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Author Topic: [Featured] Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation  (Read 9363 times)

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Hideyoshi

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[Featured] Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« on: March 26, 2013, 04:10:22 am »
+11

Hello everyone~ This is my first try to write on some common/uncommon cards and combos in innovation. To start with, fermentation and reformation is a very common combo in base set and even echoes, and the combos begins in age 4, which usually leads to a disasters to the game.

The basic mechanism of fermentation and reformation combos

Fermentation is not always a good card. It needs a lot of leaves in order to draw lots of cards. If you have no leaves at all, you’d better forget fermentation even you have drawn it. Once you get fermentation and a set of leaves on your board, you may start fermentation from age 2. You may continue draw and draw, and find the card reformation at age 4. You may tuck some of your cards, mostly yellow cards, in order to get more leaves for drawing. At age 4, you may get at most 16 leaves on your board, which means you can draw 8 cards per fermentation. After you set your “perfect board”, you may just keep drawing to find you best “ending card” to win. This combo is quite simple and common, but also horrible to your opponents, which all players may need to learn how to create the combo, and also counter the combo.

How to set up the best board for fermentation – before age 4

In order to set up the best board for fermentation, there is something important for setting up the board:
1. To make the board more leaves
2. To set up the best board as fast as possible, which mean to avoid useless action such as inefficient splaying
3. You may place more crowns and factories to avoid the danger of compass and gunpowder (optional)

Before you get the card reformation, you can make at most 8 leaves commonly, which can be set up by the four top cards, fermentation, clothing, pottery and codes of law. (Feudalism also do it for purple top cards, but it is better to keep drawing rather than meld feudalism at age 3, unless you want to avoid engineering) Some may try to use codes of law to splay left the green cards to make 10 leaves by adding sailing and compass. However, I consider this action as inefficient splaying, as splaying green cards left does not make contribute to your board at higher age. You may get more crowns, but no more leaves in green. Other than using one action to splaying left, drawing 3/4 cards is better.

However, in most cases, you cannot make 8 leaves on your board. So is it worth for using fermentation? Generally, it depends on how your board is formed. If you get 6 leaves, such as fermentation, clothing and also calendar, you may keep continue if you do not have other better strategy. However, if you have just 4 leaves or even less, you may forget fermentation and create some better strategy. You may use fermentation later if you get reformation by other reasons, but it is not a good idea by just drawing one or two cards at age 2 and 3 using fermentation.

How to set the best board for fermentation – after age 4

After age 4, I assume you get the card reformation, you may tuck a set of cards and splay yellow cards right to gain more leaves. To gain the maximum number of leaves, you may tuck all yellow cards with leaves contribution, which are agriculture, machinery, medicine, anatomy. If you get fermentation, clothing, pottery and reformation as your top cards now, you will have 16 leaves. I may consider this is the “best” board for fermentation, and you can trace the card bicycle, lightning or some others for the end of the game.

Some people would like to tuck a set of purple cards to gain more crowns, or meld some red cards with factories. This is protection of your board from gunpowder, compass or and others. This kind of protection is optional as these actions are protective but also slowing down your drawing. If you get these dangerous cards in your hand, you may keep drawing and forget all protection; but if you do not have these, it may be better to protect your board.

The main pitfall of the combo

I have mentioned several times about the efficiency of “fast drawing” for fermentation. It is the main pitfall of the combo. As you may see, you actually just keep drawing but not scoring at all before you get “the end of the combo”. You may find your opponents get a lot of score and achievements before you get bicycle or something like that. Therefore, that is why I keep mentioning the efficiency of drawing, as you need to find “the end of the combo” before your opponents get too many achievements.

“The end of the combo”

After you gain a lot of cards in your hand, the next question is: what to do with your bunch of cards in your hand? There are some cards which may help you to do with your cards, and I may call them as “The end of the combo”. (It may not be a very good term as you may need to keep drawing, but as my English is too poor, I cannot think a better term…)

1. Bicycle
Bicycle is the most common end of the combo. You just score all your cards at age 7 (well, the term is actually exchange) and get more than 100 score. If you do so, you can just keep drawing 8 cards per action and draw an 11 by drawing all cards.

