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DrFlux

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Bishop
« on: November 16, 2012, 07:49:46 pm »
+1

I just realized that bishop had not been written about in some time, and that I was winning a lot with bishop. So I thought I'd share some insights. So here it is, let me know what you think:

Bishop is a high skill card. Sometimes it is a must buy card, and sometimes it is nearly useless, and it is often tricky to figure out if you should buy bishop, and when. Usually you DO want bishop: unless there are no villages and there are other desirable terminals, having a bishop mid/late game is almost always good, as it can give you control of the game. Cannibalizing a gold on the same turn as buying a province is often a winning move.

When don't you want bishop? I would say there are 3 rough cases:
  • There are no villages, and there are stronger terminals, particularly terminal draw. Without extra cards and actions, you are less likely to be able to match up cards you want to trash with your bishop late-game, and the loss of economy hurts more. Also, getting rid of starting estates is very nice for the terminal draw player.
  • Very fast, strong combos: If the game is about playing KC on bridges, or about playing multiple Goons together, a couple of extra points from Bishop probably won't matter, and you should just focus on comboing as quickly as possible, using your opponent's Bishop to your advantage.
  • Cursers: if you are cursing an opponent, it is often counterproductive to give them the opportunity to trash those curses, especially early in the game. Exceptions to this do occur, as occasionally a game can get drawn out by curses to the point that its worth it to snag those extra VP from Bishop, eventually. Figuring out when to buy bishops in this case is quite subtle.


When do you want to buy bishop? Something counter-intuitive about bishop is that it is usually NOT an good early game trasher. Yes, I'll say it, opening with bishop is often bad (exceptions discussed below). Early game, bishop has two big things working against it: First, it only gives you $1, which can strongly hamper your ability to buy $5 and $6 cards. Second, [it gives your opponent just as much trashing as it gives you]. In fact, its a little better for your opponent, because they have 5 cards to choose from, and you only have 4. So the trashing is basically a wash, and you should not consider this an advantage. In other words, early game you can view bishop as a card that gives you only $1,+2VP when you draw it with an estate, and $0,+1VP when you draw it with a copper and no estate. This is TERRIBLE.

Bishop is still great, but it is a trasher you usually want to buy mid or late game. This is especially true in engine games, where the free trashing is even more useful to your opponent than it is to you. As the game, goes on, bishop's benefit to your opponent steadily decreases. I often buy it the first $4 I get after turn 3. As they buy more stuff, and perhaps trash cards, there is a greater chance they will have nothing to trash. And even trashing copper is painful sometime midgame, as it can keep you from buying critical cards. However, in engine games bishop is still useful to YOU in the midgame as a trasher, as you are drawing a large selection of cards. You can even trash junk that was useful early game, but is less useful now, like spice merchant or potion, and it will give you a very nice VP boost.

Obviously, bishop is good with the cards any trash-for-benifit card is: peddler, boarder village, haggler, hoard, these all shine with bishop, especially the first three, as they are easily incorporated into engine decks. Even less flashy ways of gaining cards such as ironworks or even talisman can be used to gain bishop fodder in a tight deck. Good dark ages combos include Rats and Market Square and Fortress. Specific interactions that HURT bishop include "draw up to X" cards. For example, Jack of All Trades can allow the jack player to trash a card, and still draw back up to 5, and likely draw an even better card than they started with.

What makes bishop unique, like goons, is that it can be used to gain a large amount of points without putting green into your deck. So while it can be used to canibalize your deck and get a last minute VP boost, it can also be used to create a very slim deck, often called the "Golden Deck". The cannonical golden deck is one gold, two silver, a bishop and a province. If you get to this point, you can trash a province and buy a province every turn, gaining 5 VP and drawing the same 5 card hand. This may not be as sexy as gaining 150 points with Goons, but in many games this is very strong. However, getting to the "golden deck" is slow in many games. The best start for the golden deck is bishop/chapel. There are other circumstances where you can get to the golden deck, but few others where I would force it. Just keep in mind that if your deck is getting really small, it is an option.

