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[kn1tt3r]

Suppose Villain has played Princess before TR-Saboteur, your deck could be filled with endless amounts of $4 cards, like TRs, Coppersmiths + tons of copper (gained into hand by Apothecaries), Monuments, and also Potions.

EDIT: or crazy Scrying Pool / Village / Secret Chamber chains

[Blooki]

Suppose Villain has played Princess before TR-Saboteur, your deck could be filled with endless amounts of $4 cards, like TRs, Coppersmiths + tons of copper (gained into hand by Apothecaries), Monuments, and also Potions.

EDIT: or crazy Scrying Pool / Village / Secret Chamber chains

Bingo! Don't forget to construct a valid turn for the Villain though. Seems like he has a lot of terminals.

[kn1tt3r]

Suppose Villain has played Princess before TR-Saboteur, your deck could be filled with endless amounts of $4 cards, like TRs, Coppersmiths + tons of copper (gained into hand by Apothecaries), Monuments, and also Potions.

EDIT: or crazy Scrying Pool / Village / Secret Chamber chains

Bingo! Don't forget to construct a valid turn for the Villain though. Seems like he has a lot of terminals.

Oh nice. Well, then I'm gonna bask in my triumph and let the others do the remaining tiny details. *g*

[Davio]

Well, if Bridge isn't allowed, neither is Princess, I think.

I think the stretch of this problem is to focus on the cheap cards and try to come up with something for that.

With Scrying Pool, we could draw a whole bunch of $2's like NV's, Lighthouses, Pawns etc...

[Elyv]

Suppose Villain has played Princess before TR-Saboteur, your deck could be filled with endless amounts of $4 cards, like TRs, Coppersmiths + tons of copper (gained into hand by Apothecaries), Monuments, and also Potions.

EDIT: or crazy Scrying Pool / Village / Secret Chamber chains

Bingo! Don't forget to construct a valid turn for the Villain though. Seems like he has a lot of terminals.

TR, TR, Princess, Saboteur

Davio: You can't get scrying pool/apothecary in your deck unless he played a princess or the last card in your hand is the potion, since otherwise the potion would be hit by the saboteur

[kn1tt3r]

I don't understand why Villain's turn is that crucial. Could be just as simple as Village>Princess>TR/Sab or something.

The tricky part now is to construct Hero's turn to gain max. points. Maybe a monster-thick deck with something like wild chains of Village/Scrying Pool/Secret Chamber, followed by 8 Apothecaries drawing maximum coppers, 7 Workers Village / Hamlets and 8 Throne Roomed Coppersmiths. Buys could contain provinces, vineyards and whatever. Insanely complex.

EDIT: Or even Remodelling something to Counting House, which you instantly draw with whatever, gaining all your 87 coppers (?) into hand. After multiple Hamlets/Workers Villages etc. you TR your 8 Coppersmiths and get like $1392

[Blooki]

Princess is very much allowed and necessary in my opinion.

kn1tt3r the opponent's turn is crucial because you need to get that Princess played and if you use a Village to do it you've just used up another kingdom card slot. My solution uses every last one.

[Fangz]

So, let's say he plays TR TR Princess Saboteur (remaining card doesn't matter). That least our hero free to have any $4 or less card. I don't see how an attack would help in this situation, though, unless we are talking a familiar.

[Blooki]

So, let's say he plays TR TR Princess Saboteur (remaining card doesn't matter). That least our hero free to have any $4 or less card.

This is true. Mind modifying it as a spoiler for anybody who might want to solve the puzzle from the beginning?

Also, everyone's totally on the right track to my intended solution.

[Thisisnotasmile]

So, let's say he plays TR TR Princess Saboteur (remaining card doesn't matter). That least our hero free to have any $4 or less card. I don't see how an attack would help in this situation, though, unless we are talking a familiar.

The one card in your hand is immune to the Saboteur, and as such is the only card in your deck which DOESN'T have to cost $4 or less ;]

Also Blooki, you might want to spoiler that yourself.

