ship's relative effectiveness. I mean, if I can play an action every turn, I'd rather be a terminal silver with more of an ancillary benefit - like monument or militia - because I'm probably playing it next turn anyway.
Alchemist, yeah, it helps the alchemist deck, you can have one in play every other turn. But for an alchemist deck to be viable at all, you need some more help. Maybe on a colony board. But typically if I'm playing alchemist, I want something that really mashes me benefit for big handsize (not MS) and/or some +buy (again, not MS).

[paulbaxter]

Poor merchant ship. You deserved the +buys, not Wharf.

MS would be WAY to strong with +buy. It allows for a consistency that is only really balanced by it's natural ability to only purchase one thing. Wharf, because it can draw itself and other cards dead, survives on it's + buy (although I would think it more balanced if it dud not provide that benefit as a duration).

Are you really trying to argue that MS with buy would be better than wharf as-is?
Looks like I need to go write the wharf article.

I think Wharf is too strong as-is. I think MS with +buy would be on par with Wharf.

The math on this is pretty simple. If the cards you would have drawn with wharf have a value equal to $2, then they would be the same (aside from any positive or negative value to general deck velocity). If their average value is less than $2, then a MS with +buy would be better; if greater than $2, then wharf would be better.

How often is the average value of two cards in your deck less than $2?

[dondon151]

The reason that that's not in the article is that I don't think MS is particularly impressive in those situations, and I actually don't think that it's almost ever the 'wowza' card that you're talking about.

I disagree. I hear that in decks in which your draw your entire deck consistently, MS may as well have been, say, a Woodcutter. But keep in mind that you require half as many extra actions to play the number of MSs that you need to get the same monetary output as Woodcutter.

[WanderingWinder]

The reason that that's not in the article is that I don't think MS is particularly impressive in those situations, and I actually don't think that it's almost ever the 'wowza' card that you're talking about.

I disagree. I hear that in decks in which your draw your entire deck consistently, MS may as well have been, say, a Woodcutter. But keep in mind that you require half as many extra actions to play the number of MSs that you need to get the same monetary output as Woodcutter.

But the thing is, usually if you can draw your whole deck, actions are fairly plentiful. And if you're drawing your whole deck, you already have the money you need - 7 starting coppers and SOMETHING else, or at least the $5 to buy your merchant ship, a single gold gets you up to $8, and that's all you need. But typically, if you have an engine like this, buys are at a premium.
I mean, I don't think that Merchant ship is bad in these situations. It might yet be better than woodcutter, and maybe by a decent amount. But that doesn't mean it's super good. I think it's a solid card there. I don't think it's a great card.

[jomini]

In my experience, about half of all viable engines actually have their starting coppers around by the time you green. About half have been thinned out by trashing stuff one way or another (chapel, mint, remake, upgrade, etc.).

Depending on your engine, you may or may not have spare actions. For instance, a minion engine rarely has much in the way of spare actions; but adding a MS or two in after the minions are divvied up is a strong move. Likewise lab, Xroads (and whatever), cartographer, and other engines are often low on action balance.

The nuts and bolts of it for engine building are that woodcutters provides a payload of 2 coin for the cost of 1 action and 1 card; also gives a +buy. Gold provides 3 coin for 1 card and 0 actions. MS provides 4 coin for 1 card and 1 action. Depending on the engine, any of these may be more efficient for getting to 8, 11, 16, 22 or whatever. For a limited draw engine like library, treasure is harsh because that 1 card cost sticks around for each additional watchtower; actions are dear as piling on another two villages can mean delaying the payout for a turn or two. For a xroads engine (e.g. xroads, GH, IW), actions are limited and gold is great payout.

Not every engine is a draw 15 card engine, slip out 8 coin, and nab a province. Some are, some are ones that aim to hit 16 coin and snag out 4 provinces before the engine clogs to death on green. When MS occupies a nice niche - it is pretty space efficient (though less than plat) and pretty action efficient (though nowhere near as good as festival or gold). It fits well in a lot of engines.

[Markov Chain]

Poor merchant ship. You deserved the +buys, not Wharf.

MS would be WAY to strong with +buy. It allows for a consistency that is only really balanced by it's natural ability to only purchase one thing. Wharf, because it can draw itself and other cards dead, survives on it's + buy (although I would think it more balanced if it dud not provide that benefit as a duration).

