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[Destierro]

I spent a looooooooong time looking at this board, trying to find a viable ambassador engine. All I saw was ambassador / pirate ship / double tac, but that seemed way to slow. So I just went straight double jack.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201302/05/game-20130205-094420-a0dc36f8.html

I guess I get the "ignore ambassador" achievement! Is there something I missed on this board? It looks like nothing really beats double jack here.

[Robz888]

The Ambassador player just doesn't really have anything to transition to, here, since it's such a Big Money board. I, too, would go Double Jack I think.

Even so, Baron/Ambassador is a really bad way for him to start. Does he want to get rid of his Estates, or discard them for money? A bipolar opening.

[HiveMindEmulator]

The Ambassador player just doesn't really have anything to transition to, here, since it's such a Big Money board. I, too, would go Double Jack I think.

Even so, Baron/Ambassador is a really bad way for him to start. Does he want to get rid of his Estates, or discard them for money? A bipolar opening.

I agree that this is a Big Money board, and Jack is thus a better opening than Amb. But (as usual) I don't think double jack is the best strategy. You still want to open Jack to trash the Estates, but I'm pretty sure it's better to focus on Merchant Ships for money rather than just Silver.

[DrFlux]

Has anyone played around with adding a single spice merchant to double jack? Or single jack + spice merchant? I tried out some solitaire games and they seemed comparable to double jack in speed. Seems like with ambassador on the board, it would be almost certainty worth it.

[DG]

Has anyone played around with adding a single spice merchant to double jack? Or single jack + spice merchant?

It's has little or no benefit. Shelve it until you really wan to be rid of your copper, perhaps with ventures.

[eHalcyon]

Has anyone played around with adding a single spice merchant to double jack? Or single jack + spice merchant?

It's has little or no benefit. Shelve it until you really wan to be rid of your copper, perhaps with ventures.

Really?  I would have guessed it to be beneficial to get rid of Coppers and further increase Silver density.

[dondon151]

The problem is that the improvement is so slow that you're not worse off just racing for points.

It might be helpful if you're transitioning into an engine.

[WanderingWinder]

The problem is that the improvement is so slow that you're not worse off just racing for points.

It might be helpful if you're transitioning into an engine.

It's definitely useful if you're going into an engine (though you might have other components to prioritize there). It might be useful for colony games.

[DrFlux]

It has to be useful for colony games, I mean it doesn't really hurt your speed dramatically in province games. In addition, I don't really want to buy double-jack in colony games -- the silvers just aren't that good. 1 jack and one spice merchant though, will help me play my jack more early, get rid of copper, and later on can always get rid of silver. This will make golds/plats come up a lot more, which has to be good.

As for engines, spice and jack definitely combo well, especially when there's no other way of killing estates.