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[florrat]

In the Easy puzzles thread there was a question how much Governor plays are needed to empty someones deck. Simon claimed to have a solution with 13 plays, which turned out to not work, but I think I found the minimum number of plays needed (and I doubt it can be done with less). But I think it's not an easy puzzle, so I make a new thread for it.

So the full puzzle is as follows:

Find the least number of Governor plays needed such that for any given kingdom (with Governor in it) that number of Governor plays is enough to get one player down to 0 cards in his whole deck.

Additional rules:

• You must find a solution for any kingdom, which may or may not include Young Witch, Colony/Plat, Shelters and Black Market. In particular you may not assume there are other cards around, like any other trasher.
• You can choose the number of players (between 1 and 6 (inclusive)).
• The whole deck means any cards in someones deck, discard, hand, play area, reveal area, any set-aside area, any mat, etc.
• A Governor played via Golem or Herald still counts, a Governor played with Throne Room or Procession counts twice, and played with KC count thrice.
• All players work together to achieve this goal, and you may assume perfect shuffle luck.

[Ratsia]

For an Estate game 24 should be enough. 7 is always needed for clearing the coppers, possibly after the opponent has bought out the Poor houses. Each estate can be cleared by playing a Governor 4 times to reach cost of 10. Finally, the governor needed to make those steps requires 5 more plays by the opponent to again reach 10 cost. That would be 7+12+5=24.

For a Shelter game one needs three more plays by the opponent, for a total of 27, since they only reach cost of 9 after four own plays.

Edit: Clearing out the Hovel can be sped up by buying a more expensive victory card to replace it. If one buys a Duchy then 25 Governor plays are enough for a Shelter game.

[Davio]

Opponents can clear out the Platinums as well as the Poor Houses.

[DStu]

I think opponents can clear out anything, especially assuming perfect shuffle luck.


6 player:
0) let p1-p5 clear Poor Houses
1) bring every other $3-pile down to 1 card.
1) Reduce deck of p6 to CCCEEE
2) p1 turn: Play Governor for draw, p1 hand GGGGGGX. p2-p5: EEEXXX, p6:EEECCC
3) p1 plays 3 Governors for remodel, let player 2-5 remodel Estate->$3 card. In the worst case, there are 10 piles, so doing this 3 times will clear out all the $3 piles. p6 trash Coppers.
4) p1 play 3 more Governors for Remodel, p6 trashes Estates.

11 plays if I counted correctly, one for draw 10 for Remodel


Edit:
You probably don't need Governor for draw, just trash one more Copper before 2), as p2-p5 trash before p6, you don't need a buffer of 3 Coppers but just 2.
That's 10 plays of Governor, I doubt that it will get much better

[-Stef-]

In the Easy puzzles thread there was a question how much Governor plays are needed to empty someones deck. Simon claimed to have a solution with 13 plays, which turned out to not work, but I think I found the minimum number of plays needed (and I doubt it can be done with less). But I think it's not an easy puzzle, so I make a new thread for it.

So the full puzzle is as follows:

Find the least number of Governor plays needed such that for any given kingdom (with Governor in it) that number of Governor plays is enough to get one player down to 0 cards in his whole deck.

Additional rules:

• You must find a solution for any kingdom, which may or may not include Young Witch, Colony/Plat, Shelters and Black Market. In particular you may not assume there are other cards around, like any other trasher.
• You can choose the number of players (between 1 and 6 (inclusive)).
• The whole deck means any cards in someones deck, discard, hand, play area, reveal area, any set-aside area, any mat, etc.
• A Governor played via Golem or Herald still counts, a Governor played with Throne Room or Procession counts twice, and played with KC count thrice.
• All players work together to achieve this goal, and you may assume perfect shuffle luck.

This one has more edge cases then the solutions above seem to realize.
One of the problems is that you can't play more then 3 governors for remodel from a 5-card hand.
However, I still think DSTu's initial approach was correct: 1 governor for draws, followed by 4 more for remodelling. P6 can actually trash down earlier to CEEE, because then there are still 6 + 5 = 11 remoddellings happening before you have to trash one of your estates. So 11 sounds correct.
Shelters make it a lot more easy, because you can trade your hovel for an estate. No matter how you distribute the $2/$3 cards in the kingdom, I think you always can end up trashing for nothing even without keeping coppers. So a shelters game can be solved in 10.

[florrat]

My solution was 11 as well, but as DStu said it can be done with just 10 The reason is that you can actually use 5 Governors for remodeling in a 5-card hand, because the remodeling is optional. So basically what's in DStu's edit message.

Note: it can also be done with just 5 players, but I think it's impossible with 4 or less players.

[Simon (DK)]

Now what about a 2 player game? This is where I did my calculations, but here you can't empty that many piles in the last turn.
I will probably try again to calculate this tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure you need more than 13 Governor plays.

[AdamH]

Am I missing something?

P1 buys Governor, P2 never buys anything. No $4 card in the kingdom. P1 plays his Governor for the remodel effect 13 times. 7 of them kill P2's coppers, 3 of them turn P2's Estates into Silvers, and the last 3 turn those Silvers into nothing.

[sudgy]

Am I missing something?

P1 buys Governor, P2 never buys anything. No $4 card in the kingdom. P1 plays his Governor for the remodel effect 13 times. 7 of them kill P2's coppers, 3 of them turn P2's Estates into Silvers, and the last 3 turn those Silvers into nothing.

Actually, P2 could buy a Governor and remodel his Estates into nothing, then P1 plays Governor two more times to kill P2's Governor, so that's 12.

[liopoil]

you must assume the worst kingdom, so lots of 3 and 4 cost cards.

[eHalcyon]

you must assume the worst kingdom, so lots of 3 and 4 cost cards.

And potentially PH to mess with Copper, potentially Shelters instead of starting Estates.

[AdamH]

you must assume the worst kingdom, so lots of 3 and 4 cost cards.

oh.