Print

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

[Jimmmmm]

Just played this (no-Colony) game:

King's Court
Festival
Jester
Royal Seal
Woodcutter
Gardens
Chapel
Lighthouse
Pawn
Secret Chamber

I won easily, for a number of reasons, including more King's Courting and much better Chapelling. We ended up with 4 Festivals each. These power cards aside, I want to see if others come to the same conclusion as I did. My question is: what was the other pivotal card in my strategy?

For the record: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110905-061132-ecb0fe85.html

[DStu]

Would guess in Pawn, as it's the only one that can draw cards.

[Jimmmmm]

Yep cool, that's what I thought too, and I think I did a lot better with Pawn than I would have without.

[Davio]

I was thinking the same as DStu, but maybe Lighthouse too?

This can easily be a race to empty the 3rd (Estate) pile in one sneaky turn as I often like to do to surprise opponents.
The card mentioned by DStu also helps to make this happen.

[DStu]

What about Woodcutter/Gardens here as a complete alternative. How may turns did the game last?

[WanderingWinder]

I was also thinking that Gardens was a reasonable idea here. Apart from woodcutter, you have jester, festival, and pawn as good support cards. Not the strongest gardens board though.

[Jimmmmm]

Yeah I was just looking it over and considering the Gardens option. I guess I tend to automatically ignore Gardens when there's decent trashing.
The game lasted 16 turns, and we both finished in the 20s for number of cards, so I don't think Gardens would have been a good option.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Gardens would have been a perfectly good option had you ignored Chapel and spammed +buy and Jester. You wouldn't have ended with 20 cards in that situation ;]

[Davio]

Well, obviously, you don't trash if you have gardens.

The downside of going full Gardens is that you can't sidestep from going Gardens and your opponent can have his choice of the rest of the cards. Festival and Pawns are harmful to you, because your opponent can snag some Gardens from you even though they will obviously hurt a trashed deck more than a bloated one.

Let's see what the simulator says....

I'm having trouble accurately defining your opponent's strategy, but Woodcutter/Gardens absolutely destroys a Chapel with aggressive trashing and Festivals/King's Courts and even some Golds/Silvers to buy those.

[WanderingWinder]

Yeah I was just looking it over and considering the Gardens option. I guess I tend to automatically ignore Gardens when there's decent trashing.
The game lasted 16 turns, and we both finished in the 20s for number of cards, so I don't think Gardens would have been a good option.

I'm not sure that Gardens is the right play here, but without knowing exactly what happened, this is probably misanalysis. First of all, obviously, if you're going gardens, you'll have a lot more cards than if you're trashing. Furthermore, the game will either last much longer, because it takes much much longer (generally) to get 8 provinces than 4-5, or shorter because the gardens player has cut the legs out from under his opponent.
Having said that, turn 16 probably means you could expect maybe 5 provinces and a duchy (that's a bit generous I think), no estates, for the provincing player. But I would expect that the gardens player could beat that score by that point. Again, not entirely clear whether this is good in the long run, but if all you got was by 16 turns, gardens seems quite reasonable.

[Geronimoo]

I don't think you can simulate the King's Court strategy here. You need Pawns for +cards and this is what the simulator has to say:

PAWN DOES NOT COMPUTE
PAWN DOES NOT COMPUTE
PAWN DOES NOT COMPUTE
PAWN DOES NOT COMPUTE
PAWN DOES NOT COMPUTE
PROCESSOR OVERLOAD... SELF DESTRUCT INITIATED

[DStu]

It's not completely the same, as you would prob. play Pawns on KC for +Card/+$ for all but one and mayby +Card/+Action the last, given you have Festivals to give you actions and Buys. So maybe we can approximate it by Pearl Driver?

[Davio]

Here's a "Pearl" Driver. 

[Jimmmmm]

I had 6 Provinces, all of which I bought in turns 14-16, and I suspect I could have bought the last two if they were still available in the next few turns. What's the expected output for a Gardens/Woodcutter deck after 20 turns? Can you expect to average 2 gains/turn and finish with 50+ cards? If so, the 8 Gardens give you 40, so you'll need some Estates + Duchies to catch up to the 8 Provinces. Of course, it's going to be easy for the Province player to pick up 3-4 Gardens in one turn if they're not gone quickly enough (does the simulator take this Gardens blocking into account?).

[DG]

A kingdom where every card comes into play. Perhaps we should store this one away for the next time someone asks for a suggested set?

[Anon79]

A kingdom where every card comes into play. Perhaps we should store this one away for the next time someone asks for a suggested set?

I don't see any use for Royal S***...

[DG]

When you're rebuilding a deck strongly after trashing down with a chapel, it's very useful to put your newly purchased king's court on top of your deck. King's court played with king's court is what you're aiming for and the royal seal helps deliver it. You don't need that many festivals in the deck.