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Author Topic: SWAG #5  (Read 1989 times)

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WanderingWinder

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SWAG #5
« on: January 05, 2013, 12:20:00 am »
0

Here is the kingdom from a recent interesting game I played on iso. I haven't talked to my opponent about annotating it so (s)he (hereafter I'm using he, regardless) will remain anonymous, unless he feels like stepping forward.

cards in supply: Cutpurse, Feast, Grand Market, Harem, Horse Traders, Laboratory, Silk Road, Steward, Tactician, and Warehouse

Discuss strategy, the deck you want to build, how your opponent's strategy will come into how you play, if at all, what you think I did, etc. etc. in the comments below. I will post my annotations early next week.

Powerman

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Re: SWAG #5
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2013, 12:49:26 am »
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First off Silk Road.  No real way to rush here, and there aren't any gainers for it.  But there is HT, and Harem to add the number of total victory cards.  However, with all the engine potential, it should be possible to get the 8 provinces before the SR gets a chance to beat it.

I'd open HT / Steward on a 4 / 3, and Tac / nothing on a 5 / 2.  Then depending on draws, either go into double Tac with Grand Markets and a HT for money, or if trashing with Steward is good enough and you invest in labs and warehouses, avoid Tac's altogether and just build an engine surrounding GM's.

If your opponent goes for a SR strategy, probably lean less toward Double Tac and more toward trashing + draw, and after about ~5 GM's favor Harem > GM.

I bet you went for SR.
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timchen

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Re: SWAG #5
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2013, 01:36:14 am »
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Interesting! Silk Road seems to be relevant here as with Harems it can easily worth 3-4 VP. But if you go double-tac the harems will be useless. It's hard to just stay away from Silk Roads though, if you stay away from it it can worth a lot for your opponent even if he just plays big money.

I'll open Cutpurse/Steward and get a single tactician first. Probably will just end up with Labs and Harems due to Silk Roads. Maybe will lose to a double-tac, depending how fast he can ramp up his grand markets.
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Davio

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Re: SWAG #5
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2013, 02:52:51 am »
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Cutpurse seems bad because of Horse Traders.

I'd probably go with HT/Steward opening, looking for an early Tac to line up trashing better and get that extra action. From there on you can either transition into double Tac with GMs or go with Labs.

I'd stay away from Silk Roads here as I think the engine is pretty fast.
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Rabid

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Re: SWAG #5
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2013, 06:14:38 am »
+3

I'm assuming this was a game against me.
(For future reference I am always happy for all of my game logs to be discussed.)
I completely misread the board, failing to realise the lack of village.
Should have been an interesting board though, if I had played it well it would have been a cool game.
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-Stef-

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Re: SWAG #5
« Reply #5 on: January 05, 2013, 08:23:25 am »
+2

This is an interesting set indeed. Because even after giving it a lot of thought, I'm still not certain whether to go engine or slog.
I can see two different lines with some variations.

Plan 1: focus on Silk Roads
 1a - Open Silver/Cutpurse, then get horse traders, dip into Harems first
 1b - Open Silver/Horse Traders, maybe harems maybe immediately silk roads
Plan 2: focus on Grand market
 2a - Open Steward/Silver, trashing&labs simultaneous
 2b - Open Steward/Steward, trash aggressively
 2c - Open Steward/Feast, more focus on early labs
 2d - double tact.

The easiest comment is that 2d is barely worth worth mentioning. DoubleTact really needs villages, or maybe Vault. Here you need Grand Markets as only source of virtual money, and you need real money to get them, which will be worthless after you start double tact. Even on a 5/2 its horrible, if you want to go for Grand Markets just open lab/- (almost as good as 4/3).

1b clearly defeats 1a in a silk road mirror, because of the +buy for winning the estate split after silk roads are gone. Oh and also for just being the better card in a green deck.

Looking at the variants under 2, I think 2c is my favorite. If your terminals clash you can just trash down and use the feast->lab later on. Not great but no real disaster either. 2b works remarkably well if you happen to draw the Silver and the Steward in the same hand, using turns 3/4 for a Silver, Warehouse and trashing. 2b is also quite good actually, a lot better then most people give it credit for. You don't need good $2 cards or even villages to make double steward shine. Most of all you need a board where trashing is really good (think Highway). But here I think it gets beaten by 2a/2c.

So the most interesting question is: what happens if one player (taking a wild guess: WanderingWinder) plays with 1b, where the other goes for 2a/b/c?

I think it's reasonably close here. And when it's close, I always go engine. After doing a lot of single player I'd say you need around 14 turns to pick up all Grand Markets, if you don't need to deny Silk Roads before that and don't get attacked by the Cutpurse. After that your deck is super super powerful and you don't need much more then 3 turns to end it on provinces.

That still looks like a losing line, because all provinces won't be enough. By that time the silk road player will have all 8 silk roads, almost 11 estates and lets say 3 harems (eventually worth 8*5+11+6=57). Besides, the game would be over because the Silk Roads, Estates and Grand Markets are all gone.

The solution however is simple. Don't buy out the Grand markets (leave 1 or 2), and deny at least some Silk Roads. Preferably 3, but even with 2 you have a good shot at this. If you get only 2 the Silk Road player probably was forced to buy too many too early, thus seriously reducing his chances at Duchies/Harems/double estate turns. And you still have some double province turns to come, or you can eat any menu of harems/duchies/laboratories first if that looks better.
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DG

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Re: SWAG #5
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2013, 08:52:01 am »
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I had a little play around with set and I'd agree with Stef. It's easier to use labs, a steward, and some treasures to buy grand markets than to use steward, horse traders and tactician. If tactician draws a big hand then it will be a big hand of copper, which is exactly what you don't need for grand markets.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: SWAG #5
« Reply #7 on: January 05, 2013, 09:36:24 am »
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I'm assuming this was a game against me.
(For future reference I am always happy for all of my game logs to be discussed.)
I completely misread the board, failing to realise the lack of village.
Should have been an interesting board though, if I had played it well it would have been a cool game.
It was indeed a game against you, and thank you for this generosity!

RisingJaguar

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Re: SWAG #5
« Reply #8 on: January 05, 2013, 11:40:31 am »
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I think it's reasonably close here. And when it's close, I always go engine. After doing a lot of single player I'd say you need around 14 turns to pick up all Grand Markets, if you don't need to deny Silk Roads before that and don't get attacked by the Cutpurse. After that your deck is super super powerful and you don't need much more then 3 turns to end it on provinces.
This is much faster than I was expecting, warehouse/laboratory really help here.  Impressive as always :)

I also wonder how WW feels that everyone seems to always assume he goes Alt-VP in these games
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WanderingWinder

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Re: SWAG #5
« Reply #9 on: January 08, 2013, 02:20:59 pm »
+1

Here are the annotations.

Per normal, Stef pretty much has it down.

And per normal, I *do* go for alt-VP, but out of an engine, not like people seem to expect... not that I mind.
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