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[eHalcyon]

Good point.  Another one is HoP.  Venturing into Contraband could also be bad news...

[werothegreat]

Good point.  Another one is HoP.  Venturing into Contraband could also be bad news...

Contraband exists, therefore Venture is worse.

[Grujah]

Or when you draw your whole deck. Then every Venture is just 1$.

[Qvist]

I updated the opening rankings and added "Almost" to "Strictly Superior" in the Venture article.
You can always find scenarios where one card is better than another card. Silver isn't strictly superior to Copper with a hand like KC, Coppersmith, 3x Silver. And you can find scenarios where Stash or Royal Seal is worse than Silver (Forge, Estate, 3x Royal Seal). But I agree with your argument that those two cards at least guarantee $2 when you play them, Venture doesn't.

[Jedit]

Contraband exists, therefore Venture is worse.

To be precise: Contraband exists, therefore Venture is worse if you are daft enough to buy Contraband.

[werothegreat]

Contraband exists, therefore Venture is worse.

To be precise: Contraband exists, therefore Venture is worse if you are daft enough to buy Contraband.

But to me, this is a more compelling argument than Cellar being worse because Warehouse exists.  Warehouse may be a better card, but it doesn't interact in ways that make Cellar bad.  Contraband directly makes Venture worse, and vice versa.  Just like Platinum directly makes Adventurer better.

[GendoIkari]

Or when you draw your whole deck. Then every Venture is just 1$.

Actually, when you hit a Venture chain, each Venture except the last is only worth $1 as well.

[AdamH]

   --- Arsenic03's turn 20 ---
   Arsenic03 plays an Alchemist.
   ... drawing 2 cards and getting +1 action.
   Arsenic03 plays a Moneylender.
   ... trashing a Copper for +$3.
   Arsenic03 plays a Gold.
   Arsenic03 plays a Venture.
   ... revealing and playing a Potion.
   Arsenic03 buys a Duchy.
   Arsenic03 returns an Alchemist to the top of the deck.
   (Arsenic03 draws: 2 Alchemists, an Estate, a Province, and a Jester.)

This isn't a complete loss, since at least he got to top-deck his alchemist when otherwise he wouldn't have 

[dondon151]

Actually, when you hit a Venture chain, each Venture except the last is only worth $1 as well.

Yes, but you only started off with a limited number of Ventures in hand; thus it is only the cumulative value of the Ventures in hand that we care about (because you wouldn't have played those Ventures in your deck unless you had the ones in you hand).

I'm not entire certain on what the consensus should be on Venture, but I've gotten the impression that Venture spam is a powerful BM strategy, especially when good kingdom Treasures or Platinum are involved. It doesn't synergize at all with engines like Market, Highway, etc. do, but it's far, far more powerful as a standalone card.

I mean, if we were to hold $5 cards to a metric of "how often would you buy this over Gold," I'd get Venture over Gold almost every time if I'm not building a drawing engine.

[DrFlux]

Actually, when you hit a Venture chain, each Venture except the last is only worth $1 as well.

Yes, but you only started off with a limited number of Ventures in hand; thus it is only the cumulative value of the Ventures in hand that we care about (because you wouldn't have played those Ventures in your deck unless you had the ones in you hand).

I'm not entire certain on what the consensus should be on Venture, but I've gotten the impression that Venture spam is a powerful BM strategy, especially when good kingdom Treasures or Platinum are involved. It doesn't synergize at all with engines like Market, Highway, etc. do, but it's far, far more powerful as a standalone card.

I mean, if we were to hold $5 cards to a metric of "how often would you buy this over Gold," I'd get Venture over Gold almost every time if I'm not building a drawing engine.

Really? Venture over gold almost every time in money games? Without copper trashing I would probably NEVER buy it over gold, because well, the times you chain them won't be worth when you draw them as a silver. Even WITH copper trashing I'd try to buy a gold or two before switching to ventures. It just will build your economy faster. MAYBE in colony games I might try to skip gold entirely, but even that's only worth it if there's strong trashing (and no engine).

[ftl]

In a money strategy, you'd probably want to buy a venture over gold when, on average, it would give you more coins than gold.

It gives you 1+ [the average value of the rest of your treasures]. Roughly, I think this would be greater than 3 when (number silvers + 2*number of golds) > (number of coppers). So if you've trashed no coppers, it'll be after you have 3 or 4 silvers and 2 golds.

[cherdano]

It gives you 1+ [the average value of the rest of your treasures]. Roughly, I think this would be greater than 3 when (number silvers + 2*number of golds) > (number of coppers). So if you've trashed no coppers, it'll be after you have 3 or 4 silvers and 2 golds.

That's not right - you need number of golds > number of coppers. (Easy check: when you find a silver, you break even, so you can ignore them.)
So without copper trashing and without platinums, venture will basically never beat gold.

[ftl]

Yeah, ignore my post I was wrong

[eHalcyon]

It gives you 1+ [the average value of the rest of your treasures]. Roughly, I think this would be greater than 3 when (number silvers + 2*number of golds) > (number of coppers). So if you've trashed no coppers, it'll be after you have 3 or 4 silvers and 2 golds.

That's not right - you need number of golds > number of coppers. (Easy check: when you find a silver, you break even, so you can ignore them.)
So without copper trashing and without platinums, venture will basically never beat gold.

But this doesn't factor in the possibility of Venture hitting Venture.