Are you really trying to argue that MS with buy would be better than wharf as-is?
Looks like I need to go write the wharf article.

I think Wharf is too strong as-is. I think MS with +buy would be on par with Wharf.

The math on this is pretty simple. If the cards you would have drawn with wharf have a value equal to $2, then they would be the same (aside from any positive or negative value to general deck velocity). If their average value is less than $2, then a MS with +buy would be better; if greater than $2, then wharf would be better.

How often is the average value of two cards in your deck less than $2?

And what makes Wharf so much better (particularly compared to Council Room, which looks similar) is that the second two-card draw is always live; if you draw an action with those two cards (such as another Wharf), you may be able to play it for full benefit. 

[O]

MS with buy is probably better than wharf without buy, but about the same/slightly worse than wharf with buy. Wharf without buy is nowhere near the powerhouse it is currently, though still probably an acceptable 5$.

[dondon151]

MS with buy is probably better than wharf without buy, but about the same/slightly worse than wharf with buy. Wharf without buy is nowhere near the powerhouse it is currently, though still probably an acceptable 5$.

Why would Wharf be that much worse without +buy? As long as there's +buy somewhere else, Wharf still does basically the same thing.

[O]

MS with buy is probably better than wharf without buy, but about the same/slightly worse than wharf with buy. Wharf without buy is nowhere near the powerhouse it is currently, though still probably an acceptable 5$.

Why would Wharf be that much worse without +buy? As long as there's +buy somewhere else, Wharf still does basically the same thing.

1) It's *two* buys, which is a significant boost to any card
2)Large terminal draw is probably the cardtype given the largest boost by +buys.
Because +buy on large draw

[dondon151]

1) It's *two* buys, which is a significant boost to any card
2)Large terminal draw is probably the cardtype given the largest boost by +buys.
Because +buy on large draw

Okay... how often are you using all 5+ buys that you get when you have a Wharf chain out? If you're looking to build an engine, you don't usually need more than 2-3 buys; if you're trying to green, you won't usually have enough money to buy more than 3 Victory cards at once.

[O]

1) It's *two* buys, which is a significant boost to any card
2)Large terminal draw is probably the cardtype given the largest boost by +buys.
Because +buy on large draw

Okay... how often are you using all 5+ buys that you get when you have a Wharf chain out? If you're looking to build an engine, you don't usually need more than 2-3 buys; if you're trying to green, you won't usually have enough money to buy more than 3 Victory cards at once.

... But its a one buy boost per turn, which gives you two turns with 2 buys, and the jump from 1-> buys is significant.

I'm not really sure what your point is with 5+ buys.

Also, who says there *is* another card with easy +buy out?

[Empathy]

1) It's *two* buys, which is a significant boost to any card
2)Large terminal draw is probably the cardtype given the largest boost by +buys.
Because +buy on large draw

Okay... how often are you using all 5+ buys that you get when you have a Wharf chain out? If you're looking to build an engine, you don't usually need more than 2-3 buys; if you're trying to green, you won't usually have enough money to buy more than 3 Victory cards at once.

Very often: bridge, highway, quarry, peddler, trader!, goons, watchtower!, 3piling on cheap piles (buy curse to finish game anyone?). Actually, if you don't *need* the extra buy from wharf, you are probably better off buying other cards (as in, not as many wharfs, but rather gold/plat/lab/rabble or simply green cards!) after you have reached your 3rd wharf.

I don't even see how you can get 5+ buys out (from wharf alone) unless you seriously outplayed your opponent (grab more than half the wharfs), or have been seriously outplayed (as in, one of the rare situations where wharf is sub-optimal). This means that the argument 'this card is good without the +buys because with you can get too many buys' self-negates because if it really were that good (which it often is), you will not get more than half the wharfs (leading to probably 3ish buys a turn). And you definitely need the 3 buys a turn in an engine.

Also, non-engine decks usually don't play a wharf every turn, but have a wharf out every turn: and 2 buys almost guaranteed per turn is big, even if you get the occasional overshoot 3 buys. Having to tweak out money to buy a market for +buy (and risk drawing it dead) is not cool.

[axlemn]

Related, but not a non sequitur: would you ever want more than 3 MS in a big money deck by turn 10?  My impression is no. 