A few comments about the "golden deck". First is that once you go for it, you are basically stuck, so you better be sure its the strongest strategy. You are limited to 5 VP per turn, so strong engines that can buy multiple provinces a turn WILL likely beat you. Second is that there are often stronger variations on the golden deck, for example, I played a game where I bought border villages, gaining markets, while my opponent went for the canonical golden deck. While they got the early lead, at some point I was able to play two bishops per turn, trashing two BV/gold, and buy two replacements. I was able to avoid buying victory cards to stretch out the game, which is another strategy available with bishop that you want to take advantage of if you know you can win the long game. Fortress produces a super-powered alternate "golden deck", with four bishops and four fortresses in your deck, you can snag 12 VP per turn, every turn, with no luck involved, by repeatedly trashing the same fortress.

Works with:
- chapel
- border village, farmland
- gainers: hoard, market square, rats, ironworks, tunnel, etc
- fortress
- engines

Doesn't work with:
- opponents "draw to X" cards (Jack, Watchtower, Library)
- very strong combos which generate more VP (goons, bridge combos)
- opening (in many games)
- curses or ruins
- the golden deck does not work against strong engines
« Last Edit: November 17, 2012, 02:10:38 pm by DrFlux »
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Powerman

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #1 on: November 16, 2012, 08:30:40 pm »
0

I don't know if I agree with it being a poor opening card.  I've found on ~80% of boards where it's good, you want it as an opener.  Why?  While the opponents benefit is large with free trashing, between the VP bonus you get, and the lack of flexibility they get leads to you being better off than they are.  As in, while it's harder for you to get to $6, if they are trashing from their hand, they aren't getting to $6 either.  And if they are getting to $6, then the trashing from their hand isn't happening.
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dondon151

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #2 on: November 16, 2012, 08:36:17 pm »
+3

I find it surprisingly hard most of the time to ignore Bishop and win. There needs to be some really fast ramp-up strategy not contingent on trashing for it to work. Colonies are another good indicator too.
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DG

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #3 on: November 16, 2012, 08:46:09 pm »
0

Quote
The first step with Bishop is to realize this is NOT an early game trasher. Yes, I'll say it, opening with bishop is almost always bad, even terrible (exceptions discussed below).

This is actually a more difficult judgement. The points from the bishop are worth the free trashing if the opponent cannot harness the better deck. This might be the case when there are no strong terminal cards for the opponent to use and there is very little opportunity cost in taking the bishop instead of a different terminal. You are correct though that there are many times when the free trashing will accelerate the opponent's deck a great deal. The classic example would be that a smithy+treasure deck should beat a bishop+treasure deck since the smithy can harness the honed treasure deck so well. There are however situations where the trashing given to your opponent isn't so generous. This might be when the opponent has a trasher of their own like salvager, a card that can use estates/copper such as a baron, or is looking for alternative scoring such as gardens.

Multiplayer bishop games can be doubly tricky since it becomes harder to work out how quickly decks will slim down or spend upwards when multiple cards may be trashed from hand each turn. There can certainly be games where the opponents dictate the style an speed of the game with the bishops and you need to adjust your play accordingly.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2012, 10:02:43 pm by DG »
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SirPeebles

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #4 on: November 16, 2012, 09:07:55 pm »
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I think Fortress deserves to be mentioned, either as an example alongside peddler and border village, or in the discussion of golden decks.
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ftl

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #5 on: November 16, 2012, 09:39:38 pm »
0

Yeah, Bishop+Fortress is just amazing. Can't leave it out.
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Robz888

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #6 on: November 16, 2012, 09:41:20 pm »
+2

Opening with Bishop is almost always bad? Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense.
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ednever

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #7 on: November 17, 2012, 12:25:02 am »
+1

My vote is in between:

When bishop appears

20%- you don't want it
50%- you want it, but not as an open
30%- you want to open with it

I reserve the right to totally change that opinion. But that's my instinct based on a terrible memory of fakes played.

Also agree it's one of the highest skill cards. I know it took me a long long time to figure out how to play it effectively.

Ed
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LastFootnote

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #8 on: November 17, 2012, 02:30:49 am »
0

In the "conflicts with" section, you might consider including draw-up-to cards, especially Library. Taking advantage of free trashing from your opponent's Bishop? Valuable. Taking advantage of free trashing and decreased handsize? Priceless.
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DrFlux

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #9 on: November 17, 2012, 10:49:53 am »
0

Perhaps "almost never" is a bit too strong, but I think Ednever has the percentages about right. I think what I needed to comment on is the fact that I see people ALMOST ALWAYS open with bishop. And I think most of the time, that is somewhere between slightly wrong, and plain awful. What does buying bishop first turn gain you, as opposed to buying it 3rd or 4th turn? Flexibility - no. Economy - no. All it gains you is a slight headstart in VP, and most of the time that does not matter.