2. Lightning
Lightning is another good card at age 7. It may not be better than bicycle, but it is more common if you want to get 6 achievements rather than draw an 11, as you will get monument by lightning but not using bicycle. To me, bicycle is usually better, but lightning is the first choice if you cannot get the card bicycle.

3. Suburbia
I may say suburbia is the second “the end of the combo”. If is commonly used after you score a bunch of cards using bicycle/lightning, and then keeping drawing for age 8 and 9. Before you draw 10s, you just use suburbia by tucking more than 10 cards and end up with draw and score an 11. However, it is dangerous to just keep drawing up to age 9 and trace for suburbia and tuck 80 cards directly, as you may face some dangerous cards at age 8 and 9, such as composites stealing all your hands.

4. Stem Cells
Well, I may consider stem cells is the worst end of the combo, as you meld a new yellow cards other than fermentation. You really score lots of cards, but generally I do not suggest using it unless you cannot find the above three cards.

5. Collaboration
Well, it is a very strange card to end the game but it is interesting to do so. You just use reformation to tuck 8 green cards from your hand, and then meld the card collaboration and win it by making 10 green cards. I have used it once only as it is very uncommon, but you may try it.

What to do if you are stopped before you get to age 7

All cards above are above age 7. If your opponent stop you from fermentation by gunpowder at age 4 or 5, then what can you do with your hand? You may get 20 – 30 cards. If you do not use some of them, it is just a waste, but how? It is quite dependent on different situations, but there are some common suggestions:

1. Currency
Many players consider currency this is a “small bicycle”. Well, at this stage, the pile 1, 2, 3, 4 or even 5 are empty. You just need to return some different values cards to score a lot of score, generally around 20 to 30, and it will help you to claim more achievements.

2. Coal
For me, it is one of the best cards at age 5, parallel to astronomy. You need to use reformation to tuck some cards, and then use coal to eat up all cards you tucked. It may be quite slow, but you can claim achievements at the same time, and you can get new top cards also by “draw and tuck a 5” by coal.

There may be something more, such as using paper to keep drawing, using canal building to score all 4s from your hand, but they are usually too specific so I do not write too many on them.

How to counter the combo

After speaking for so long, you may see how strong the combo is. For easy understanding, you draw a lot of cards before age 7 and then score all your cards above age 7. After that, the next topic would be how to counter the combo. The general concept to counter is: to beat your opponent as fast as possible. It is difficult to counter your opponent at high age, so beat them at low age!

1. Directly attack the card fermentation

It is the easiest way to counter the combo: attack the card fermentation. If someone wants to use fermentation, his board may commonly just get all leaves but nothing else. To attack the card, it can be done by several demanding action. Engineering, compass, gunpowder are the most common way to do so. There are some uncommon methods such as monotheism, cover it by sharing sailing, but it need to control the game well to do so.

2. Sharing the dogma

It is quite difficult to do, and only can be done if your opponents get 6 leaves or less. For example, if your opponent gets fermentation, clothing and calendar to get 6 leaves, you may meld agriculture and pottery to get also 6 leaves to share the dogma. It may be effective as your opponent will be afraid of you getting the card reformation, but generally it is difficult to get more leaves than your opponents.

3. Do your own things

If you do not have anything cards to break up the combo, the best solution would be just do your own things. Do not try to use dogma or demanding using leaves, as it is impossible to demand it anymore, but use other icons. What you need to do is to score as many as possible, and claim more achievements before your opponents get something very useful. Factories such as coal, canning, machine tools may help you so much. Something with crowns also help you to score a lot of score, such as canal buildings and optics, and crowns also help you to destroy your opponent board. Bulbs may not help too much, as it is quite impossible to tech up faster than your opponent. Well, democracy may help you at later stage to get the last achievements, and something like experiment help you to meld a higher card immediately.