[Fangz]

Okay, let's say the hero (looking more and more like a villain...) has gathered the ridiculous gardens deck - (50+ coppers - well, after this turn he'll have 50+ of them), 40+ silvers, 16 or so potions, and 10 or 9 of every other kingdom card than TR (which he has 8 of) and saboteur and King's Court and fairgrounds. So his gardens are worth about 20 each - so about 160 there. Then plus vineyards brings him up to 304, plus whatever number of estates he has. Now let's see how much more he can get...

It goes without saying that he has an enormous number of philosopher's stones with him, worth over $10 each. He scrying pools all his actions in one massive hand, drawing some worker's villages and other sources of +buy. Eventually, using the one $6 card - goons (I don't know how many +buy you can get from <$4 cards), and secret chambering down to just his philosopher's stones, he purchases a bunch of colonies, provinces, duchies, and fairgrounds and maybe coppers, trashes 10 quarries and 10 talismens with TR'ed bishops. (+30 vp) Obviously he wins because his opponent has ragequit already.

I'd have a chain of cards he could play but this margin isn't sufficient to contain it :p

[Thisisnotasmile]

He can't "eventually" use his $6 card. The card that costs more than $4 is the only (usable) card he has in his hand at the beginning of the turn, thus it must be the first card he plays. Minion will allow him to draw 4 usable (but less than or equal to $4 (give or take a potion)) cards. You have to get as many VPs as possible from that point.

[Blooki]

Okay, let's say the hero (looking more and more like a villain...) has gathered the ridiculous gardens deck - (50+ coppers - well, after this turn he'll have 50+ of them), 40+ silvers, 16 or so potions, and 10 or 9 of every other kingdom card than TR (which he has 8 of) and saboteur and King's Court and fairgrounds. So his gardens are worth about 20 each - so about 160 there. Then plus vineyards brings him up to 304, plus whatever number of estates he has. Now let's see how much more he can get...

It goes without saying that he has an enormous number of philosopher's stones with him, worth over $10 each. He scrying pools all his actions in one massive hand, drawing some worker's villages and other sources of +buy. Eventually, using the one $6 card - goons (I don't know how many +buy you can get from <$4 cards), and secret chambering down to just his philosopher's stones, he purchases a bunch of colonies, provinces, duchies, and fairgrounds and maybe coppers, trashes 10 quarries and 10 talismens with TR'ed bishops. (+30 vp) Obviously he wins because his opponent has ragequit already.

I'd have a chain of cards he could play but this margin isn't sufficient to contain it :p

Your kingdom consists of at least: Gardens - Throne Room - Saboteur - King's Court (though I don't know why this is here, maybe you're working off of an earlier version of the puzzle) - Fairgrounds - Vineyards - Philosopher's Stones - Scrying Pool - Worker's Village - "some other sources of +buy" - sources is pluralized - Goons (see Thisisnotasmile's comment) - Secret Chamber - Quarry - Talisman (how did these get in your hand BTW? Worker's Villages?) - Bishop - Tournament (or did you forget how you are able to have all of these $2+ cards?)

17 Kingdom cards and counting. Do you see a problem?

[timchen]

How about this?

Our villain is so nice that he actually played a black market, putting 2 quarries down. He played a princess after that. Our hero has tons of KC and Goons but for some reason failed to even gain one VP token before this turn. (It is possible, as you can scrying pool all the goons and play other cards.)

[Fangz]

Your kingdom consists of at least: Gardens - Throne Room - Saboteur - King's Court (though I don't know why this is here, maybe you're working off of an earlier version of the puzzle) - Fairgrounds - Vineyards - Philosopher's Stones - Scrying Pool - Worker's Village - "some other sources of +buy" - sources is pluralized - Goons (see Thisisnotasmile's comment) - Secret Chamber - Quarry - Talisman (how did these get in your hand BTW? Worker's Villages?) - Bishop - Tournament (or did you forget how you are able to have all of these $2+ cards?)

17 Kingdom cards and counting. Do you see a problem?

Okay, let's pare down to what's needed: Tournament, scrying pool, gardens, throne room, worker's village, vineyards, saboteur, secret chamber, fairgrounds, minion. Main source of money will be drawing lots of cards with scrying pool, secret chamber to discard them all for money, then using the get 4 silvers and discard deck ability of trusty steed, and drawing them all over again.