[Jfrisch]

no, unless you consider fv m-ship to be a BM deck.

[Varsinor]

in BM-Merchant ship, you want to prioritize MS>Gold a good bit

I had a very hard time believing that this is good advice. It sounds like it is just your gut feeling - or did you do any simulations to back it up? It didn't sound like it, so I did them myself (see the second half of the posting below).

I don't think I would ever buy a Merchant Ship with $6 in a BMish deck - maybe unless I virtually don't have any terminal action yet. Regarding the latter, I am uncertain if I should buy a Gold or a Merchant Ship with my first $6 if I don't have any action yet. If I had to decide without simulations, I'd go for the Gold even then (because I may well get the $5 for my Merchant Ship soon afterwards with which I can't buy a Gold).

For the sake of completeness I'll shortly spell out the disadvantages and advantages Merchant Ship has compared to Gold, although of course Wandering Winder already mentioned the main disadvantage and the main advantage and #2 of the disadvantages is also really well-known - but #3 of the disadvantages may be a little less known:

1. Merchant Ship needs a terminal action. Having two Merchant Ships in your hand compared to Merchant Ship and Gold obviously makes a huge ($3) difference.
2. Duration cards can get caught in the reshuffle.
3. Even independently of #2, it is usually better to have $3 now compared to $2 this turn and $1 next turn. There are two reasons for this - the first is relevant until the end game and the second in the end game: First, if there is a reshuffle between the turns, then with $3 compared to $2, you would have been able to buy a better card getting shuffled into the deck. Economically speaking, this is a classic impact of interest. You'd rather have an extra dollar now and already get interest for it until next period. Second, the game might end before the bonus on the next turn so that you never get it.

Merchant Ship has the following advantage over Gold:

1. It nets you $4 instead of $3 when you have the action to play it.

I had a very hard time believing that this can usually make up the three disadvantages of Merchant Ship compared to Gold in BM decks.

So to see who is right I did some simulations with Geronimoo's simulator myself and they confirmed my gut feeling over your's...

I started with taking Geronimoo's Single Card-Merchant Ship bot.
I improved it by first moving up the buy rule for one Merchant Ship above "buy Duchy if Provinces <=6" and second adding another buy rule under it to prefer Merchant Ships over Silver (as long as there are 7 or 8 Provinces left).

I totally agree with you that in the early and middle game, you should prefer Merchant Ship over Silver. The benefit over Silver (netting $4 instead of $2) should be big enough to justify the three disadvantages mentioned above.
The simulations confirm this - my improved bot beats Geronimoo's standard bot (which never buys more than one Merchant Ship) with 53% against 37%. (It doesn't really matter if you set the lower "Buy Merchant Ship rule" to <3, <4, <5 or delete the limit alltogether - the result is always 53% against 37% from <3 on. The second one is the one that makes by far the biggest difference, "<2" still yields 52% against 38%.)

When we compare this improved Merchant Ship bot with a version where we let it buy the first Merchant Ship over Gold, it is equally strong - both of the two have a 45% chance of winning against each other - this sort of confirms my gut feeling that I didn't know which of these to prefer...

But when you start letting it buy more than one Merchant Ship over Gold, things get worse rapidly:
44% against 46% when letting it buy two Merchants Ships over Gold
39% against 51% when letting it buy three Merchants Ships over Gold
33% against 58% when letting it buy four Merchants Ships over Gold

The conclusion seems to be that it is not good advice to buy Merchant Ships over Gold in BMish games if you already have any terminal actions.

[Varsinor]

Swindler on the board? Slide over to opening that, and ease up on the merchant ships a little bit later.

With the presence of Swindlers it is even worse to ever buy Merchant Ship over Gold because other than Gold, Merchant Ships can be swindled into Duchies or bad $5 kingdom cards. (The only exception might be when there are Adventurers on the board in which case you might actually prefer the opponent swindling you a Duchy instead of an Adventurer from the middle game on.)

[WanderingWinder]

in BM-Merchant ship, you want to prioritize MS>Gold a good bit

I had a very hard time believing that this is good advice. It sounds like it is just your gut feeling - or did you do any simulations to back it up? It didn't sound like it, so I did them myself (see below).
....

In fact, I did!

