Print

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

[Socrates]

Is it ever going to be a good move to buy a first (or second) turn Embassy on a 5/2 split?  Does adding that silver to your opponent's first reshuffle punish you too much to do this?  On a board without much else of value at $5 do you take the hit and take the Embassy, or drop down to a decent $4.

Obviously there are no hard and fast rules, but I'm just wondering about people's opinions.

[rinkworks]

I'm curious about this too.  Would Embassy even be a good buy on turns 3-4?  Afterward, I have to think that the Silver is dramatically less useful to your opponents, while the Embassy retains its usefulness to you.  But before Turn 5, I'm a bit apprehensive about that.

On the other hand, maybe this suggests these concerns are unfounded:  http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=embassy

[biopower]

Giving the opponent the early Silver is probably balanced by being able to always get Gold as soon as you play Embassy. I think it's comparable to Vault: Playing it will almost always let you get Gold or get a Province if you draw a Gold. Although Vault will guarantee you the Gold/Province, Embassy will cycle your deck faster and improve the probability of drawing the Golds.

[chwhite]

I'm a little leery of buying Embassy on Turn 1/2, but have no such qualms about getting it on Turns 3 or 4.  If you buy Embassy on Turns 3 or 4, they're not getting that Silver until after the second reshuffle, and at that point it's a lot less of a downside, as they've presumably just bought a couple cards that are better than Silver anyway.

[popsofctown]

Don't forget that silver isn't always the best card.  If your opponent has a 3/4 Steward Potion to go after a Scrying Pool and you've hit 2/5, I'd say you definitely want an embassy!  Strategies like Minion, Fishing Village-Watchtower, Bridgebridgebridgebridge also would find silver less helpful.

[chwhite]

Don't forget that silver isn't always the best card.  If your opponent has a 3/4 Steward Potion to go after a Scrying Pool and you've hit 2/5, I'd say you definitely want an embassy!  Strategies like Minion, Fishing Village-Watchtower, Bridgebridgebridgebridge also would find silver less helpful.

Colony games, too.  Giving your opponents a Silver is sometimes even almost tantamount to an attack!

[def]

I don't like this generalisation of silver in colony games.
- I'll gladly take it early (for free) since it will help me and is almost necessary to have sometimes to get to Gold and then Platinum.
- The thing will the average card value only holds true without card drawers. I had games with something like Caravan, Steward and a card that provides me with Silvers, and I didn't need any Gold or Platinum to reliably get to 11 many turns in a row.
- 5 Coppers make 5$, with 3$ missing to a Province. 5 Silvers leave you with only 1$ missing to a Colony, so there is a difference with giving out Coppers in Province games and giving out Silvers in Colony games.

[DG]

One difficulty with a first turn embassy is that it's hard to see how you construct a deck onwards from there (except with tunnels). Any action cards you add are more likely to be drawn dead than start in hand. The cards you draw and discard are pretty similar quality at the start of the game. The simulator suggests that embassy+treasure is a fairly even match to other drawing card + treasure strategies, which could be ok from a 5/2 start.

[Deadlock39]

I think the answer is that if you open with Embassy, you just play money.  Has anyone simulated Embassy's strength only from a 5/2 start?

I opened with Embassy in this game:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111105-192832-8b286b1f.html

My opponents play was not good, so that can't really be addressed, and I don't know if I got lucky draws or not, but it felt like the early Embassy was just incredibly strong.  Opening with Embassy and playing Big Money got me 4 Provinces and a Duchy by turn 11. 

[Geronimoo]

This is very easy to simulate. Here's an example:

Embassy/- 47% - Envoy/Silver 45%
Envoy/-     29% - Envoy/Silver 62%

So don't be afraid the Silver might be helping your opponent more than the drawing power of Embassy will help you (at least not in a big money match up). Embassy is just very very strong!

[HiveMindEmulator]

Embassy also can give a "last-player advantage" in an somewhat rare circumstance (1/12 games). If you have $5 on turn 2 and everyone else has already shuffled, they don't get the silver until the second shuffle, and you get the embassy on the first.

[Reyk]

Nobody brought up Donald's quote from Secret History yet - so I will do:

Embassy: I had had "draw five discard three" in Prosperity a long time ago. It had been too strong, but it didn't seem like it needed much to make it acceptable, so a when-gain penalty was a good fit. Giving the other players a Silver doesn't matter much in the long run, but on turn one it's significant.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I've had the feeling that embassy is a lot like vault. Both basically get you gold automatically, and with gold get you provinces (with vault it's actually a guarantee, but it's practically guaranteed with embassy). And both offset this awesomeness by giving a benefit to your opponents. Vault gives a minor one every time you play it, and embassy gives a bigger one when you first gain it. So I decided to see how they stack up on councilroom. This is what I found:
http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=embassy%2C%20vault
They are just about the same, with embassy a little worse early due the big impact a silver can have on the first shuffle. The (perhaps) surprising thing: it's still pretty darn good on turn 1.

[AJD]

An interesting difference between Vault and Embassy is that the benefit Vault gives your opponent is actually less useful to an opponent who is also using Vault—if an opponent has Vault in hand, decreasing handsize is probably not worth the risk for them. The benefit your Embassy gives an opponent is at least as useful to an opponent who is using Embassy as it is to one who isn't.

[HiveMindEmulator]

An interesting difference between Vault and Embassy is that the benefit Vault gives your opponent is actually less useful to an opponent who is also using Vault—if an opponent has Vault in hand, decreasing handsize is probably not worth the risk for them. The benefit your Embassy gives an opponent is at least as useful to an opponent who is using Embassy as it is to one who isn't.

I'm not so sure it's "at least as useful". It might be "not much less useful". In embassy+money, once you have an embassy, you don't really need silver all that much. You draw enough cards that it's not hard to just get a gold + a bunch of coppers to buy a province. Decks without drawing rely much more on silver.

[Geronimoo]

Simulations suggest that first turn Embassy beats first turn Vault by a small margin. (Both bots buy Vaults with $5 after the first turn)

[snappy]

played a game recently with embassy and tournament where we both had a 5/2 split. i opened with embassy and my opponent opened tournament. i grabbed a tournament and a province soon after, and then a workers village. With the help of the village, the embassy let me get to the prizes first and i won easily.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

<a href=http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201111/18/game-20111118-192526-936073a0.html>First turn Embassy yields three Provinces by turn eight.</a>

Just crazy shuffle luck and an economy boost thanks to my opponent.