[Blooki]

How about this?

Our villain is so nice that he actually played a black market, putting 2 quarries down. He played a princess after that. Our hero has tons of KC and Goons but for some reason failed to even gain one VP token before this turn. (It is possible, as you can scrying pool all the goons and play other cards.)

Original post says no Black Markets. But if there were, your solution would beat the pants off of mine.

[Blooki]

Your kingdom consists of at least: Gardens - Throne Room - Saboteur - King's Court (though I don't know why this is here, maybe you're working off of an earlier version of the puzzle) - Fairgrounds - Vineyards - Philosopher's Stones - Scrying Pool - Worker's Village - "some other sources of +buy" - sources is pluralized - Goons (see Thisisnotasmile's comment) - Secret Chamber - Quarry - Talisman (how did these get in your hand BTW? Worker's Villages?) - Bishop - Tournament (or did you forget how you are able to have all of these $2+ cards?)

17 Kingdom cards and counting. Do you see a problem?

Okay, let's pare down to what's needed: Tournament, scrying pool, gardens, throne room, worker's village, vineyards, saboteur, secret chamber, fairgrounds, minion. Main source of money will be drawing lots of cards with scrying pool, secret chamber to discard them all for money, then using the get 4 silvers and discard deck ability of trusty steed, and drawing them all over again.

I'd say you've essentially solved it. May I suggest some minor tweaks.

I'm not sure why you would want Minion in the kingdom though. My solution shares some elements with yours, but is different enough. I have more coin, but I run out of buys. In your solution, you can only discard and redraw once with Trusty Steed so as written I think you'll be short on coin. You probably should swap out Minion for Chancellor. After doing that, depending on your final coin and buy count our final VP tallies should rival each other.

[kn1tt3r]

Well, i thought Minion was the one card in Hero's hand at the start of his turn...

[ghostofmars]

I've achieved 526vp. I hope I've not missed anything.
The deck of the villain contains at least:
1 Province + 1 Saboteur + 1 Tournament + 1 Gold + 7 Copper + 3 Estate + 2 Throne Rooms + 1 Princess

In the kingdom the following cards are present (in brackets the number the available/ the number the hero has before the last turn)
Colony (8/0)
Province (6/0)
Duchy (8/0)
Estate (1/10)
Copper (1/52)
Silver (1/39)
Gold (29/0)
Potion (1/15)
Tournament (1/8)
Scrying Pool (1/9)
Throne Room (0/8)
Worker Village (0/10)
Coppersmith (1/9)
Apothecary (1/9)
Saboteur (1/8)
Garden (1/7)
Vineyard (1/7)
Young Witch (1/9)
+ bane card: Great Hall (1/7)
+ prizes (0/4)

After the villain successfully trashed the province, the hero has the following cards in his hand:
4x Estate + 1x Scrying Pool

He plays Scrying Pool and draws all of his Action cards in his hand.
Playing 8x Throne Room, he doubles the effect of 8 of his Worker Villages, the other two worker villages are played without a Throne Room
=> total 19 buys and a lot of actions (34) and several cards (18)
He proceeds with the 9x coppersmiths making all copper worth 10. Playing the Apothecaries he draws enough coppers and potions to buy everything he want:
8x colony, 6x province, 1x garden, 1x vineyard, 3x duchy
In total he has 230 cards making each garden worth 23, 77 action cards so that each vineyard is worth 25 points.

Garden      8 x 23 = 184
Vineyard    8 x 25 = 200
Colony      8 x 10 =  80
Province    6 x  6 =  36
Duchy       3 x  3 =   9
Estate     10 x  1 =  10
Great Hall  7 x  1 =   7
------------------------
                     526

[Agrisios]

Princess is very much allowed and necessary in my opinion.

kn1tt3r the opponent's turn is crucial because you need to get that Princess played and if you use a Village to do it you've just used up another kingdom card slot. My solution uses every last one.

I haven't followed the hole thread in detail, sorry. So this comment might be improper. But the quote above makes me wonder if anybody has mentioned good old Trusty Steed yet.

