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Author Topic: Embassy Big Money questions  (Read 2739 times)

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gman314

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Embassy Big Money questions
« on: June 19, 2012, 01:28:21 pm »
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I just played the following game:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/19/game-20120619-102149-ddad25aa.html

I played a strategy which basically relied on two Embassies to draw cards for big money and it got me my fourth province on turn 10. But I have two questions.

1. I had 5 silver, 7 copper and 1 gold. That seems like too much silver and not enough gold. Did I get really lucky? Should I have skipped province buys for gold? Or does Embassy BM work well with lots of Silver?

2. There were a few elephants in the room such as Goons, Margrave, Vault and Possession. I chose to ignore them and my opponent only bought one Margrave. Would one or more of those cards been a better choice? With no village, I didn't even consider an engine but I did consider possession. But would it have just been too slow?
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Robz888

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Re: Embassy Big Money questions
« Reply #1 on: June 19, 2012, 01:34:34 pm »
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1). Nope. Embassy is fine with a lot of Silver and no Gold, because it's drawing so many cards. BM works with Silver in general, and Embassy even more so.

2). You were wise to ignore the elephants. Big Money + Embassy is as fast a Big Money strategy as you can have, basically. Only a really strong engine, or some attacks, will beat it. Goons is present, but the lack of village type cards makes it all but impossible to do anything really great with Goons.

So I think you played fairly optimally.
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gman314

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Re: Embassy Big Money questions
« Reply #2 on: June 19, 2012, 01:39:25 pm »
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OK. That's what I thought, but 5 silver just seemed like an awful lot. Although, I don't think it hurt that my opponent had a huge assortment of terminal actions.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Embassy Big Money questions
« Reply #3 on: June 19, 2012, 01:41:51 pm »
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Gonna jump in here.
Embassy is fine with gold, fine without gold. Silver, gold, doesn't matter that much for embassy. You need SOME money here. 5 silver is DEFINITELY NOT a lot of silver to have. I mean, it might be a little above average for BM... but not much.
Margrave is a little better for BM than embassy. Goons is SIGNIFICANTLY better for BM than embassy, and probably a touch better than margrave. Best is probably a goons/margrave hybrid, somewhat depending on your draws. Particularly your early draws.
Possession is absolutely totally irrelevant here. What are you going to do with it? It will take you forever to get it, and then you grab... a very small fraction of their turns? After their prime turns have passed? None of their goons points, if they go that way?

HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Embassy Big Money questions
« Reply #4 on: June 19, 2012, 01:43:30 pm »
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Simulation suggests Embassy BM and Vault BM are pretty close, and that Goons BM beats both pretty easily. You don't have to get off multi-Goons turns for it to be good. It gets you extra points, and it's a handsize attack, which slows the game down enough that you can rack up points with it.
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gman314

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Re: Embassy Big Money questions
« Reply #5 on: June 19, 2012, 01:48:54 pm »
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I hadn't realized that Goons was powerful outside of engines. I guess it becomes kind of like Monument with a handsize attack if you don't use the extra buys.
And, I totally forgot the principle of attacks being good just about whenever.
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Robz888

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Re: Embassy Big Money questions
« Reply #6 on: June 19, 2012, 01:52:42 pm »
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Well, you hit $5 twice (and $8) before you hit $6, so I don't see how mixing Goons into your terminal draw engine would have been very good. I suppose that's especially because you had Embassy. Still, even if you had Margrave instead, I would be worried about drawing Goons dead.

I can believe that Margrave and/or Goons would have been better, but... I almost think Embassy was the easier and lower-risk route, and perfectly adequate against an opponent who was Ironworks-ing Wishing Wells.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Embassy Big Money questions
« Reply #7 on: June 19, 2012, 01:54:17 pm »
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I hadn't realized that Goons was powerful outside of engines. I guess it becomes kind of like Monument with a handsize attack if you don't use the extra buys.
And, I totally forgot the principle of attacks being good just about whenever.
That's actually not a very good principle. Something like scout is pretty meh, pretty much whenever. Thief and pirate ship are very often plain bad.

But goons is really good even for big money. You can milk oodles of points out of it over the very long game. Keep in mind that monument is pretty darn good for BM, and you get a very strong militia attack. And... you can use those buys pretty well - free extra points, and it's not so big a deal to clog your deck with coppers in a BM deck.

gman314

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Re: Embassy Big Money questions
« Reply #8 on: June 19, 2012, 02:04:43 pm »
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I guess the attack principle applies generally when compared to a similar card. For instance, Margrave vs. Embassy. I wasn't actually thinking of Thief or Pirate Ship.

Robz makes a good point with my early hands though. I didn't hit $6 for a while and before I did I felt confident enough with my $8s to buy provinces.
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gman314

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Re: Embassy Big Money questions
« Reply #9 on: June 19, 2012, 02:05:27 pm »
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I played around with a simulator, and Margrave BM is significantly better than Embassy BM. So, I guess I've learned something there. Although, Double Goons just loses to Margrave BM and just edges out Embassy BM.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2012, 02:20:50 pm by gman314 »
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Embassy Big Money questions
« Reply #10 on: June 19, 2012, 02:36:59 pm »
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I played around with a simulator, and Margrave BM is significantly better than Embassy BM. So, I guess I've learned something there. Although, Double Goons just loses to Margrave BM and just edges out Embassy BM.
Double Goons is not enough terminals. You stop at 2 Margraves or Embassies because they draw cards. You can handle 3-5 Goons in your deck no problem. You do want to add in some Golds, but with only 2 Goons, you won't play them often enough.
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gman314

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Re: Embassy Big Money questions
« Reply #11 on: June 19, 2012, 02:39:05 pm »
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That makes sense. I was quite surprised that Goons was beaten so badly. How many Goons would you suggest in a Goons BM deck?
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DrFlux

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Re: Embassy Big Money questions
« Reply #12 on: June 19, 2012, 03:08:25 pm »
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I imagine being opportunistic makes sense. If you hit 6 early, goons seems obvious, but I feel like it would be sort of a waste to use your first $5 buy on a silver, in anticipation of buying goons. This is probably the biggest reason margrave beats the goons bot. Perhaps you could try buying goons on 6, and margrave on 5, till you get two total? (or maybe three in the long term? one margrave two goons?)
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DrFlux

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Re: Embassy Big Money questions
« Reply #13 on: June 19, 2012, 03:11:09 pm »
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Also, alternate victory points might change the pace of the game a little bit... The simulators won't take this into account without some work.
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