Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[rinkworks]

I made up what I hope is an interesting type of puzzle that, besides being fun to solve, will be interesting for others to make up questions for.

The idea is that I provide two or more official Dominion action cards like this:

• Village + Peddler = ?

And you have to come up with a single Dominion action card that is fundamentally equivalent in terms of its effect when you play it.  For example, the answer to the question above would be Bazaar, because playing Village, then Peddler, leaves you with five cards still in your hand, two actions left to play, and a coin -- exactly what playing Bazaar does.

General Rules:

• We're only interested in the primary effects of the cards.  It doesn't matter that Village + Peddler cycles your deck a little more than a single Bazaar, or that Village + Peddler activates Conspirator better and lowers the cost of Peddler more.  Sometimes what constitutes a "primary effect" is a judgment call, but just try to match card effects as close as you can.
• Your answer need not be equivalent in all cases, only in a single case of your choosing.  For example, if the question is "Great Hall + Steward = ?" then "Moat," "Chancellor," and "Chapel" are ALL correct answers, because it's your prerogative to decide how the Steward was played in the question.  Likewise, with the "Chancellor" answer, it's your prerogative to assert that the "discard deck" option was not taken, and, with the "Chapel" answer, that two cards were trashed to it.  Where appropriate, explain what behavior/situation you want to specify for any of the cards in the question or your answer.
• Only action cards are allowed (both in the questions and the answers).
• All turns start with five cards in hand.
• An unlimited number of cards are available to draw.  (Otherwise drawing cards could be too easily manipulated to change the number of cards you wind up with in your hand.)
• The cards mentioned in the question are the ONLY cards played thus far on a turn.  Likewise, your answer should be the ONLY card played.  So if your answer to a question is "Conspirator," it can't be an activated Conspirator.
• Effects to other players don't matter.  A Witch, therefore, can be considered equivalent to a Moat.  If you do find a solution that matches attack effects as well, though, give yourself bonus points.
• Assume no duration cards played the previous turn.  Also, next-turn effects of Duration cards don't matter.  For example, "Merchant Ship" is a valid answer to the question "Great Hall + Conspirator = ?"  Again, though, if you do find a solution that matches the next-turn effects as well, give yourself bonus points.

Hopefully that's all I need for rules to this.  So without further ado, some actual questions, roughly ordered by difficulty.  Apologizes in advance if I made any miscalculations.

1. Village + Bazaar + Herbalist = ?

2. Village + Market + Laboratory = ?

3. Native Village + Peddler = ?

4. Laboratory + Village + Chapel + Explorer = ?

5. Trusty Steed + Workshop = ?

6. Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory = ?

7. Village + Spy + Moat + Tournament = ?

8. Laboratory + Village + Village + Steward + Pawn = ?

9. Native Village + Native Village + Native Village + Mine + Mine + Mine + Mine = ?

10. Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory + Village + Village + Village + Village + Bureaucrat + Bureaucrat + Explorer + Explorer + Cellar + Cellar + Chancellor = ?

The Answers, posted as people solve them:

1. Festival.
2. City (fully activated).
3. Fishing Village (with the next-turn effect ignored, as per the rules).
4. Trading Post, with the Chapel having trashed two cards.  Alternate solutions:  Explorer, if the Chapel is used to trash zero cards.  Mine, if the Chapel is used to trash a Copper.
5. Ironworks, gaining a Great Hall or Island.  The Trusty Steed is used for +2 Cards, +2 Actions.
6. Scout, turning up four Victory cards.  Alternate solutions:  Scrying Pool, where the next three cards in the deck are action cards.  Apothecary, where three of the four cards turned up are Coppers and/or Potions.
7. Pearl Diver, with a deck of two cards; alternately, Wishing Well with an incorrect guess.  Both of these answers provide you with knowledge of the top card of your deck, just as if you'd played Spy and kept the revealed card.  Unfortunately, there is a more boring solution:  Spy.
8. Grand Market, if you use the Steward for +$2 and the Pawn for +1 Card, +1 Buy.
9. Tactician.  Your hand is NV, NV, NV, Mine, Mine.  Play two NVs to put two more Mines on the mat, then the third to pull them off.  Play all Mines with no treasures in hand.  In the end, you have no cards and no actions.
10. Trusty Steed, taking the +2 Coins and 4 Silvers option.  The Bureaucrats and Explorers gain the Silvers.  The two Cellars flush those Silvers out of your hand and into the discard pile.  The Chancellor discards your deck and earns you the +2 Coins.  The Laboratories and Villages merely set things up so you can play all those actions and be left with the same number of cards and actions that Trusty Steed would leave you with.


Edit: Corrected question #1 (added a Village).
Edit: Corrected question #2 (swapped Bazaar for Village).
Edit: Corrected question #7 (removed a Village).
Edit: Added an "unlimited draw pile" rule, at guided's suggestion.