People saying that "using your opponent's bishop will keep you from getting to 5 or 6 too": this is just wrong. You can have a silver or a caravan in your hand instead of your bishop, and you WILL reach 5 more often. You can trash an estate from your opponent's bishop for free, and you can always choose not to trash if you have 5 and no estates. With cards like Wharf or Minion or Lab or even Haggler at 5, it is just really important to hit 5, and I think people underestimate this.

People are free to disagree with this idea, but I will claim that rethinking bishop is one of the reasons I've gone from rank 38 to rank 43 recently: I win a lot of games with bishop.






My vote is in between:

When bishop appears

20%- you don't want it
50%- you want it, but not as an open
30%- you want to open with it

I reserve the right to totally change that opinion. But that's my instinct based on a terrible memory of fakes played.

Also agree it's one of the highest skill cards. I know it took me a long long time to figure out how to play it effectively.

Ed
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DrFlux

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #10 on: November 17, 2012, 11:00:32 am »
0

In most cases, I'm not arguing to ignore bishop, just not to open with. I would say silver/silver is better in many cases.

I also disagree that smithy-treasure is the most important example of you want to worry about with bishop. I think the times you really want to avoid bishop is when there is something like Kings-Court Bridge on the board, any your priority is the combo, and the trashing will DEFINITELY help your opponent.

Quote
The first step with Bishop is to realize this is NOT an early game trasher. Yes, I'll say it, opening with bishop is almost always bad, even terrible (exceptions discussed below).

This is actually a more difficult judgement. The points from the bishop are worth the free trashing if the opponent cannot harness the better deck. This might be the case when there are no strong terminal cards for the opponent to use and there is very little opportunity cost in taking the bishop instead of a different terminal. You are correct though that there are many times when the free trashing will accelerate the opponent's deck a great deal. The classic example would be that a smithy+treasure deck should beat a bishop+treasure deck since the smithy can harness the honed treasure deck so well. There are however situations where the trashing given to your opponent isn't so generous. This might be when the opponent has a trasher of their own like salvager, a card that can use estates/copper such as a baron, or is looking for alternative scoring such as gardens.

Multiplayer bishop games can be doubly tricky since it becomes harder to work out how quickly decks will slim down or spend upwards when multiple cards may be trashed from hand each turn. There can certainly be games where the opponents dictate the style an speed of the game with the bishops and you need to adjust your play accordingly.
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DG

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #11 on: November 17, 2012, 11:41:58 am »
0

Quote
I also disagree that smithy-treasure is the most important example of you want to worry about with bishop. I think the times you really want to avoid bishop is when there is something like Kings-Court Bridge on the board, any your priority is the combo, and the trashing will DEFINITELY help your opponent.

If it is not the most important then it is certainly most frequent. The number of games where I've used a terminal draw card to beat an opponent using bishops is staggerlying high. I don't think I've had a more successful simple strategy ever in Dominion than playing terminal draw cards against bishops, particularly after Prosperity was released.
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philosophyguy

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #12 on: November 17, 2012, 11:48:21 am »
+1

Let me start from the premise that I don't play Bishop well.

The biggest struggle for me is that, if I don't open Bishop, there doesn't seem to be a good opportunity to get one later. If I pass on Bishop, I usually hit $5 in the next shuffle, and I can't justify passing on a power $5 for a Bishop. Getting the early $5 seems especially important because Bishop is slowing my opponent's deck-building at first, so I want to press that edge. But then, I never get a Bishop and lose on VP chips.

So, how should I think about this balancing act?
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DrFlux

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #13 on: November 17, 2012, 11:58:00 am »
0

I think its interesting that the most frequent times to NOT buy bishop are terminal draw situations where there is no engine, and very powerful engines. The exact opposite ends of the spectrum.


Let me start from the premise that I don't play Bishop well.