[DG]

The venture vs gold argument is more complicated and should probably be taken to another thread if needed. Firstly there needs to be the farming village consideration. If you buy a farming village it gives you no +coins but it improves the average income of the deck. The venture provides a similar improvement. There are also other considerations about deck cycling, discarding actions when played, and forcing reshuffles with lots of treasures on the table.

[blueblimp]

It gives you 1+ [the average value of the rest of your treasures]. Roughly, I think this would be greater than 3 when (number silvers + 2*number of golds) > (number of coppers). So if you've trashed no coppers, it'll be after you have 3 or 4 silvers and 2 golds.

That's not right - you need number of golds > number of coppers. (Easy check: when you find a silver, you break even, so you can ignore them.)
So without copper trashing and without platinums, venture will basically never beat gold.

But this doesn't factor in the possibility of Venture hitting Venture.

If we factor this in, letting b be the number of basic treasures you have, g the number of golds you have, v the number of ventures you have (apart from the one you're playing), and c the number of coppers you have, the condition is g + vb/(b+1) > c.

(This is only looking at the value of Venture, not other benefits. Also, to be correct for a given play, g,v,b,c should be determined by only your draw deck, not your entire deck--I ignored that for simplicity.)

To derive, start with the condition

Code: [Select]

(3g + 2s + c)/b + v/(b+1) > 2

[Jfrisch]

@DG, unless you play venture directly after a top-decking attack (e.g. sea hag/rabble/etc) or it causes a reshuffle venture does not help your deck any more than harvest does. (excluding the coin benefit)

[DG]

@DG, unless you play venture directly after a top-decking attack (e.g. sea hag/rabble/etc) or it causes a reshuffle venture does not help your deck any more than harvest does. (excluding the coin benefit)

This is not exactly true. If it was true then a farming village would never improve a deck, and it patently does. The average value of the remaining cards in the deck after playing a venture is unchanged (for a deck with a treasure in it, etc). However the extra value is already counted in the venture, the subsequent played treasure, and the discarded cards in between. If you're not convinced, compare a venture to a cartographer and to a market.

[WanderingWinder]

@DG, unless you play venture directly after a top-decking attack (e.g. sea hag/rabble/etc) or it causes a reshuffle venture does not help your deck any more than harvest does. (excluding the coin benefit)

This is not exactly true. If it was true then a farming village would never improve a deck, and it patently does. The average value of the remaining cards in the deck after playing a venture is unchanged (for a deck with a treasure in it, etc). However the extra value is already counted in the venture, the subsequent played treasure, and the discarded cards in between. If you're not convinced, compare a venture to a cartographer and to a market.

Actually, we've gone over this in huge detail, and venture doesn't help you more than just giving you the cash, on average, if you if ore that it ups your cycling rate.
Farming village has value because it's a village. The filtering gives it extra value compared to village because you are drawing with village anyway.
Of course, if you know what is on your deck (say a rabble, sea hag, courtyard, etc.), then you can get e trad value.

[AJD]

Hmm, does this make sense?

A Venture that draws a Copper benefits you slightly more than a Silver (ignoring Grand Market issues), since it gives you a total of $2 and skips a Copper that you would have drawn in a later hand. A Venture that draws a Gold benefits you less than would a notional treasure worth $4, since although you get $4 you skip a Gold from a later hand. (The Venture in this hand drawing a Gold is still better than a Gold in this hand, though, assuming you needed the money.)

[WanderingWinder]

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1914
Please read.

[dondon151]

That's not right - you need number of golds > number of coppers. (Easy check: when you find a silver, you break even, so you can ignore them.)
So without copper trashing and without platinums, venture will basically never beat gold.

This is a rather disingenuous attempt to characterize the merits of Venture. You are forgetting 2 things:
1. Venture can hit Venture
2. Much of the value inherent in Venture is not just about the $ it provides per play; it also gets your non-Venture Treasures in play a lot more often. Think about them as "disappearing Treasure" that add $1 every time they come up.

So maybe getting 1 Gold is a good idea, because now your Ventures have something good to hit, but you don't need as many Golds as you do Coppers for Venture to be better than Gold - far from it.

[carstimon]

Looking at that thread, I think in the end DG was in the right.  I think now there's a different confusion:

If you buy a farming village it gives you no +coins but it improves the average income of the deck. The venture provides a similar improvement.

Yes, the farming village does improve the average income of the deck.  In big money, a farming village in hand is a random copper, silver or gold.  But that's the ONLY benefit.  Therefore, it's usually better to buy a silver since the expected value of the randomly drawn treasure is not large.

If you're asking "should I buy a venture or a gold" the fact that venture is guaranteed to not be a victory card is a complete non issue: so is gold!

[gman314]

A relevant article: http://dominionstrategy.com/2010/12/04/guest-article-the-fallacy-of-cycling/

[HiveMindEmulator]

Much of the value inherent in Venture is not just about the $ it provides per play; it also gets your non-Venture Treasures in play a lot more often. Think about them as "disappearing Treasure" that add $1 every time they come up.

This is the key idea with Venture, imo. It makes you draw/play treasure more often than other cards (since non-treasure can be skipped, and thus show up less than once per shuffle). So if your average treasure is better than your average card, it's going to be better than a Peddler. If not, it will be worse (excluding the fact that it can't be drawn dead). Now considering this, Venture gives you the ability to green earlier, since you will draw the Victory cards into your hand less often than you would without Venture.