This is the end of the article. See you guys like this style of writings. I am sorry for my poor English, but I have tried to proofread the article first. If anyone like this, I may try to write more on other cards/combos~ thanks~
« Last Edit: April 11, 2013, 05:45:21 pm by theory »
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brokoli

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2013, 05:18:55 am »
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Interesting, I've never been able to use this card effectively. Thanks ! :D
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first

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2013, 06:09:52 am »
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Nice article. It covers pretty much everything I can think of, so I'll just add a few cards to the list.

- Perspective is a decent scorer if your combo halts before age 7 or if you want to stop your opponent from winning by achievement, given that you've tucked enough lightbulb icons, but the downside is that you have to meld Perspective over Fermenting.
- Alchemy and Physics can also counter the combo by returning the whole hand if their dogma is shared and failed. Thus, you have to be careful if you have more castle and/or lightbulb icons than your opponent. On the other hand, if your opponent has a big hand already and you can't find any other way to stop him, you can deliberately share your Alchemy's or Physics's dogma.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2013, 06:12:15 am by first »
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timchen

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #3 on: March 26, 2013, 06:20:54 am »
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Great article. And your English reads fine.

Personally, however, I am more interested in plays when your board isn't ideal: say you only get 8-11 leaves after reformation. Also say your opponent has found some efficient way to score and achieve. In this case, what would be your strategy? Do you still search for Bicycle or Lightning? Or do you stop drawing and try to dominate other icons and try to Enterprise/Banking/Vaccination out your opponent?

When you are just a tad bit slow, continue to draw is probably a bad idea. Your opponent can tech rather effortlessly and it's harder to stop them. On the other hand, there is always the hope that you can take advantage of the more powerful cards at age 7 or 8 (combustion/mobility/that age 8 green card I forgot the name). So which is generally the better plan?
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carstimon

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #4 on: March 26, 2013, 12:45:36 pm »
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Here's an example game for you
http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201303/26/game-20130326-094237-ea7f5ade.html
My opponent did fermentation/reformation.  I used currency to get up to 25 score, and achieved 1-5 + empire from construction.

It was close, he played vaccination his last turn and would've stopped me if I had taken one more turn I think.  It seemed like he went a little overboard on the fermentation, but I'm not sure.  I've never played fermentation/reformation myself.
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theory

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #5 on: March 26, 2013, 08:15:57 pm »
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Lighting for Monument seems silly given that you are almost certain to get it via Reformation anyway.
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Hideyoshi

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #6 on: March 27, 2013, 03:39:31 am »
+1

Nice article. It covers pretty much everything I can think of, so I'll just add a few cards to the list.

- Perspective is a decent scorer if your combo halts before age 7 or if you want to stop your opponent from winning by achievement, given that you've tucked enough lightbulb icons, but the downside is that you have to meld Perspective over Fermenting.
- Alchemy and Physics can also counter the combo by returning the whole hand if their dogma is shared and failed. Thus, you have to be careful if you have more castle and/or lightbulb icons than your opponent. On the other hand, if your opponent has a big hand already and you can't find any other way to stop him, you can deliberately share your Alchemy's or Physics's dogma.

Thanks.
Well, I am sorry I just missed out perspective...
Alchemy and Physics... If I am using fermentation, I will not tuck so much bulbs and castles to prevent this accident. (That's why I miss out perspective) I think it quite depends on the situation and I seldom use these two to "share and fail) the others. Well, railroad may do similar things, as I have tried to use railroad before to ask others to return around 40 cards.

Great article. And your English reads fine.

Personally, however, I am more interested in plays when your board isn't ideal: say you only get 8-11 leaves after reformation. Also say your opponent has found some efficient way to score and achieve. In this case, what would be your strategy? Do you still search for Bicycle or Lightning? Or do you stop drawing and try to dominate other icons and try to Enterprise/Banking/Vaccination out your opponent?