The biggest struggle for me is that, if I don't open Bishop, there doesn't seem to be a good opportunity to get one later. If I pass on Bishop, I usually hit $5 in the next shuffle, and I can't justify passing on a power $5 for a Bishop. Getting the early $5 seems especially important because Bishop is slowing my opponent's deck-building at first, so I want to press that edge. But then, I never get a Bishop and lose on VP chips.

So, how should I think about this balancing act?

Well, I think that the ideal solution to that is to have multiple buys or other gainers to get your bishop, perhaps along with a cheap engine component. I find an unlucky 4 happens pretty often between 3-6 anyways. But sometime you need to make tough choices. That's what makes dominion interesting.
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DrFlux

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #14 on: November 17, 2012, 12:37:15 pm »
0

EDIT: I just added mention of Fortress, and some analysis by DG. I also more cleanly organized the article.
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jomini

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #15 on: November 17, 2012, 10:39:03 pm »
0

There are several big questions that determine if, when, and how much Bishoping you want.
1. How long is the game going to last? Golden decks notwithstanding, Bishop is better as a long haul card. The upper bound on a Bishop deck is 60 VP per turn (10 Bishops hitting 10 Colonies thanks to Grave robber chicanery); even with more reasonable setups, every turn you play Bish, you get at least 1 VP and that can be winning. A longer game, like with say colonies or some attacks (e.g. Spy, Ghost ship) make Bish a better buy. Longer games can make early Bish better and can make Bish viable as a simple trasher. Remember, game length changes radically if only one of you two is going for provinces - take this into account when you decide on Bish or no. For instance in a Rabble game, you can build a hideously complex Bish engine - the other guy will take forever to gain the last 2 provinces if he is being mass Rabbled every hand.
2. How many Bishops can my deck support? Multiple Bishops require not just +action, but also +gain in the long run. Sometimes, yeah you can just keep chomping on coppers & curses for +1 VP, otherwise, you need a source of card gain. This is why Bish/Fortress is just phenomenal - +actions and a "new" 4 coin card to trash for 3 VP. If you also have +cards or some other trick to make it work (e.g. Kc/Scheme), it can be well worth it to build up to 12 coin & Use 2 Bish to pound out 8 VP a turn with a simple engine and 1 +buy. Other options include on gain freebies (e.g. Border village, Duchess), card gainers (e.g. Haggler, Iw, University), and on trash freebies (E.g. Squire, Catacombs, Market Square).
3. How many points per turn can my opponent snag, is it a flat, decreasing or increasing curve - and can I affect it? With no +buy/gain out, provinces score 6 VP/turn at best; Bish can allow you to hit 11 VP/turn (at the price of cannibalizing Peddlers/Plats or playing cute with Bridge/Grave robber). Variable Alt-VP can be an easy win or a death knell for Bishops. Gardens are a perfect example, against a Gardens deck you can Bishop all day ... but unless you buy and trash Gardens, you may have a hard time ending the game before the Garden deck reaches 50 cards. Other cards can be more complicated Feoda can be counter productive without +buy - the opponent can buy them specifically to let you pinata them or they can go honest for a silver deck; buying Feoda means that you get a silver flood, which may or may not be useful. It is quite possible to get into rock-paper-scissors territory where Bishop beats Feodum, Province beat Bishop, and Feodum beats Province. Extremely strong Fairgrounds setups (e.g. Black Market) and Silk Road setups (e.g. Great Hall, Iw) can mean that even if you acquire & trash half the key cards (e.g. 4 Ghall, 3 Slkrd, 3 Estate) you can still lose (the other player gets 4 Ghall, 5 Slkrd, 8 Estate - giving a score of 32 - 29 if you Bish all the green and nothing else).
4. Will other parts of my deck help my opponent's trashing or hurt it? Discard attacks are nasty on a Bish player, but you can always choose to discard the Bish & keep the money to buy something key. Discarding attacks from  Bish player against someone drafting off the free trash is a bit harder - they don't know if you will Bish or not and hence may be reluctant to keep Estates/Coppers. Likewise, Masq transitioning into Bish can be quite strong - if they trash their only weak card they don't know if you have a Masq to play or not. Council room, Governor (for cards), and vault (if the opponent has something they can play to draw bacK good cards like Golem or Lib) can all help my opponent to fish for cards to trash.