[guided]

Here's a couple:

1. +$2, +1 buy. Woodcutter.
10. Flip your draw pile and gain 4 Silvers. Trusty Steed can do this.

[rinkworks]

1. +$2, +1 buy. Woodcutter.

I screwed this one up, although this answer is equally incorrect as mine because Bazaar + Herbalist leaves you with one action, whereas playing a Woodcutter leaves you with zero.  In my intended solution, you were supposed to have two actions left.  I edited my original question to fix that.

[guided]

OK, I can add spoiler tags.

If you mean for the action counts to be correct, based on spending some time thinking about these I suspect you have made numerous errors.

[rinkworks]

If you mean for the action counts to be correct, based on spending some time thinking about these I suspect you have made numerous errors.

It's definitely possible, but I just went through them again, and I don't see any more problems.  Some of them are tricky, though, and depend on unusual circumstances.

[guided]

It's definitely possible, but I just went through them again, and I don't see any more problems.  Some of them are tricky, though, and depend on unusual circumstances.

If I draw a Treasure card, are you counting that treasure card's effects? Like if I draw a Copper do you count that as +$1? The wording of your puzzle would suggest not, but I'm not seeing any other way to do some of these.

[rinkworks]

It's definitely possible, but I just went through them again, and I don't see any more problems.  Some of them are tricky, though, and depend on unusual circumstances.

If I draw a Treasure card, are you counting that treasure card's effects? Like if I draw a Copper do you count that as +$1? The wording of your puzzle would suggest not, but I'm not seeing any other way to do some of these.

No, earned coins all have to come from played action cards.  For example, in the correct answer to #10 you gave, the +$2 option on Trusty Steed had to have been chosen, because Chancellor also gives +$2 -- but no treasure cards that may or may not be in your hand at various times come into play in that way.

[guided]

When you say unusual circumstances, well, OK, I'm going to take full advantage

1. +2 actions, +$2, +1 buy. Festival.

2. +2 actions, +$2, +1 buy, +2 cards. I have a strong suspicion you've made one or more errors here.

3. +2 actions, +$1. Bazaar with an empty deck, equivalent to NV/Peddler, choosing to pick up the empty NV mat.

4. Silver gained in hand, final 5-card hand (minus anything trashed on chapel), no actions remaining. Assuming you trashed nothing on Chapel, this is equivalent to Explorer. Assuming you used Chapel to trash a single Copper, it's equivalent to Mine (trashing a Copper for a Silver).

5. Trusty Steed for +2 cards +2 actions, Workshop to gain a Great Hall or Island. Final 5-card hand with 1 action remaining. Equivalent to Ironworks gaining a Great Hall or Island.

[WanderingWinder]

2. +2 actions, +$2, +1 buy, +2 cards. I have a strong suspicion you've made one or more errors here.

You've made an error; it isn't +2 actions or +2 cards (net), but rather one of each. Thus it's a Grand Market

[guided]

2. +2 actions, +$2, +1 buy, +2 cards. I have a strong suspicion you've made one or more errors here.

You've made an error; it isn't +2 actions or +2 cards (net), but rather one of each. Thus it's a Grand Market

Grand Market doesn't net any actions or cards I'm not using "net" notation there, since I'm trying to match it up with card effects, which are not written on the cards in "net" notation.

edit: Adding spoiler tag since I've suspected from the beginning that's supposed to be the answer to that problem, even if it's broken at the moment.

[WanderingWinder]

Oh right, duh.

[guided]

My other suspicion for that one is that maybe it's supposed to be a powered-up City, but it gains one too many cards and one too many coins.

[rinkworks]

1. +2 actions, +$2, +1 buy. Festival

Correct!

2. +2 actions, +$2, +1 buy, +2 cards. I have a strong suspicion you've made one or more errors here.

Dang it.  Yes.  I'm so sorry.  Swap the Bazaar out for a Village, and the question is as I wanted it.  I'll edit.  I guess I'm not inspiring a lot of confidence here.

3. +2 actions, +$1. Bazaar with an empty deck, equivalent to NV/Peddler with an empty deck, draw pile, and NV mat.

Correct, although not the solution I was thinking of.  I had Fishing Village, with the next-turn effect ignored, as per the rules; but your solution is possibly more aesthetically pleasing.

4. Silver gained in hand, final 5-card hand (minus anything trashed on chapel), no actions remaining. Assuming you trashed nothing on Chapel, this is equivalent to Explorer. Assuming you used Chapel to trash a single Copper, it's equivalent to Mine (trashing a Copper for a Silver).

Correct, and again a different solution than I had.  I suspected some of these would have multiple solutions, although I didn't think this would be one of them.  A hint for my solution:  I used Chapel to trash two cards.

5. Trusty Steed for +2 cards +2 actions, Workshop to gain a Great Hall or Island. Final 5-card hand with 1 action remaining. Equivalent to Ironworks gaining a Great Hall or Island.

Exactly the solution I had.  Great job!