When you are just a tad bit slow, continue to draw is probably a bad idea. Your opponent can tech rather effortlessly and it's harder to stop them. On the other hand, there is always the hope that you can take advantage of the more powerful cards at age 7 or 8 (combustion/mobility/that age 8 green card I forgot the name). So which is generally the better plan?

Thanks.
I may say, these situations are dependent on how the things going on. Generally, I may say if I have 10 leaves or more, and I do not see I am in any danger, I just keep drawing. The danger here mean I will lose in some turns, such as my opponents got 2 achievements already and going to get more, he got more than 30 score, or he tech up to 3 ages higher than me.

Lighting for Monument seems silly given that you are almost certain to get it via Reformation anyway.

Well, it is not the case for me generally. In the first trial of reformation, the maximum number of leaves is 10 (if you do not splay left green cards), which you only tucked 5 cards in a action. If you need to get monument, you need to use it in a second trial. However, I seldom do this at age 4 because this tucking action do not contribute to increase the number of leaves. You may do this at age 6 as you may tuck vaccination or something like that to gain more leaves, but I will just keep drawing at age 5 and 6.
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BitTorrent

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #7 on: March 27, 2013, 04:17:05 am »
+1

How to do F&R combo for dummies:

1. meld Pottery/Calendar +Sailing/Clothing and maybe Code of Law
2. meld Fermenting
3. start drawing 3 cards each and try to collect:
a. Engineering
b. Machinery
c. Compass
d. Gunpowder
e. Reformation
f. Anatomy
g. Medicine, Agriculture, etc.
4. Assume you do get all of them, meld Reformation and tuck all the yellow cards with some leaves and splay your yellow right
5. Draw another 6+ cards with 1 Ferment dogma, and Tuck whatever card you want with 1 Reformation dogma and splay your purple right, also get the Monument
6. Keep drawing 12+ cards each turn until you get:
a. Bicycle
b. Lighting
7. Use either of these to get a ton of score and start taking achievement
or,
8. If you are so sure that your opponent cannot do some draw and meld thing in 1 action, keep drawing until you see Suburbia, meld it and end the game.

*Remark:
1. The reason why you try to draw Gunpowder is that Gunpowder counters you so hard and if you actually owns GP you can shoot your opponent for a few times to get some free score(remember you rammed out age deck 2,3 and 4 already so you will be scoring an extra 5)
2. Pottery, Machinery and Anatomy are the keys to success. while you may not get Pottery, at least you can search for Machinery and Anatomy
3. Try NOT to tuck currency. Save it as an emergency resort
4. I usually prefers Suburbia rather than Bicycle or Lighting as I still have to grab Achievement after Bicycle or Lighting but Suburbia? I meld it and I win the game. Easy enough.
5. Do recall my words though if your opponent can do a draw and meld anything higher than 1, DO NOT rush for Suburbia. The reason is if you uncover the age 9 pile there are 2 cards that may ruin your day, the first one is Composites which instantly blow you up and put you in absolute despair. Another one is Computer which is always weird. I am not too worried about Computer though so if you are at least 3 factories ahead of your opponent you may try Suburbia.
6. Don't waste time to Reformation again and again, a veteran opponent would jump for achievement once he/she smells a F&R already. Make every action count.
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ednever

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2013, 04:19:51 pm »
+1

This should likely be in the articles section. Theory: Can you move?

I just played a game using this strategy for those looking for an example.