Code: [Select]

<player name="Merchant Ship WW"
 author="WanderingWinder"
 description="The optimized Merchant Ship bot which buys no other actions">
 <type name="BigMoney"/>
 <type name="Optimized"/>
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="SingleCard"/>
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countVP"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="countMAXOpponentVP"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countVP"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="countMAXOpponentVP"/>
         <extra_operation type="minus" attribute="3.0" />
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="getTotalMoney"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="13.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Merchant_Ship"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Merchant_Ship">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Merchant_Ship"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Merchant_Ship">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Merchant_Ship"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Merchant_Ship">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Merchant_Ship"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="3.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="gainsNeededToEndGame"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
</player>
My optimization of the BM-Merchant ship bot. I tried to reproduce yours from your descriptions:

Code: [Select]

<player name="Merchant Ship Varsinor"
 author="Computer"
 description="This bot has been generated by the computer without any optimization. XXXXIt just buys a single Action card and money">
 <type name="BigMoney"/>
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="Generated"/>
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="SingleCard"/>
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="getTotalMoney"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="18.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Merchant_Ship">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Merchant_Ship"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Merchant_Ship"/>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
</player>
And mine wins by a few percentage points. I'm furthermore convinced that at some point, you should add a merchant ship over a gold, once your deck is large enough, but typically the game is going to be fairly well decided by then. The difference is, as you say though, small. So basically, I should probably make more explicit, that with other terminals (a la swindler, monument, whatever), gold>MS. Also, though, with almost ANY kind of village, you can really pump the MS a lot more. For instance BV+MS is more or less always right over gold. But if you have that, or any way of avoiding your terminal collisions somehow, then the MS is more superior. As is, it's BARELY a drop-off to get MS #2 before gold, only about as much as it is to get gold before MS #1. Anyway, some good points, and they'll be in my revisions.

[Varsinor]

In fact, I did!

OK - I'd love to have a closer look at it!
Can you (or anyone else) tell me if there is an easy way for me to import the source code of your bot into Geronimoo's simulator to have a better view of the differences to mine and also try out changes to it?
Do I have to make an .xml file of it and then use File -> Load Players? If yes, how do I create an .xml file off the text?
(As you can probably tell from this question, I am not very experienced at fiddling around with the simulator... )

Also, though, with almost ANY kind of village, you can really pump the MS a lot more. For instance BV+MS is more or less always right over gold. But if you have that, or any way of avoiding your terminal collisions somehow, then the MS is more superior.

I agree. Especially with Border Villages or also Fishing Villages Merchant Ships certainly become a whole lot more attractive compared to Gold because the risk of terminal collision is much lower. As I said before, I was only talking about the "BMish decks" you seemed to talk about in your initial posting.

As is, it's BARELY a drop-off to get MS #2 before gold, only about as much as it is to get gold before MS #1.

Could you rephrase this sentence? I am not sure what you are saying here (especially with the term drop-off in this context), maybe due to the fact that English is not my native language.

[WanderingWinder]

Could you rephrase this sentence? I am not sure what you are saying here (especially with the term drop-off in this context), maybe due to the fact that English is not my native language.

What I mean is, getting 2 MS before gold is a little bit worse than getting only 1. But the difference is very small - it is about the same size of a difference as the difference between getting 1 merchant ship before gold and getting the gold first. (Optimum is getting 1).
To put a bot like the one I've posted into the simulator, copy all the text of the bot onto your clipboard. Then, with the simulator open, get a player slot that doesn't have a strategy in it (either because there hasn't been one yet, or by clicking on the strategy name, like you would to switch strategies, and then clicking the 'clear selected strategy' button), then click the Copy/Paste button. I hope that's clear.
The last thing is, just because a deck has some villages, or even lots of villages in it, doesn't mean that it's not a BM deck to me. Typically, I'm going to look at that BV-MS and the FV-MS decks as being big money decks. The distinguishing characteristic of an engine, to me, is drawing lots of cards together, more than you would with say a single big-draw card.

[Varsinor]

After playing some games I wanted to have another look at the Merchant Ship simulators, but alas...

To put a bot like the one I've posted into the simulator, copy all the text of the bot onto your clipboard. Then, with the simulator open, get a player slot that doesn't have a strategy in it (either because there hasn't been one yet, or by clicking on the strategy name, like you would to switch strategies, and then clicking the 'clear selected strategy' button), then click the Copy/Paste button. I hope that's clear.

