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Insomniac

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Cache
« on: June 22, 2012, 02:25:23 pm »
+4

Cache

Cache is a card that is often overlooked because of the copper it comes with but when is Cache good? There are some obvious good uses like Gardens but there are other times too.

Implications in Big Money
In big money you want 1.6 Money / Card on average in a province game and 2.2 / Card in a Colony game. Cache gives 1.6667 Money / Card this makes it acceptable in province games but rather poor in a colony game. However, even in a province game your still going to want Gold to counteract those green cards you buy.

Implications in an Engine
In an engine cache is usually terrible it adds 3 cards to your deck and only one of them is ever useful, (Copper is normally terrible). Their are exceptions but these are usually things like counting house which are cards that conflict in cost with cache and are generally sub par.

Attacks
Cursers:
In a game with cursers cache will really shine. In a game with cursers it is often extremely hard to reach 6 and you might have to gear up for a duchy buyout. In these games Cache will add value to your deck and possibly allow for a province buy or two as well as some gold potential. These are the games when the copper actually helps as well since for a duchy you only need an average of 1 / Card to buy a duchy. And the 3 cards is going to dilute how often you see the curses.

Discarders:
In games where you're discarding cards its going to depend on the frequency of those discard attacks whether or not cache is useful. If they are common then cache is going to add some value to your hands while providing fodder to hands to discard. In these games you might want a few caches but depending on the length of the game you probably don't want more than 2. In games where you aren't discarding all the time you want to ignore cache and just go for gold.

The Elusive 5 Costs
In games where there is a conflicting 5 that you want is where there is going to be a bit more of a decision regarding cache.

Duke
In duke games you want a money value of 1/card. When you have 5 you have 2 targets already Duchy and Duke so when do you have time to buy cache? If the board has extra buys cache is more ignorable as your extra buys can nab copper into your deck. The times you're going to want cache in Duke games are when you don't have extra buys. In games where you don't have extra buys you can green out your deck more and then buy a cache. In order to do this you're going to need to have one of two things happen though, either your opponent needs to be on a province strategy so that you have more time to buy duchies and dukes, or when you are expliciltly ahead on duchies/dukes. You want to be in a position where if they buy a duchy/duke next turn your STILL ahead, in other words you have at least 2 more of whichever part of the game its in. A final note, if you probably won't reshuffle before the game ends you still want the best green card you can buy here.

Counting House
Counting House returns all coppers to your hand and cache adds coppers to your deck so this is actually a good thing right? In truth it depends Counting house collides with cache as a 5 cost so thats a bad thing but normally you don't want too many counting houses so cache isn't actually replacing your counting house buy. The other scenario you want cache is when you can gain a cache during your action phase and play a counting house after (adding 2 to your hand value) The scenarios where this can happen are fairly rare as your going to need a gainer, possibly a cost reducer and some card draw so its probably to complicated to go after in most games. when you could just gain the copper instead.

Hunting Party - Credit jomini
Hunting Party stacks in Colony games have Platinum/Gold/Silver/Copper which gets you to 11 and a colony. In province games you need either a 2 cost terminal or an additional money card. In the presence of cache, hunting party can skip either the gold and green earlier or the terminal silver (as you'll have 9). Since hunting party ignored duplicates the other coppers don't hurt as much as other decks, but you probably only want 1 cache here, and you probably want it after you've purchased a hunting party or two.

Other scenarios
The other times cache is good is when you want a large deck or you have a 5 buy are ahead in green and your decks average card value is getting low. This is normally in the alternate vp strategies, Silk Roads/Gardens come to mind.

Apothecary - Credit WW
Apothecary goes really well with Cache because apothecary loves copper. The downside here is that a potion is needed but in some scenarios you might want that potion anyways (Familiar) and apothecary is actually good enough to warrant the potion in this case anyways. Even without additional buys you're grabbing a gold and 2 coppers which further enable your apothecary's grab all potions and coppers ability.

Trader - Credit shark_bait
In games with trader when you buy a cache you can turn the copper into silver (Assuming a hand with $5 and trader) This brings the average card value up from 1.6667 to a whopping 2.3333. This makes cache playable in colony games and a power house in province games.