Pguy: If you need a Bishop - pay 5 or even 6 for it. Card values change from game to game and even within decks. If there is some killer card there you need more, then get that. But we have many, many games where you have to "overpay" for cards.

Lfn:  You are right about Lib, Watchtower, and Jack all helping out the other guy with Bish, but on the other hand, Bish drops your own hand size by 2 cards (barring Fortress), if you can use the Lib after the Bish, you draw 2x as much as them. Trading an action for card isn't a gimme, but I wouldn't go so far to say that Bish actively hates Lib or Wt if there are villages present. Getting into Bish mid game (when the opponent is no longer well placed for it), can make for very strong Bish/Lib or Bish/Wt engines. Jack, on the other hand, is so terribly fast and Bish just makes it faster.

A few other Bish combos:
Farmland. Using Bish on Farmland is the same as hitting gold (i.e. not that bad), but Farmland also lets you gain 2 other value into your deck (e.g. Estate -> Bish or Copper -> Hamlet). If you are planning on double Bish, Farmland can be a good match.

Bridge/Highway/Quarry - buy low/Bish high. Spending 4 Coin on an Adventurer, but still getting 4 VP for trashing him is great. spending 4 coin on 2 and getting 8 VP for trashing two is even better. Cost reduction can have a multiplicative effect when you are running multiple Bishops.

Something of conflict is Tournament: Followers loses some of its power if you are playing Bish a lot; likewise if you are going golden deck, the other guy gets unblocked Trnment every turn, easier shots at lining up Prov/Trnment and a monopoly on Prizes; additionally Trnment (like Count or Altar) can greatly increase the points per turn the other guy can nab.
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dondon151

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #16 on: November 17, 2012, 10:42:57 pm »
+1

Bishop will antisynergize with Highway because you'll likely have to play some to get Bishop + trashed card in hand. Also probably true for some, but not all, Bridge strategies.

The Golden Deck definition in the article is really narrow. In general, a deck that relies on Victory cards for scoring will decline in potency as the game drags on during the greening phase. Bishop lets you avoid that, either by providing you a means to victory without Victory cards or by supplementing your score without clogging your deck.

You also don't need to have a 5-card deck to have what is effectively a Golden Deck. You just need to be able to draw your deck (or enough of it) every turn, Bishop a green card, and buy it back.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2012, 10:49:34 pm by dondon151 »
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DrFlux

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #17 on: November 18, 2012, 10:56:01 am »
0

Bishop will antisynergize with Highway because you'll likely have to play some to get Bishop + trashed card in hand. Also probably true for some, but not all, Bridge strategies.

The Golden Deck definition in the article is really narrow. In general, a deck that relies on Victory cards for scoring will decline in potency as the game drags on during the greening phase. Bishop lets you avoid that, either by providing you a means to victory without Victory cards or by supplementing your score without clogging your deck.

You also don't need to have a 5-card deck to have what is effectively a Golden Deck. You just need to be able to draw your deck (or enough of it) every turn, Bishop a green card, and buy it back.

If you notice, I mention two other "golden decks" that don't have 5 card hands.

However, there is a good question here: if you draw your whole deck, say with smithies and villages, gain some stuff with ironworks, and then trash it with bishop, is it a "golden deck" ? With most draw decks, there is some chance of "missing". I think what makes "golden decks" unique is that there is NO chance of missing. So I would call Fortress x 4, bishopx4 a golden deck, but I wouldn't call the following "golden", because you could "miss" Fortress x 6, bishop x 6, village x 2, smithy x 2.

Or is it just the fact that you don't need to buy VP what makes it "golden"?

Probably I should add some discussion of this in the "golden deck" section. "Almost golden" decks and draw decks that utilize bishop in a similar manner are important.

Interestingly, Fortress+bishop is the only combo I know of that doesn't require you to buy/gain cards to gain a large number of points. Which means you could conceivably get into get into a situation where nether player wants to buy any other cards to disrupt their combo, but the score is close... sort of a chess-draw.
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heron

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #18 on: November 18, 2012, 12:28:17 pm »
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Quote
Interestingly, Fortress+bishop is the only combo I know of that doesn't require you to buy/gain cards to gain a large number of points. Which means you could conceivably get into get into a situation where nether player wants to buy any other cards to disrupt their combo, but the score is close... sort of a chess-draw.

