Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ednever]

Fortress is fantastic with Trash for Benefit, but otherwise it's generally a simple village (with some defense against trash attacks).

I've found two other uses for it though.

The first is with Lookout.
If you set it up right you can use Lookout to pull Fortress into your hand. Lookout becomes:
- Look at your top three cards, put Fortress in your hand, discard a card, put one on top of your deck (then draw it with Fortress)

It's a fun little combo.

The second I found this morning:
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130828/log.516d0e09e4b082c74d7aacc1.1377703536847.txt

In a game with no +draw it's hard to build an engine. Here there was chapel though which drives in that direction. And then picking up a Forager makes sense to kill the chapel and get some +buys.
The coppers, silvers and spoils had all been trashed and Forager became a 'trash a card, +1 buy, +3$'
Pretty good - excepy by that point I had nothing left to trash.

Enter: Fortress
When I drew Fortress with Forager I could use it without losing one of my (valuable) cards.

Just a small thing I thought I'd share.

Ed

[Witherweaver]

In before the whether-or-not-the-trasher-that-provides-a-benefit-that-does-not-care-about-the-cost-of-the-trashed-card-is-still-considered-a-trash-for-benefit-card conversation.

[Mic Qsenoch]

In before the whether-or-not-the-trasher-that-provides-a-benefit-that-does-not-care-about-the-cost-of-the-trashed-card-is-still-considered-a-trash-for-benefit-card conversation.

Drat!

[AdamH]

That has happened to me before as well.

[GeoLib]

The first is with Lookout.
If you set it up right you can use Lookout to pull Fortress into your hand. Lookout becomes:
- Look at your top three cards, put Fortress in your hand, discard a card, put one on top of your deck (then draw it with Fortress)

Bet Ambassador can't do that!

[markusin]

In general, Fortress allows you to get multiple Foragers to build up your engine without turning them into dead cards later. Same for Junk Dealer. I guess it can also be trash fodder for Mercenary, but it's not nearly as practical since Mercenary is terminal. I just get annoyed a bit when Mercenary has nothing left to trash in your deck, even though that's a great position to be in anyway.

[Warfreak2]

I have at least twice used a pair of Fortresses as food for my Mercenaries, after first feeding them to each other.

[Jimmmmm]

Great way to deal with your Rats problem. Probably not the best without trash for benefit, but it's fun!

[jomini]

Fortress provides 3 distinct benefits beyond a basic village:
1. It gives you free cost for scaling TfB.
2. It gives you free play of any TfB.
3. It can be moved from deck to trash to hand resulting in a larger hand.

Lookout, trashing from from the deck top works with the third and second. Other options include Knight/Rogue/Sab/Swindler defense, Swindler, in particular is hurt a lot when it hits Fort.

Doc can do the Lookout trick, which can be a minor fringe benefit after you've thinned down to Fort + engine components.

Fortress can also work well with cards that need you to trash more than one card at a go. Count (with 2 or more actions already) can trash a hand of junk + Fort(s), and then continue to draw - you need to have a pretty good idea of what is in your draw deck to make this better than just top decking the Fort, but it can be a worthwhile shot to clear out some curses and still play your engine. Something like Fort x2 -> Tr -> Count (top deck draw, trash hand, gain back Fort) -> Fort -> Draw. Much less powerfully, but more commonly Fort works well with something like Steward (trash Curse + Fort) where even without a strict benefit, you want to trash something and Fort just goes along for the ride.

[TheMirrorMan]

One of the weirdest situations I ever encountered was this :

I've got an engine going and got all my cards played/in my hand but one. An upgrade. Last two actions I got are : upgrade + fortress.
And then my opponent got sore eyes. Upgrade the fortress to an upgrade (in the discard pile), the fortress returns in hand and ... ooh, I get an upgrade. Upgrade the fortress to an upgrade, the fortress returns ... well you see the deal. Gained me 8 upgrades in one turn.

[WanderingWinder]

One of the weirdest situations I ever encountered was this :

I've got an engine going and got all my cards played/in my hand but one. An upgrade. Last two actions I got are : upgrade + fortress.
And then my opponent got sore eyes. Upgrade the fortress to an upgrade (in the discard pile), the fortress returns in hand and ... ooh, I get an upgrade. Upgrade the fortress to an upgrade, the fortress returns ... well you see the deal. Gained me 8 upgrades in one turn.

I either ran the pile out this way, or spotted the combo ability to do so and remarked on it (at least to myself, but I think publicly) as a way to end the game out of nowhere, sometime in the several months past. Very nice!

[Davio]

I find Lookout + Fortress a less than stellar combination, I mean, all you're doing is just discarding one and keeping one on top, almost like a cheaper version of Cartographer.

I've used this trick, but only when I didn't have good things to trash anymore.

I do admit that it's neat if you can find your village this way to kick off your terminal draw engine.

[Tables]

I find Lookout + Fortress a less than stellar combination, I mean, all you're doing is just discarding one and keeping one on top, almost like a cheaper version of Cartographer.

I've used this trick, but only when I didn't have good things to trash anymore.

I do admit that it's neat if you can find your village this way to kick off your terminal draw engine.

I think the key thing is that while it isn't a combo in itself, it's a nice positive synergy. If you deck happens to contain Lookout from earlier in the game (or whatever) and now involves Fortresses, the Fortresses make the lookout plays somewhat safer. Still not safe, obviously, but you can probably risk playing them and getting a positive result for longer.

[ednever]

I find Lookout + Fortress a less than stellar combination, I mean, all you're doing is just discarding one and keeping one on top, almost like a cheaper version of Cartographer.

I've used this trick, but only when I didn't have good things to trash anymore.

I do admit that it's neat if you can find your village this way to kick off your terminal draw engine.

I think the key thing is that while it isn't a combo in itself, it's a nice positive synergy. If you deck happens to contain Lookout from earlier in the game (or whatever) and now involves Fortresses, the Fortresses make the lookout plays somewhat safer. Still not safe, obviously, but you can probably risk playing them and getting a positive result for longer.

Exactly. I think I used it in a goons game. Let me kill coppers, but still pull villages into hand later in the game so lookout wasn't a 2-card hand.

Ed

[dondon151]

One of the weirdest situations I ever encountered was this :

I've got an engine going and got all my cards played/in my hand but one. An upgrade. Last two actions I got are : upgrade + fortress.
And then my opponent got sore eyes. Upgrade the fortress to an upgrade (in the discard pile), the fortress returns in hand and ... ooh, I get an upgrade. Upgrade the fortress to an upgrade, the fortress returns ... well you see the deal. Gained me 8 upgrades in one turn.

BoM and Fortress with Procession in the kingdom will also do the same thing with running out the BoM pile.