Sifters (Warehouse/Cellar/Etc.) - Credit jomini
In games where you have sifters like warehouse/cellar cache's downside is mitigated by the fact that you can sift your coppers into higher value money cards like the cache's and golds in your deck. It is important to remember that Sifters do cost a card here though so you want to buy Golds and probably a few silvers still.

Watchtower - Credit jomini
Watchtower has a benefit similar to trader. If you buy cache with a watchtower in hand you can trash those coppers making the cache a gold at the $5 pricepoint. On top of that the watchtower can topdeck the cache, increasing the benefit of your next turn, allowing for buying more caches or an early acceleration into province buying.

Noble Brigand - Credit jomini
Unlike theif, noble brigand only hits specific types of money and cache and copper aren't one of them. The added copper makes your deck more resiliant to the "gain a copper" portion of noble brigand and cache can't be stolen by noble brigand like silver and gold.

Spice Merchant - Credit jomini
Spice merchant is a 4 cost Lab or silver with a buy. The catch is you have to trash a treasure from your hand, with cache on board this is a good thing because you can trash the coppers that cache gives you. This keeps spice merchant active even longer into the game then normal where normally one is adequate.


Works with:
Duke
Big Money Province Games
Gardens (And other times you want a large deck) (Phil Stone - eHalcyon)
Other Alternate VP Strategies (Green a little harder then get your money back up)
Certain Counting House Boards
Attacks - Dependant better in curse slogs
Apothecary - Credit WW
Coppersmith - Credit WW
Trader - Credit shark_bait

Conflicts With:
Engine boards/decks
Colony Games


All feedback is welcome! Thanks for reading.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2012, 02:38:17 am by Insomniac »
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Cache
« Reply #1 on: June 22, 2012, 02:29:50 pm »
+1

Goes decently with coppersmith, very well with apothecary.

Don't think it actually goes well with attacks - it is very good in heavy curse slogs, but the other attacks, it's mediocre to bad.

shark_bait

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Re: Cache
« Reply #2 on: June 22, 2012, 02:31:35 pm »
+2

This is one of my favorite cards and also my best win rate given availability.  Thanks for writing this article!

I think Trader should get a special mention somewhere.  Getting that Golden Hand of $5 with Trader in hand is huge, especially if you get it early enough.
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Insomniac

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Re: Cache
« Reply #3 on: June 22, 2012, 02:38:49 pm »
0

Updated as per shark_bait and WW's notes
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jomini

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Re: Cache
« Reply #4 on: June 22, 2012, 03:01:16 pm »
+2

A few other things that help cache out:
Sifting - Warehouse can find your cache and discard your coppers, hunting party doesn't care as much about those excess coppers (you can get by with cache/silver/copper/gold in a colony game or cache/silver/copper/action-silver in province games), though it competes at 5, embassy can also churn through your now larger deck and pull out the caches. Strong sifting mitigates the major drawback of cache - the increase in deck size.

Watchtower - like trader, watchtower/cache is very good - giving you a 5 coin gold if you can reveal the watchtower - in some circumstances. Building an action/watchtower draw deck can benefit from cache as a quick way to build value. This is particularly true if you don't have the action balance to support more action cards for engine payload (e.g. a mandarin can be a strong play in a watchtower/festival engine, but if you are running short on +action, cache can work better). Top decking the caches also provides for quick acceleration up to provinces.

Cache is also a very strong counter to noble brigand. Your deck is going to get flooded with copper anyways and cache is immune whereas silver is not. Late game, spice merchant and stables both can get some mileage from the coppers that cache provides if you are running low on treasures to use with them.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Cache
« Reply #5 on: June 22, 2012, 03:36:45 pm »
0

Philo Stone might be worth mentioning, though it is covered under "other times you want a large deck".
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Insomniac

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Re: Cache
« Reply #6 on: June 22, 2012, 04:13:46 pm »
0

Upated as per eHalcyon and jomini
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Re: Cache
« Reply #7 on: June 22, 2012, 05:12:11 pm »
0

Is it really worth buying a Watchtower just for this trick? If you replace it with Silver you could just buy a Gold in the first place instead of all this rigmarole. Sure, you get the topdeck effect, and if you play the Watchtower as an action then with some luck it might equal Silver's buying power in a pinch, but it's not really that amazing. (If you're already doing a Watchtower combo on the other hand, then of course great.)