Pretty classic play. Randomly got a lot of Leaves early on.
Then ran into Fermenting and used it for big draw to get to Reformation.
Used Reformation to get Monument and splay Purple and Yellow left (and get Leaves up to 13).
Then drew to get up to Bicycle.
Used Bicycle to pick up something like 170+ score.
Then started chowing down through the achievements. Only way to stop me at that point was Fission I think.
(I could have just used my draw engine at that point to blast past all the cards and draw an 11 - but I figured there was a risk he pulled Fission if I did that)

One note is turn 5:
Instead of playing Fermenting twice, I play it once (draw 3), and then tuck Canal Building with Code of Laws. This does two things:
1- Gives me 8 Leaves - allowing me to draw 8 next turn instead of 6 (so by the end of next turn, I'm only down one card)
2- Leaves a bunch of Age 2 on the board for my opponent to draw, rather than opening up the 3's
3- I have Construction in hand, and he only has 4 cards in play. I figure if he doesn't play a Red next turn, I can play Construction, activate it and get Empire. Turns out he plays a Red so it doesn't matter.

The game:
http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201303/27/game-20130327-131145-f04c2ab5.html

Ed
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Hideyoshi

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #9 on: March 28, 2013, 03:33:17 am »
+1

I am sorry I discovered the article section after I have posted the article. Well, most of the articles may be for beginners, but it seems the article section seems not to have many people to come, maybe they do not discover it as me. Is it possible to have a direct link to their for "promotion"? Thanks.

Well, the timing of drawing is also important, which is not mentioned here anyway. Especially if you need to ensure you draw the reformation but not the others, you probably need to start to draw 4 yourself.
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dondon151

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #10 on: March 28, 2013, 03:21:36 pm »
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Key point: Lightning came before Lighting (if Lightning even counts as an innovation) :D

More on-topic: I'm surprised that there aren't any cards that significantly attack your opponent's hand in the base set other than Machinery and Composites...
« Last Edit: March 28, 2013, 03:26:11 pm by dondon151 »
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popsofctown

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #11 on: March 28, 2013, 03:38:00 pm »
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Shared Alchemy and Shared Physics, but the fermenting player can pretty easily avoid those.

Fission works..
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ednever

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #12 on: March 28, 2013, 03:54:28 pm »
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Key point: Lightning came before Lighting (if Lightning even counts as an innovation) :D

More on-topic: I'm surprised that there aren't any cards that significantly attack your opponent's hand in the base set other than Machinery and Composites...

Refrigeration. Explosives.

Ed
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #13 on: March 29, 2013, 02:53:22 pm »
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Key point: Lightning came before Lighting (if Lightning even counts as an innovation) :D

More on-topic: I'm surprised that there aren't any cards that significantly attack your opponent's hand in the base set other than Machinery and Composites...

Refrigeration. Explosives.

Ed

Classification too, but these are all probably too slow to stop this combo.
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Razzishi

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #14 on: March 31, 2013, 10:50:30 pm »
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Key point: Lightning came before Lighting (if Lightning even counts as an innovation) :D

More on-topic: I'm surprised that there aren't any cards that significantly attack your opponent's hand in the base set other than Machinery and Composites...

Refrigeration. Explosives.

Ed

Refrigeration?  You're going to make a Leaf demand against the 14+ Leaf board? 

Explosives?  Sure, take three of my highest cards, whatever, I'm drawing 7+ at a time.
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Razzishi

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Re: Strategy Guide: Fermentation and Reformation
« Reply #15 on: March 31, 2013, 10:57:31 pm »
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Key point: Lightning came before Lighting (if Lightning even counts as an innovation) :D

More on-topic: I'm surprised that there aren't any cards that significantly attack your opponent's hand in the base set other than Machinery and Composites...

Refrigeration. Explosives.

Ed

Classification too, but these are all probably too slow to stop this combo.

Probably a bit too little too late for Classification to really have an effect.  Even if you can steal a few cards, you wont' stop their massive scorers.  You could try to steal their scorers, but if you wait until they draw all the 7s to be sure you can get both Bicycle and Lighting on the same turn, they'll probably end up melding one of them first.  If you try to take Bicycle first, you'll cover Classification, leaving them free to use Lighting.  While it's slightly slower at scoring, Lighting also helps run out the rest of the piles giving you less turns to find an answer to their score pile.
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