[guided]

Here's a simple-looking one that I think is kind of fun:

11. Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory + Smithy


edit: Assume an unlimited number of cards in the deck available to draw for this and any other puzzles I come up with. No empty-deck solutions.

[rinkworks]

My other suspicion for that one is that maybe it's supposed to be a powered-up City, but it gains one too many cards and one too many coins.

Yes.  The "one too many coins" has been corrected, but the number of cards was correct.

[guided]

Dang it.  Yes.  I'm so sorry.  Swap the Bazaar out for a Village, and the question is as I wanted it.  I'll edit.  I guess I'm not inspiring a lot of confidence here.

OK, now that I remember how the card actually works (forgive the wrong post above):

2. Fully-powered City.

Also: Are you sure on #6? If it's supposed to be Menagerie, well, those Labs draw too many cards. I have an answer but it's very much in the trivial-est possible "unusual circumstance" category:

6. Playing these with only 4 cards left to draw is the same as playing a single Lab with an empty deck.

[Superdad]

1. Village + Bazaar + Herbalist = ?
2. Bazaar + Market + Laboratory = ?
3. Native Village + Peddler = ?
4. Laboratory + Village + Chapel + Explorer = ?
5. Trusty Steed + Workshop = ?
6. Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory = ?
7. Village + Village + Spy + Moat + Tournament = ?
8. Laboratory + Village + Village + Steward + Pawn = ?
9. Native Village + Native Village + Native Village + Mine + Mine + Mine + Mine = ?
10. Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory + Village + Village + Village + Village + Bureaucrat + Bureaucrat + Explorer + Explorer + Cellar + Cellar + Chancellor = ?

2. Bazaar + Market + Laboratory = ?

After playing all three you are left with (net):  $2/2 action/1 buy and a 5 card hand. I suspect you wanted this to match Grand Market, but it is 1 action too heavy? This would be grand market if the Bazaar was a peddler instead.

3. Native Village + Peddler = ?

After playing both you are left with 2 actions, $1 and -1 card. So I assume you are looking for fishing village?

6. Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory = ?
This is essentially Minion if you have only minion in your hand. Three labs functions like +4 card, +1 action, which is what minion's cycle with only minion remaining in your hand does.

[rinkworks]

Here's a simple-looking one that I think is kind of fun:

11. Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory + Smithy

Heh -- the first thing I thought of was Donald's early test-version of Tournament, which, rather than awarding Prizes, could let you draw up to 6 cards.  But actually not even that is enough.

My second thought was Apprentice, but your question doesn't trash anything.

So I'm going to have to say Moneylender, with no Copper in hand.  There are no cards to draw.

[guided]

You might add a caveat to these: assume an unlimited number of cards available to draw. Empty-deck solutions can be trivial when it comes to drawing cards. So make that assumption for my #11 above, and any others I might come up with.

[rinkworks]

guided, you were right.  I found an action-count problem in #7 as well (which I've fixed).

Again, my apologies to all.  I double-checked these before I posted, checked them again after the first mistake was found, and I still missed it.  I like this puzzle idea, but I guess I underestimated how niggling getting the counts right is.

[WanderingWinder]

11. Library where you didn't set aside any actions

[rinkworks]

You might add a caveat to these: assume an unlimited number of cards available to draw. Empty-deck solutions can be trivial when it comes to drawing cards. So make that assumption for my #11 above, and any others I might come up with.

Hrm.  How about Scrying Pool, then, with the draw pile having several action cards in a row to pull in.  Wait, no, Scrying Pool leaves you with an action left.  Um.  Ok, how about Library, when you start off with Laboratory as the only card in your hand?  That breaks one of the rules I set, but if that was your intended answer, it's a great enough puzzle to consider scrapping that rule for.

[rinkworks]

6. Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory = ?

This is essentially Minion if you have only minion in your hand. Three labs functions like +4 card, +1 action, which is what minion's cycle with only minion remaining in your hand does.

That works except that one of the rules I had said that you start with five cards in your hand.  I think perhaps that rule is worth scrapping, though.

[guided]

You might add a caveat to these: assume an unlimited number of cards available to draw. Empty-deck solutions can be trivial when it comes to drawing cards. So make that assumption for my #11 above, and any others I might come up with.

Hrm.  How about Scrying Pool, then, with the draw pile having several action cards in a row to pull in.  Wait, no, Scrying Pool leaves you with an action left.  Um.  Ok, how about Library, when you start off with Laboratory as the only card in your hand?  That breaks one of the rules I set, but if that was your intended answer, it's a great enough puzzle to consider scrapping that rule for.

I intended to keep the 5-card hand rule. Glad you've noticed that my puzzle leaves you with no actions left You did give me an idea though: Scrying Pool works for your #6.

[def]

This puzzle could be nice to teach beginners how many, many action cards are not necessarily better than a single one.

4. Trading Post
7. Village when your oppponent has no Province in your hand - this was for the first version.
8. Steward for cards and Pawn for money and buy makes it a third level city