More generally speaking, I could be way wrong and would love to hear a counterargument, but it seems like the true test of "a Cache strategy" is whether you'd buy it over Gold or not. If you want the Coppers, then go Cache. Otherwise, isn't it going to look stupid when you build your deck around a Cache plan and then you draw all $4s and $6s? Maybe you can use deck control like Havens or Courtyard to get a bunch of exactly $5 turns but it doesn't seem worthwhile. Then the only other way to use Cache might be to consider it a contingency plan and play a flexible strategy. If anyone has some thoughts on how to approach this, I'd be fascinated.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Cache
« Reply #8 on: June 22, 2012, 05:18:53 pm »
0

Is it really worth buying a Watchtower just for this trick? If you replace it with Silver you could just buy a Gold in the first place instead of all this rigmarole. Sure, you get the topdeck effect, and if you play the Watchtower as an action then with some luck it might equal Silver's buying power in a pinch, but it's not really that amazing. (If you're already doing a Watchtower combo on the other hand, then of course great.)

More generally speaking, I could be way wrong and would love to hear a counterargument, but it seems like the true test of "a Cache strategy" is whether you'd buy it over Gold or not. If you want the Coppers, then go Cache. Otherwise, isn't it going to look stupid when you build your deck around a Cache plan and then you draw all $4s and $6s? Maybe you can use deck control like Havens or Courtyard to get a bunch of exactly $5 turns but it doesn't seem worthwhile. Then the only other way to use Cache might be to consider it a contingency plan and play a flexible strategy. If anyone has some thoughts on how to approach this, I'd be fascinated.

You might already have or want a Watchtower for another reason, e.g. to counter junking or discard attacks.

It's very rare that you'd buy Cache over Gold  if you had $6 in hand, but what if you only have $5?  What if you are having a lot of difficulty hitting $6 (e.g. junk)?  Cache could help you there.

For when you'd actually want Cache over Gold, a few examples are above.  Another reason -- maybe you want fodder for a trasher like Spice Merchant or Trade Route.
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Re: Cache
« Reply #9 on: June 22, 2012, 07:33:07 pm »
0

More generally speaking, I could be way wrong and would love to hear a counterargument, but it seems like the true test of "a Cache strategy" is whether you'd buy it over Gold or not. If you want the Coppers, then go Cache. Otherwise, isn't it going to look stupid when you build your deck around a Cache plan and then you draw all $4s and $6s? Maybe you can use deck control like Havens or Courtyard to get a bunch of exactly $5 turns but it doesn't seem worthwhile. Then the only other way to use Cache might be to consider it a contingency plan and play a flexible strategy. If anyone has some thoughts on how to approach this, I'd be fascinated.

Depends on what you call a "Cache strategy". I would guess that Cache is rarely going to be the focal point of any strategy, but is rather a card that works well with certain stuff. Obviously stuff that likes Copper is one type of card that it works with, but there is also stuff that just doesn't mind Copper that much, like terminal draw.

Terminal draw is predicated on drawing large hands that include a Gold (or equivalently, Cache) and a bunch of other stuff that even if it's mostly Coppers, still adds up to $8. In a Big Money board, the presence of Cache is potentially going to push you toward going for terminal draw rather than other BM strategies. For example, Baron/Merchant Ship should beat Smithy BM, but lose to Smithy/Cache.
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shMerker

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Re: Cache
« Reply #10 on: June 22, 2012, 07:52:40 pm »
0

Hunting Party - Credit jomini
Hunting Party stacks in Colony games have Platinum/Gold/Silver/Copper which gets you to 11 and a colony. In province games you need either a 2 cost terminal or an additional money card. In the presence of cache, hunting party can skip either the gold and green earlier or the 2 cost terminal (as you'll have 9). Since hunting party ignored duplicates the other coppers don't hurt as much as other decks, but you probably only want 1 cache here, and you probably want it after you've purchased a hunting party or two.

