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Author Topic: Can there be a second-player Advantage?  (Read 9139 times)

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DG

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Re: Can there be a second-player Advantage?
« Reply #25 on: September 26, 2011, 10:46:37 am »
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Although "don't open double trasher" is a good maxim, it's not an iron-clad rule.


Is it even a good maxim once you look beyond chapels?
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Empathy

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Re: Can there be a second-player Advantage?
« Reply #26 on: September 26, 2011, 10:48:56 am »
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Maybe I went a bit overboard with trashing the double trashing argument.

My maxim is more around the lines "make sure you get a source of money at some reasonable point". Ambassador and chapel both have this weakness of basically making you skip your turn when they are most effective (double/quadruple trash). It's a powerful turn, but you can get royally screwed if you're not careful (or get disrupted: militia hurts a hand with ambassador + 1 estate +1 silver +2 coppers).

Trash for benefit are great as secondary trashers: apprentice, bishop, remake, remodel and salvager all work really well with chapel/ambassador as your main trasher. Bishop is probably the best because you're really using the fact that the other guy is probably also trashing like mad and not getting the benefit from your bishop. Though salvager/remodel have something to say about getting you out of the money trap.

I'll happily get a salvager to complement my first ambassador rather than a second ambassador. I'll only ambassador coppers, and salvage estates. If the other guy ambassador's his coppers, he's not going to lift off the ground any time soon, and if he just ships me an estate a turn, I'm completely fine with that.

It's a very specific example, I agree.It's just that for newer players, reading lines like "open double ambassador" can be misleading. They will not play it out properly, even when it is the right call to make.
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rinkworks

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Re: Can there be a second-player Advantage?
« Reply #27 on: September 26, 2011, 11:00:39 am »
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Ah, I see what you're getting at.  Makes sense.

It's  certainly easy to mistakeningly trash too heavily in the first few turns.  I've played enough to watch out for that, and I still occasionally find myself wondering where my third-to-last Copper went.
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rod-

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Re: Can there be a second-player Advantage?
« Reply #28 on: September 26, 2011, 12:06:25 pm »
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I suspect a board with Ambassador, Horse Traders, and Gardens might have a second-player advantage, as Horse Traders/Gardens is strong when your opponent is Ambassadoring and weak otherwise.
But is the following line really an advantage to the 2nd player?
1) ambassador
2) horse traders
3) silver
4) (silver?)
5-6) ambassador 2 estates, buy silver (or lucky 2 silvers),(2p:buy 2 horse traders)
7+) stop ambassadoring due to horse traders, steal 1 gardens and just go big money because you know you can get 4provinces and presumably a tiebreaker duchy before they empty estates/ht/gardens (that's 23 more buys because you added 1 estate to the pile - 12 more turns if the gardens player is lucky enough to draw horse traders every turn despite buying tons of estates early on - not to mention how hard it is to come across 6$ hands with only 1 silver in your deck)

Turn 19 is a bit slow, and i can't seem to make it work any faster for mr. gardens...am i off?  I understand that ambassador doesnt always(or really all that often) hit 2 estates, but 18 turns for 4 provinces is still pretty easy even with the normal 3 dead cards in deck.

I suppose i'm assuming that this gardener doesn't hit 40 cards, which may be inaccurate.  (12 estates, 7 coppers, 10 horse traders, 7 gardens, and 4 random coppers?)
« Last Edit: September 26, 2011, 12:16:46 pm by rod- »
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Captain_Frisk

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Re: Can there be a second-player Advantage?
« Reply #29 on: September 26, 2011, 01:04:59 pm »
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This is a long long long shot, but what about Jester?

A 2nd player's jester played played on turn 4 (in most normal situations) 4 cards out of 14 that you could potentially want, while player 1 can only hit 2 cards.

I seriously doubt if that is enough to make up for the fewer turns issue, and of course the 1st player has a chance to Jester 2p's jester before he can even play it... but i figured i'd throw it out there.
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Empathy

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Re: Can there be a second-player Advantage?
« Reply #30 on: September 26, 2011, 01:08:24 pm »
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On a similar note, how does smuggler fare depending on table position?

I know it's an ok counter as p1 when the other person opens with 2 coppers. (because of the random chance of stealing his 5 on t3).
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chwhite

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Re: Can there be a second-player Advantage?
« Reply #31 on: September 26, 2011, 01:19:17 pm »
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I suspect a board with Ambassador, Horse Traders, and Gardens might have a second-player advantage, as Horse Traders/Gardens is strong when your opponent is Ambassadoring and weak otherwise.
But is the following line really an advantage to the 2nd player?
1) ambassador
2) horse traders
3) silver
4) (silver?)
5-6) ambassador 2 estates, buy silver (or lucky 2 silvers),(2p:buy 2 horse traders)
7+) stop ambassadoring due to horse traders, steal 1 gardens and just go big money because you know you can get 4provinces and presumably a tiebreaker duchy before they empty estates/ht/gardens (that's 23 more buys because you added 1 estate to the pile - 12 more turns if the gardens player is lucky enough to draw horse traders every turn despite buying tons of estates early on - not to mention how hard it is to come across 6$ hands with only 1 silver in your deck)

Turn 19 is a bit slow, and i can't seem to make it work any faster for mr. gardens...am i off?  I understand that ambassador doesnt always(or really all that often) hit 2 estates, but 18 turns for 4 provinces is still pretty easy even with the normal 3 dead cards in deck.

I suppose i'm assuming that this gardener doesn't hit 40 cards, which may be inaccurate.  (12 estates, 7 coppers, 10 horse traders, 7 gardens, and 4 random coppers?)

I tend to think of Horse Traders/Gardens as more of a hybrid strategy that takes its time to grab Duchies too and doesn't just rush the Estates.  And if you only play Ambassador once or twice, then go BM and stop using it out of fear of HT, then you've more or less wasted your opening buy, and are going to be really slow.
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