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[def]

Hi puzzle lovers,

here is one which I thought of today. Let's say it rather is a challenge since I don't know the solution (but have some basic ideas) and it could be hard to find the optimum. Feel free to post your attempts even if you think they are far from perfect.

- Solitaire: Starting with 7 coppers and 3 estates, what is the fastest way to set aside your whole deck apart from a native village and another card on the native village mat? What cards can be this second card?
No trashing allowed, and no pseudo-trashing (ambassador, masquerade, island, whatever you can think of). The only way to get rid of cards should be by native villages.

- Is it possible to get rid of all cards but one native village? I doubt it, but surprise me.

- Multiplayer: Now it is possible to get rid of all cards but one native village. Find the fastest way. Find different cards that enable it.

[Davio]

I will give some hints, I was trying to work it out, but got stuck.

Might be easier to just grab a deck and try it instead of in my head.


- Courtyard can be a handy card to put back some cards.
- Secret Chamber can also be used for discarding.

[Thisisnotasmile]

I'm thinking a Hamlet/NV strategy would be pretty good.

(Courtyard and/or Secret Chamber won't work because your final turn has to be "Play non-terminal discard action. Discard 1 card. Play NV and set a card aside." Courtyard and SC are both terminal.)

In fact, I'm pretty sure Hamlet has to be your spare card. Cellar and Warehouse also fit the Non-terminal discard action requirement but Cellar draws after you've discarded and Warehouse forces you to discard 3 when you only want to discard 1 on your final turn.

[RobF]

For multiplayer, Torturer seems ideal.  Montebank could also work, more slowly, ifyou were willing to have 4 curses set aside.

[RobF]

Just to clarify the one player puzzle, am I right that you're imagining we can have as many NVs as we want and one copy of another action card?  And then we're supposed to set aside all but 1-2 cards onto the NV matt?  I can think of solutions that are faster that use more than one copy of the extra action card or multiple other action cards (setting them aside eventually) for example, but I wasn't sure if this is what you had in mind.

[Davio]

I think you can use as many cards as you need from the supply, just make sure to end up with just NV and one other card.

[def]

I think you can use as many cards as you need from the supply, just make sure to end up with just NV and one other card.

Right, end up with one native village and one other card, but use as many NVs as available and needed.

For Torturer, how will you get from 2 cards in your deck to 1?
Mountebank is a nice idea, what other cards make it possible to get from 2 to 1 card?

[A_S00]

Best I'm doing is 11 turns.  Two solutions:

1 - 5c - buy market
2 - 3e2c - buy pawn
(reshuffle)
3 - 3c, market, pawn - market (draw copper), pawn ($, draw copper),  buy KC
4 - 3e2c - buy NV
(reshuffle)
5 - 3c, market, pawn - market (draw copper), pawn ($, draw copper),  buy KC
6 - KC, NV, 2e2c - NV (estate), buy NV
(reshuffle)
7 - KC, KC, NV, NV, market - KC > KC > NV (estate, estate, copper), NV (copper, copper, copper), market (draw copper, copper, copper), buy hamlet
(draw pawn, reshuffle)
8 - pawn, KC, KC, NV, hamlet - KC > KC > NV (copper, copper, copper), hamlet (draw NV, discard pawn, draw market, discard market, (reshuffle), draw pawn, discard pawn), NV (pawn, market, N/A)
(reshuffle)
9 - KC, KC, NV, NV, hamlet - hamlet (discard KC), NV (KC)
(reshuffle)
10 - KC, NV, NV, hamlet - hamlet (discard KC), NV (KC)
(reshuffle)
11 - NV, NV, hamlet - hamlet (discard NV), NV (NV) ----- Deck = NV, hamlet

1 - (3c2e) - buy woodcutter
2 - (4c1e) - buy TR
(reshuffle)
3 - (3c, TR, woodcutter) - TR > woodcutter, buy KC
4 - (2c3e) - buy NV
(draw 2c, reshuffle)
5 - (2c2e, woodcutter) - woodcutter, buy hamlet, buy NV
6 - (3c, KC, NV) - KC > NV (estate, copper, copper)
(draw TR, reshuffle)
7 - (TR, KC, NV, NV, hamlet) - TR > KC > NV (estate, estate, copper), NV (copper, copper, copper) hamlet (draw woodcutter)
(draw copper, reshuffle)
8 - (1c, NV, NV, hamlet, woodcutter) - hamlet (draw KC, discard copper), KC > NV (copper, TR, N/A)
(reshuffle)
9 - (NV, NV, hamlet, woodcutter, KC) - hamlet (discard woodcutter), NV (woodcutter)
(reshuffle)
10 - hamlet (discard KC), NV (KC)
(reshuffle)
11 - hamlet (discard NV), NV (NV) ----- Deck = NV, hamlet

Both beat opening hamlet/NV and just using those cards, which I think is 14 turns with perfect shuffle luck:

1 - (5c) - buy NV
2 - (2c3e) - buy hamlet
(reshuffle)
3 - (NV, hamlet, 1c2e) - hamlet (draw copper), NV (estate)
4 - (5c) - (do nothing)
(reshuffle)
5 - (NV, hamlet, 2c1e) - hamlet (draw copper), NV (estate)
(draw 4c1e)
6 - (4c1e) - (do nothing)
(reshuffle)
7 - (NV, hamlet, 3c) - hamlet (draw copper), NV (estate)
(draw 4c, reshuffle)
8 - (NV, 4c) - NV (copper)
(draw 3c, reshuffle)
9 - (NV, hamlet, 3c) - hamlet (draw copper), NV (copper)
(draw 1c, reshuffle)
10 - (NV, hamlet, 3c) - hamlet (draw copper), NV (copper)
(reshuffle)
11 - (NV, hamlet, 3c) - hamlet (draw copper, discard copper), NV (copper)
(reshuffle)
12 - (NV, hamlet, 2c) - hamlet (discard copper), NV (copper)
(reshuffle)
13 - (NV, hamlet, 1c) - hamlet (discard copper), NV (copper)
(reshuffle)
14 - (NV, hamlet, 1c) - hamlet (discard copper), NV (copper) ----- Deck = NV, hamlet

Who's got a better one?

[Fangz]

I think you can use as many cards as you need from the supply, just make sure to end up with just NV and one other card.

Right, end up with one native village and one other card, but use as many NVs as available and needed.

For Torturer, how will you get from 2 cards in your deck to 1?
Mountebank is a nice idea, what other cards make it possible to get from 2 to 1 card?

Vault should also do it.

[Razzishi]

I think you can use as many cards as you need from the supply, just make sure to end up with just NV and one other card.

Right, end up with one native village and one other card, but use as many NVs as available and needed.

For Torturer, how will you get from 2 cards in your deck to 1?
Mountebank is a nice idea, what other cards make it possible to get from 2 to 1 card?

Using opponents' Bishops, you can trash your entire deck easily just keeping a NV.

Of course, that requires trashing, which was made against the rules in the first part and it's not clear whether they apply to every part.  If you're allowed to trash, then it's simple to trim your deck down to one Native Village just by buying enough Embargoes, filling your hand with them while emptying your deck, and then playing the Embargoes over a couple turns when you've got nothing else left to draw.  I'm not calculating the turns it might take to do that, since it's probably against the rules.

[def]

I'd like to avoid trashing in a multiplayer version, too. I thought about other cards there. Otherwise you could simply have 5 players open with bishop and it should be over pretty fast.