I think "2 cost terminal" here should be "terminal silver"; you really don't want to try doing this with a chapel or herbalist.

For when you'd actually want Cache over Gold, a few examples are above.  Another reason -- maybe you want fodder for a trasher like Spice Merchant or Trade Route.

I understand trade route, but Spice Merchant? Isn't it just better to not have the copper or the spice merchant in the first place? When use spice merchant to draw it's the same as if you didn't have either card in the first place because you end up with the same number of cards in hand. And if you do it for money you've just used two cards to get $2 and 1 buy, which, except for the buy, is the same as if you had two coppers in hand. Why not just get a silver instead of the Spice Merchant in the first place and then buy gold with your $6 turns?
« Last Edit: June 22, 2012, 07:58:16 pm by shMerker »
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eHalcyon

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Re: Cache
« Reply #11 on: June 22, 2012, 08:07:43 pm »
0

I understand trade route, but Spice Merchant? Isn't it just better to not have the copper or the spice merchant in the first place? When use spice merchant to draw it's the same as if you didn't have either card in the first place because you end up with the same number of cards in hand. And if you do it for money you've just used two cards to get $2 and 1 buy, which, except for the buy, is the same as if you had two coppers in hand. Why not just get a silver instead of the Spice Merchant in the first place and then buy gold with your $6 turns?

Maybe you really need the +buy!
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jomini

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Re: Cache
« Reply #12 on: June 23, 2012, 10:31:53 am »
0

Hunting Party - Credit jomini
Hunting Party stacks in Colony games have Platinum/Gold/Silver/Copper which gets you to 11 and a colony. In province games you need either a 2 cost terminal or an additional money card. In the presence of cache, hunting party can skip either the gold and green earlier or the 2 cost terminal (as you'll have 9). Since hunting party ignored duplicates the other coppers don't hurt as much as other decks, but you probably only want 1 cache here, and you probably want it after you've purchased a hunting party or two.

I think "2 cost terminal" here should be "terminal silver"; you really don't want to try doing this with a chapel or herbalist.

For when you'd actually want Cache over Gold, a few examples are above.  Another reason -- maybe you want fodder for a trasher like Spice Merchant or Trade Route.

I understand trade route, but Spice Merchant? Isn't it just better to not have the copper or the spice merchant in the first place? When use spice merchant to draw it's the same as if you didn't have either card in the first place because you end up with the same number of cards in hand. And if you do it for money you've just used two cards to get $2 and 1 buy, which, except for the buy, is the same as if you had two coppers in hand. Why not just get a silver instead of the Spice Merchant in the first place and then buy gold with your $6 turns?

Because a +buy will win you more games than you might think. Being able to nab a duchy + estate or a province + estate can completely muck up the other guy's end game. If you have a spare buy at the price point, if there is NO other +buy, or if all the other +buy suck (e.g. spice merchant/cache is a lot better than going margrave with tunnels out), then yeah, spice merchant makes a good bit of sense.
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jomini

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Re: Cache
« Reply #13 on: June 23, 2012, 10:39:39 am »
0

Is it really worth buying a Watchtower just for this trick? If you replace it with Silver you could just buy a Gold in the first place instead of all this rigmarole. Sure, you get the topdeck effect, and if you play the Watchtower as an action then with some luck it might equal Silver's buying power in a pinch, but it's not really that amazing. (If you're already doing a Watchtower combo on the other hand, then of course great.)

More generally speaking, I could be way wrong and would love to hear a counterargument, but it seems like the true test of "a Cache strategy" is whether you'd buy it over Gold or not. If you want the Coppers, then go Cache. Otherwise, isn't it going to look stupid when you build your deck around a Cache plan and then you draw all $4s and $6s? Maybe you can use deck control like Havens or Courtyard to get a bunch of exactly $5 turns but it doesn't seem worthwhile. Then the only other way to use Cache might be to consider it a contingency plan and play a flexible strategy. If anyone has some thoughts on how to approach this, I'd be fascinated.