Unfortunately not, can't manage to find what you mean.

Here's what I have done:

1. I start Geronimoo's simulator.
2. I click on "Click to select a strategy for this player" for Player 1.
3. There is no 'clear selected strategy' button. There is one called "Clear selection", but that doesn't open anything where I can paste text.

What do I do wrong?

[WanderingWinder]

After playing some games I wanted to have another look at the Merchant Ship simulators, but alas...

To put a bot like the one I've posted into the simulator, copy all the text of the bot onto your clipboard. Then, with the simulator open, get a player slot that doesn't have a strategy in it (either because there hasn't been one yet, or by clicking on the strategy name, like you would to switch strategies, and then clicking the 'clear selected strategy' button), then click the Copy/Paste button. I hope that's clear.

Unfortunately not, can't manage to find what you mean.

Here's what I have done:

1. I start Geronimoo's simulator.
2. I click on "Click to select a strategy for this player" for Player 1.
3. There is no 'clear selected strategy' button. There is one called "Clear selection", but that doesn't open anything where I can paste text.

What do I do wrong?

Sorry, I was going off memory there. Clear selection is what you'd want, but as the thing says 'Click to select a strategy for this player', you don't actually need to do that. Once you get it to that point, you DON'T want to select a strategy. Just look to the right of where you clicked on the 'Click to select a strategy for this player button'. There should be some radio buttons next to "random start" "4/3 Start" and "5/2 Start". Beneath those, there's buttons marked "Edit/Create", "Copy/Paste" and "Colonize". Here's the important stuff. While the button on the left still says "Click to select a strategy for this player", AND the bot you want to put in has already been copied onto your clipboard, click the "Copy/Paste" button. This will paste the copied text automatically.
I hope THAT helps.

[Geronimoo]

Yeah, the interface is not that intuitive. But once you get used to it, it allows fast simming.

[Varsinor]

Sorry, I was going off memory there. Clear selection is what you'd want, but as the thing says 'Click to select a strategy for this player', you don't actually need to do that. Once you get it to that point, you DON'T want to select a strategy. Just look to the right of where you clicked on the 'Click to select a strategy for this player button'. There should be some radio buttons next to "random start" "4/3 Start" and "5/2 Start". Beneath those, there's buttons marked "Edit/Create", "Copy/Paste" and "Colonize". Here's the important stuff. While the button on the left still says "Click to select a strategy for this player", AND the bot you want to put in has already been copied onto your clipboard, click the "Copy/Paste" button. This will paste the copied text automatically.
I hope THAT helps.

I'm afraid not...

So I start the simulator. After that, which of the buttons you mentioned do I have to click before I can paste your bot from my clipboard? I have tried quite a few (including just hitting paste (i.e. ctrl+v) right after starting the simulator) and it never seems to import your bot anywhere sensible.

[WanderingWinder]

Sorry, I was going off memory there. Clear selection is what you'd want, but as the thing says 'Click to select a strategy for this player', you don't actually need to do that. Once you get it to that point, you DON'T want to select a strategy. Just look to the right of where you clicked on the 'Click to select a strategy for this player button'. There should be some radio buttons next to "random start" "4/3 Start" and "5/2 Start". Beneath those, there's buttons marked "Edit/Create", "Copy/Paste" and "Colonize". Here's the important stuff. While the button on the left still says "Click to select a strategy for this player", AND the bot you want to put in has already been copied onto your clipboard, click the "Copy/Paste" button. This will paste the copied text automatically.
I hope THAT helps.

I'm afraid not...

So I start the simulator. After that, which of the buttons you mentioned do I have to click before I can paste your bot from my clipboard? I have tried quite a few (including just hitting paste (i.e. ctrl+v) right after starting the simulator) and it never seems to import your bot anywhere sensible.

Ok, the first thing, the very very important first thing, is that you have the bot already copied. Then, as soon as you start the simulator, just click the copy/paste button. Easy peasy.

[Varsinor]

Ok, the first thing, the very very important first thing, is that you have the bot already copied. Then, as soon as you start the simulator, just click the copy/paste button. Easy peasy.