If this occurs, the leading player can buy the remaining fortresses, then another draw card, preferably something like spy, and then cross their fingers and pile the bishops.
However, this is difficult to pull off, especially if fortress is the only village, and harder if it's the only cantrip.
It's also a bit risky, and one might want to just call it a draw.

If there are cards like caravan, market, or lab on the board, this situation can still proceed toward the endgame.

Although everything I just said may be totally incorrect, I think it would be very rare that fortress/bishop would leading to an unending game.
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SirPeebles

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #19 on: November 18, 2012, 01:18:21 pm »
+1

Although everything I just said may be totally incorrect, I think it would be very rare that fortress/bishop would leading to an unending game.

I've only played this combo on Goko, and you're right.  They game usually just freezes within a few rounds regardless.
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verikt

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #20 on: November 18, 2012, 01:18:42 pm »
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Bishop silver gives you a good chance of hitting 5 first, especially if your opponent does take the advantage to trash. With a strong 5 card like minion I'd say it's worth opening with.
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DrFlux

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #21 on: November 18, 2012, 01:45:35 pm »
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Quote
Interestingly, Fortress+bishop is the only combo I know of that doesn't require you to buy/gain cards to gain a large number of points. Which means you could conceivably get into get into a situation where nether player wants to buy any other cards to disrupt their combo, but the score is close... sort of a chess-draw.

If this occurs, the leading player can buy the remaining fortresses, then another draw card, preferably something like spy, and then cross their fingers and pile the bishops.
However, this is difficult to pull off, especially if fortress is the only village, and harder if it's the only cantrip.
It's also a bit risky, and one might want to just call it a draw.

If there are cards like caravan, market, or lab on the board, this situation can still proceed toward the endgame.

Although everything I just said may be totally incorrect, I think it would be very rare that fortress/bishop would leading to an unending game.

I think you are right that its rare, but its the first case in dominion I know of where something like that being possible.
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dondon151

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #22 on: November 18, 2012, 07:13:22 pm »
0

However, there is a good question here: if you draw your whole deck, say with smithies and villages, gain some stuff with ironworks, and then trash it with bishop, is it a "golden deck" ? With most draw decks, there is some chance of "missing". I think what makes "golden decks" unique is that there is NO chance of missing. So I would call Fortress x 4, bishopx4 a golden deck, but I wouldn't call the following "golden", because you could "miss" Fortress x 6, bishop x 6, village x 2, smithy x 2.

Or is it just the fact that you don't need to buy VP what makes it "golden"?

Probably I should add some discussion of this in the "golden deck" section. "Almost golden" decks and draw decks that utilize bishop in a similar manner are important.

There are two goals to a Golden Deck (and some don't even have both goals):
1. Perpetually churn out VP without taking on cards that increase the probability of not being able to do so
2. Hasten the game's end and reduce the amount of available VP for the opponent

You can do 2 without having to do 1, and that's probably what most Golden Decks try to achieve. In that case, you can have an engine that draws maybe with 90% reliability, but that's fine - if you end up trashing 2, 3 of the Provinces/Colonies while you're already ahead, then you probably don't mind so much if you happen upon that 10% chance to not draw your entire deck.
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blueblimp

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #23 on: November 18, 2012, 10:58:38 pm »
+1

Bishop silver gives you a good chance of hitting 5 first, especially if your opponent does take the advantage to trash. With a strong 5 card like minion I'd say it's worth opening with.
Opening Bishop/Silver is worse for hitting 5 than opening Copper/Silver.
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DrFlux

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Re: Bishop
« Reply #24 on: November 18, 2012, 11:14:16 pm »
+1

Bishop silver gives you a good chance of hitting 5 first, especially if your opponent does take the advantage to trash. With a strong 5 card like minion I'd say it's worth opening with.
Opening Bishop/Silver is worse for hitting 5 than opening Copper/Silver.

Thank you, finally another voice of reason. Not to mention that you have almost no chance of getting TWO fives turn 3 and 4, which what, maybe 10-15% of games if you open silver/silver? To get two fives with bishop-silver, you need to draw them together along with one estate and two copper, have a hand of five copper, and have the two estates in your last two cards. That's got to be sub-percent level.
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