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[KMueller]

My basic question is this:

Generally, I have ignored Trade Route if the VP are limited to the standard three. How many green cards need to be on a board to make it worthwhile?

I know other issues come in to this, like it's +buy and its slow trashing ability. The absence of other cards that provide these abilities will likely change the answer to the above question, but I was just curious how others play with this card.

Thanks

[Davio]

I see Trade Routes often bought late in the game, when both players are scrambling for Duchies and Estates and they're worth at least $2 or $3.

In the beginning, they're horrible.

[rinkworks]

Without a lot of extra green cards, and before many green cards have been bought, I think it's probably more correct to look at Trade Route as a trasher first and buyer/earner second.  The potential gold-as-action later in the game is significant, but by then, unless you're in a cursing game, you'd probably rather have actual gold.  So, earlier in the game, I'd think primarily about how much you want its trashing ability.  Which, in the average kingdom, is probably too weak to go for on that basis alone.

I remembering reading here that Trade Route is "kind of" worth using when there's even one token on the trade route mat, assuming you have stuff you'd like to trash and don't have any other trashing ability.  But I wouldn't buy an early Estate or Duchy just to put that first token on.  If someone else happens to do it, though, it might be worth taking advantage of it.  With two, it becomes a more compelling choice.

It might not be completely out of line to evaluate the desirability of Trade Route (in three-victory-pile games) similarly to how you'd evaluate the need for Steward.  Steward is more powerful at trashing and (eventually) less powerful at earning, but both cards provide both benefits, which enables them to be useful both in the early game and in the late game.  Probably Trade Route's median point of usefulness is a bit later than Steward's, but the overall spread on both cards is pretty broad, I think.

[snappy]

i think the combination of +buy and trashing can make it interesting in goons decks, though obviously not if you are starved for actions. it could also work well in a vineyards/scrying pool deck for similar reasons.

[DG]

You generally need to buy a trade route before it provides big value. Games can accelerate and you suddenly find that you need the trade route but can't forgo a green card purchase to get one.

I think it's one of the more difficult cards to play and has numerous problems such as the slowest possible trashing, buying green cards to increase the trade route value for all players, and needing to trash a card each time you use it. On the other hand it can be clear game winner because of its high income, trashing, or extra buy so as I said, a very difficult card. It's not easy to summarise and can even be a good opening buy. Well made Donald X!

[def]

Has anybody ever tried a trade route as an ambassador counter, maybe opening trade route/Island and buying more later?

[guided]

There's no threshold of VP piles below which I won't buy TR. Situations where I'll buy it even with only 3 VP piles:

-I have spare actions and need the buys.
-I'll even open it sometimes (ok, rarely) just for the trashing, on a slow-looking board that looks to have a good action chain strategy available that requires trimming and benefits from the +buy.

[play2draw]

Generally, I buy Trade Route under any of three conditions:

• There is no other +buy card. As the game goes longer, being the only player who bothered with the +buy is a very significant advantage.
• There is no other trashing card. Usually if there's a card even slightly superior as a trasher I pass on the Trade Route. But even slow trashing, by itself, yields a big benefit.
• There is at least one hybrid victory point card on the table. The victory/treasure and victory/action cards are nearly guaranteed to be purchased early on. This will mitigate the biggest problem with early Trade Route.

You can say the above about any number of cards: buying loan because it's the only trasher or buying an early woodcutter because it's the only +buy. Trade Route succeeds in being a combination of the elements of various mediocre cards that you "only buy because it's the only X", and is therefore more useful because of it.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

Menagerie and Pool Engines require a trasher, and trade route works as an opener for both.

[glasser]

Steward is more powerful at trashing

Well, depends what you mean by that. On the one hand, it trashes faster; on the other hand, if you have exactly one card in hand that you're interested in trashing, Steward can be frustrating (though at least it has its other options).