I have done it like that. Just tried it again, no change. Nothing happens on ctrl+v. So you click absolutely nowhere between starting the simulator and hitting ctrl+v? (Or is there some "copy&paste button" other than ctrl+v I need to click?)

[HiveMindEmulator]

(Or is there some "copy&paste button" other than ctrl+v I need to click?)

There is a button on the interface that says "Copy/Paste", right next to "Edit/Create".

[Fabian]

I might have an old version of the simulator where it works in another way, but I copied one of the bots WW pasted here, opened the simulator and pressed one of the copy/paste buttons. Seemed pretty impossible to get it wrong.

[Schneau]

Ok, the first thing, the very very important first thing, is that you have the bot already copied. Then, as soon as you start the simulator, just click the copy/paste button. Easy peasy.

I have done it like that. Just tried it again, no change. Nothing happens on ctrl+v. So you click absolutely nowhere between starting the simulator and hitting ctrl+v? (Or is there some "copy&paste button" other than ctrl+v I need to click?)

Not CTRL+v. On the actual window there is a button that says "Copy/Paste". Click that.

[Varsinor]

Gosh, thx guys - got it now.
Unbelievable I overlooked that... For some reason these buttons complete eluded me... Guess I was so fixated on pasting working with ctrl+v that I didn't take what WW wrote literally enough...

[Varsinor]

Now that I have gotten the technical problem out of the way, on to answering the rest of WW's posting...

What I mean is, getting 2 MS before gold is a little bit worse than getting only 1. But the difference is very small - it is about the same size of a difference as the difference between getting 1 merchant ship before gold and getting the gold first. (Optimum is getting 1).

Well, that is very close to the numbers I gave (which were equal to get one MS over Gold, slightly worse to get two over Gold, considerably worse to get more over Gold).

But I really don't think it matches the assessment in your article "in BM-Merchant ship, you want to prioritize MS>Gold a good bit" at all. According to your own statement, you don't want to get a second MS over Gold in standard BM-MS and even the first doesn't do that much good for you!

The last thing is, just because a deck has some villages, or even lots of villages in it, doesn't mean that it's not a BM deck to me. Typically, I'm going to look at that BV-MS and the FV-MS decks as being big money decks. The distinguishing characteristic of an engine, to me, is drawing lots of cards together, more than you would with say a single big-draw card.

I really wouldn't call a deck with lots of villages a Big Money deck - and it looks like the Glossary on dominionstragey.com agrees with me on that:

Strictly speaking, a strategy where no Actions are bought at all, only Treasure and Victory.  In practice, often used to refer to a strategy emphasizing Treasure and Victory cards that is merely supplemented with one or two Actions.  Compare Engine.

Maybe lots of villages don't make an Engine yet in lack of big card draw, but if so there are lots of decks which are neither Big Money nor an Engine.
I'm pretty sure most people would disagree that a deck with lots of villages and actions (though without much draw) is a Big Money deck - at least the Glossary does and that seems to be the closest thing to a widely accepted definition we have.

Therefore, if what you wanted to say was "if you can get some Border Villages or Fishing Villages, you want to prioritize MS>Gold a good bit" I think you should definitely write it like that. I mean, Border Village and Fishing Village are just 2 out of 157 possible cards, so even putting aside the BM-definition-issue they don't come with Merchant Ship often enough to assume their existence without saying...

[Empathy]

On the engine vs BM debate.

Another way of classifying strategies is by their objective in terms of turn-structure: what we generally consider an engine tries to replicate a nearly identical playmat every turn (usually obtained either by drawing through most of the deck via tact/smithy/village chain/scrying pool/menagerie/library/alchemist/HP...) while what usually drives BM is a high average hand output (hence all the talks of 'moneness' in BM). Under that classification system, an action heavy deck with no drawing capacity would be 'BM'-ish. You would reason mostly in average money output of your village/merchant ships rather than in terms of deck drawing reliability. Of course the line gets blurred when you draw say, a quarter of your deck.

[WanderingWinder]

On the engine vs BM debate.

Another way of classifying strategies is by their objective in terms of turn-structure: what we generally consider an engine tries to replicate a nearly identical playmat every turn (usually obtained either by drawing through most of the deck via tact/smithy/village chain/scrying pool/menagerie/library/alchemist/HP...) while what usually drives BM is a high average hand output (hence all the talks of 'moneness' in BM). Under that classification system, an action heavy deck with no drawing capacity would be 'BM'-ish. You would reason mostly in average money output of your village/merchant ships rather than in terms of deck drawing reliability. Of course the line gets blurred when you draw say, a quarter of your deck.

