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Author Topic: Is Moneylender worse than Spice Merchant on this set?  (Read 1748 times)

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catsclaw

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Is Moneylender worse than Spice Merchant on this set?
« on: January 28, 2013, 09:07:52 am »
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This seemed pretty straightforward.  I intended to pick up an Envoy at some point, but ultimately didn't want to risk it with so many Action cards in my deck.  My opponent got to Platinum first, and I ultimately lost because I trashed my Estates and my opponent played Monument.

What should I have done instead?

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201301/28/game-20130128-060144-c03596ed.html
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SirPeebles

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Re: Is Moneylender worse than Spice Merchant on this set?
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2013, 09:17:31 am »
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Looks like a big money board to me, but having Colonies certainly mixes things up.

BM-Envoy would almost surely be the way to go on a Province board, but I wonder if it might take too long to build up on a Colony board? 

Another option is BM-Courtyard, which does reasonably well with Colonies. 

BM-Monument at least seems possible to me given the Colonies -- particularly with a Spice Merchant and/or Cartographer to improve cycling.

Lastly, maybe it would be better to go for Provinces?  But I'm not sure you'd get all 8 Provinces before your opponent gets a lead through Colonies.
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lespeutere

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Re: Is Moneylender worse than Spice Merchant on this set?
« Reply #2 on: January 28, 2013, 09:24:22 am »
+1

Moneylender vs spice merchant is the wrong question. He even gets a moneylender on t4, too.
The question is, why did he get platinum before you did, although you got to 2 gold a whole shuffle before he got his first.
I don't really like trade route here because you already trash your coppers. And then you can get (and you do) cartographers for sifting green cards out of your next 4 + you have an oasis to discard one green in your hand. That's totally enough to handle your green.
But you should've added courtyard, maybe even start courtyard/moneylender but that's close, I believe. Envoy is not such a good idea in colony games cause the difference platinum-gold is bigger than gold-silver and to get to 11$ you often need platinum (or several golds).
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DG

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Re: Is Moneylender worse than Spice Merchant on this set?
« Reply #3 on: January 28, 2013, 09:25:49 am »
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I think there's some mileage from an apothecary deck here. Anyway, for the game as you played it I think you lost out from buying a trade route instead of a silver. Trade route is a card that you eventually need, you often have to buy it earlier than you need it, and it would have been good for your deck eventually. However at that time you already had a useful moneylender, oasis, and cartographer to deal with the bad cards in your deck and you just needed more income from the good cards.
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-Stef-

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Re: Is Moneylender worse than Spice Merchant on this set?
« Reply #4 on: January 28, 2013, 09:56:15 am »
+2

I agree with the points above. You invested too much in getting rid of estates. Choose between Oasis and Trade Route.
Oasis looks like the stronger option because you also play with Cartographer, and being able to draw one of the cards is really strong there.
With such strong selection (Cartographer) and trashing, you're likely to see your terminals every turn. Two terminals is already quite something, three is too much.

I tried this board solitaire on two different openings:
Spice Merchant / Courtyard and Trade Route / Potion

Both got me to half the Colonies in 15 turns. I think I'm really lucky in the first one, and I "compensate" for that later on by buying a clumsy Trade Route.
The potion actually feels like the best plan on this board to me.

Definitely no straight BigMoney, and going for provinces should always lose to Colonies.
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DrFlux

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Re: Is Moneylender worse than Spice Merchant on this set?
« Reply #5 on: January 28, 2013, 10:19:55 am »
+1



Looks like a big money board to me, but having Colonies certainly mixes things up.

BM-Envoy would almost surely be the way to go on a Province board, but I wonder if it might take too long to build up on a Colony board? 

Another option is BM-Courtyard, which does reasonably well with Colonies. 

I would comment that BM-Courtyard is superior to BM-Envoy even on a province board, actually by quite a bit. On a colony board though, the mantra of "copper trashing is bad for money" is not true. You also want something to take care of your estates here, but that could just be cartographer or oasis.

It wasn't my first thought, but obviously as stef has shown, apothecary is quite competitive here too.
 
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