Like many things, it depends on the board. If curse givers are out (particularly an early curse giver like hag), well yes. Golds at 5, blocked curses, and top decking is pretty good. Particularly because it will most likely be a long time before you see 6 in a hag game. Discard attacks, hand size decreasing villages (e.g. NV, Hamlet, Fishing, Shanty, etc.), and other cards that decrease hand size (oasis, cellar, etc.) all make watchtower/cache viable.
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Re: Cache
« Reply #14 on: June 23, 2012, 11:11:06 am »
0

Quote
I understand trade route, but Spice Merchant? Isn't it just better to not have the copper or the spice merchant in the first place?

I'd suggest that normally you're best working with the extra coppers from your cache and if you don't want the coppers then don't buy the cache. Trying to 'repair the damage' with a moneylender or spice merchant will be ineffective. On the other hand, if you already have a successful moneylender or spice merchant in your deck then perhaps you can add a cache later knowing exactly how the extra copper will be used. That is a different situation.
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Re: Cache
« Reply #15 on: October 25, 2013, 12:56:37 pm »
0

I think Stables might be a decent synergy, maybe even very good, but you have to be careful with the balance. I don't know which you would buy first, but it seems to me that if you get a Cache or two, a few stables, and maybe a couple Gold, then you should have a money engine that won't stall out too much when you green. You can buy Duchy, Copper, or Silver every time you fall short of 8.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2013, 01:08:56 pm by Minotaur »
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Re: Cache
« Reply #16 on: October 25, 2013, 04:57:15 pm »
0

I think Stables might be a decent synergy, maybe even very good, but you have to be careful with the balance. I don't know which you would buy first, but it seems to me that if you get a Cache or two, a few stables, and maybe a couple Gold, then you should have a money engine that won't stall out too much when you green. You can buy Duchy, Copper, or Silver every time you fall short of 8.
On 5/2, Cache, but after your first reshuffle, Stables first. Especially if your opening involved attacks or something like Monument.
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Minotaur

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Re: Cache
« Reply #17 on: October 25, 2013, 05:00:59 pm »
0

I think Stables might be a decent synergy, maybe even very good, but you have to be careful with the balance. I don't know which you would buy first, but it seems to me that if you get a Cache or two, a few stables, and maybe a couple Gold, then you should have a money engine that won't stall out too much when you green. You can buy Duchy, Copper, or Silver every time you fall short of 8.
On 5/2, Cache, but after your first reshuffle, Stables first. Especially if your opening involved attacks or something like Monument.

Oh, yeah. That makes sense. I forgot that having one terminal action in your deck ASAP will help out almost every turn all game long in this kind of deck. Probably a non-drawer like your Monument example, but even drawing attacks might be better than the alternatives.
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Re: Cache
« Reply #18 on: October 25, 2013, 05:11:34 pm »
0

I think Stables might be a decent synergy, maybe even very good, but you have to be careful with the balance. I don't know which you would buy first, but it seems to me that if you get a Cache or two, a few stables, and maybe a couple Gold, then you should have a money engine that won't stall out too much when you green. You can buy Duchy, Copper, or Silver every time you fall short of 8.
i'm sure you want the stables first.  it helps a lot in getting to 5 but it cycles better rather than the cache which hurts cycling.  I look at the synergy a bit differently tho.  Unless for some reason you are low on treasures so taht you wind up dropping golds to stables/risking total duds (or you're not trying to get up to $8), your stables engine still wants Gold over Cache, but if you've hit $5, cache might be better than another stables.
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Re: Cache
« Reply #19 on: October 25, 2013, 05:11:55 pm »
+3

I would like to add its use as a quick way to add both money and fodder to your deck. Plenty of engines need more fodder than they can +Buy. Sometimes your only +Buy is Trade Route or Forager. Sometimes you don't have any +Buy and trashed with Mercenary into an engine. In the no +Buy case (or limited +Buy, like no-Village and terminal +Buy engine), Cache might even be better than Gold, if your engine is reasonably reliable, but you still need to add money.

I think especially Forager loves Cache, as it can feed on the Coppers and eventually even trash one Cache to pump himself up.
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