It's not uncommon for your 5-card hand to be a quarter of your deck well into a big money game...

I don't know that I think the 'identical playmat' thing is a very good indication of things either - chancellor/stash isn't an engine, and there are quite a few engines that have great big mega-turns... only about half the time.
I think an engine is an engine if I am chewing through lots of cards in my deck on a fairly consistent basis, roughly.

[chwhite]

and there are quite a few engines that have great big mega-turns... only about half the time.

An extreme example of this is Scrying Pool/Mountebank/Inn, which flounders in Curse and Copper at least half the time, but can explode on Inn turns.

[WanderingWinder]

and there are quite a few engines that have great big mega-turns... only about half the time.

An extreme example of this is Scrying Pool/Mountebank/Inn, which flounders in Curse and Copper at least half the time, but can explode on Inn turns.

Sure. Even conventional engines will miss turns now and then (maybe not half the time). Perhaps the most obvious 'half the time' thing is a single tac deck, which generally plays more on the engine side, though not as distinctly there as double-tac.

[Mic Qsenoch]

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["engine deck"]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.

Concurring opinion, Merchant Ship v. f.DS

[WanderingWinder]

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["engine deck"]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.

Concurring opinion, Merchant Ship v. f.DS

You think engines are obscene? And I thought I was a BM adherent... (although, I actually don't think this so much anymore)

[Empathy]

On the engine vs BM debate.

Another way of classifying strategies is by their objective in terms of turn-structure: what we generally consider an engine tries to replicate a nearly identical playmat every turn (usually obtained either by drawing through most of the deck via tact/smithy/village chain/scrying pool/menagerie/library/alchemist/HP...) while what usually drives BM is a high average hand output (hence all the talks of 'moneness' in BM). Under that classification system, an action heavy deck with no drawing capacity would be 'BM'-ish. You would reason mostly in average money output of your village/merchant ships rather than in terms of deck drawing reliability. Of course the line gets blurred when you draw say, a quarter of your deck.

It's not uncommon for your 5-card hand to be a quarter of your deck well into a big money game...

I don't know that I think the 'identical playmat' thing is a very good indication of things either - chancellor/stash isn't an engine, and there are quite a few engines that have great big mega-turns... only about half the time.
I think an engine is an engine if I am chewing through lots of cards in my deck on a fairly consistent basis, roughly.

Hm, somehow, in my mind, stash/chancellor *is* an 'engine', as every chancellor play leads to a perfectly predictable next turn. It's not a BM, because the average moneyness of the deck is low. Maybe I should rename those groups and just make it a separate classification to engine/BM. My point is, they provide a pretty good metric to compare or contrast strategies differently than just 'action heavy' or 'treasure heavy'. And big mega turn decks are a (third) group of their own.

Basically, the idea is to reason in terms of the probability distribution of the money output per turn. If you try to make it very consistent and near identical from turn to turn (probably a multiple of 8 ), it's an 'engine', if you try to get the highest mean it's a 'BM' and if it is just some very fat-tailed distribution (no money most of the time, lots of money in one turn) then it's a "mega turn" deck. Then there are messier things where the distribution is all over the place.

With this classification, people have a clear objective in mind: if they go for an 'engine', consistency is in order. If they go for 'BM', moneyness is the key metric. A 'mega turn' is defined by the average time it takes to close the game.

[DG]

There are both action engines and treasure engines.

[Davio]

In my view the key difference between an engine an a regular money based deck is the VP progression.
Money decks tend to have a linear graph while engine decks start off more slow and explode in the end with lots of VPs.

Engine decks also invest a lot of turns trying to control the game and only action cards can control the game, IGG being an exception though.
Engines are always looking for that tipping point where their deck is in good enough shape to sustain them for some time while the money player is choking on his greens.

This is why Ambassador fits well with Engines, it's a master at controlling the game. Win the tennis match, win the game. Chapel likewise.

That being said, a BM deck is not necessarily money + 1 or 2 types of action.
Is Hunting Party - Monument an engine or a BM deck? Probably a bit of both.