[Deadlock39]

ghost of mars,

You should buy one less Duchy, and buy the last Great Hall instead.  This nets -2 points on the cards themselves, but pushes your Vineyards up to 26 points (78 action cards) which gains you 8 points there, putting the total up to 532.

[Blooki]

.
Garden      8 x 23 = 184
Vineyard    8 x 25 = 200
Colony      8 x 10 =  80
Province    6 x  6 =  36
Duchy       3 x  3 =   9
Estate     10 x  1 =  10
Great Hall  7 x  1 =   7
------------------------
                     526
[/spoiler]

Well done! I was fixated on using Counting House and therefore needed mid-turn gaining as well as a mid-turn TRed-Trusty Steed to cycle, draw the Counting House and cycle the Coppers to the discard pile again ending up with a very cumbersome solution. Apothecaries was a great call whoever came up with it. I bet this solution could be improved. The Great Hall vs Duchy has already been mentioned. I think you're also missing 7 Coppers as well. Bag of Gold can grab the last Gold and Trusty Steed the last Silver. That should bump your Gardens.

[Deadlock39]

He is missing the Villain's 7 Coppers, so he can't have those.  I just noticed that he missed the Prize actions, so I think Bag of Gold, Trusty Steed, and Followers pushes the Vineyards up to 27 (with the previous modification I suggested).  He can get a Gold and the last Silver, and can gain the last Estate with Followers, but I don't think there is anywhere to get 7 more cards for Gardens.  With 8 more points from the Prize/Actions the count would now be at 540.

Edit: I just realized, gaining the last Estate with Followers gets you to 541.

I am curious if you can get more with Black Market.  You banned it in the puzzle rules, but it doesn't change the puzzle that much.  You can only have all the <= $4 actions out of it, so I don't think it really changes the strategy much (you would get a higher Vineyards total, and squeeze a few more buys from a hamlet, pawn, and maybe something I am not thinking of.) If you could find a way to squeeze Fairgrounds into the Kingdom, it could increase the points by a lot.

[ghostofmars]

I am curious if you can get more with Black Market.  You banned it in the puzzle rules, but it doesn't change the puzzle that much.

You wouldn't use Black Market for the hero, but for the villain. If he played it before the saboteur he could add several Quarries and hence not trash any of your action cards. Then you can go for Goons and King's Court

I think it is possible to further optimize my solution.
At the moment I'm not really limited by coins, but by the number of buys, so I don't need the Apothecary. In addition, it might be better to replace one of the Throne Rooms of the villain with one of the hero's Worker Villages.
9xTR + 9x WV => +18 buys, +18 cards, +35 actions
8xScrying Pools => +8 cards
9xCoppersmith => -9 actions
8xTournament => +8 cards, +8$
7xGreat Hall => +7 cards
Followers => +2 cards, -1 action, +1 estate
Trusty Steed => +2 cards, +4x silver, -1 action
Bag of Gold => +1 gold
Diadem => 2$ + 25 unused actions = 27$
If I have not miscounted, I could still have 45 copper and 1 potion in the hand, adding up to sufficient money to buy everything I have buys for. The spot of the Apothecary would go to the Island.

19 buys = 8 colony, 6 province, 1 island, 1 great hall, 1 garden, 1 vineyard, 1 action card

Total cards: 230
Total actions: 81
Garden      8 x 23 = 184
Vineyard    8 x 27 = 216
Colony      8 x 10 =  80
Province    6 x  6 =  36
Island      8 x  2 =  16
Estate     11 x  1 =  11
Great Hall  8 x  1 =   8
------------------------
                     551

PS: I just realized, I could do even better. If I replace the Great Hall with Pawn (+1 card/+1 buy) to get more buys. I think I could buy all Duchies then. I haven't calculated it precisely, but I think the points would increase by 18, 21, or 24, depending on how much action cards have to be bought to satisfy the vineyards.

[Deadlock39]

I suppose you could explicitly state that the Villain did not have any Black Markets, but it probably just complicates things more than necessary.  I was just a little bit sad to see Fairgrounds not making it into the problem.

I don't think you increased the Vineyards score for the Islands you obtained.  The 8 + the action you bought gets them to 30 I think.