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[florrat]

-Do you ever want multiple terminal draw cards in a Big Money game?

In the standard Smithy-BM game you want to buy 2 smithies, right?

I think you only want a second Journeyman if you reach 5 and you don't want to a Duchy yet (and when it's not too early, if you get $5 on T3 and T4, you definitely don't want 2 Journeymen already).

[eHalcyon]

In theory, you're less likely to want a second Journeyman (compared to a second Smithy) because Journeyman draws further into your deck thanks to its filtering.  You're more likely to draw your second Journeyman dead than Smithy would draw Smithy.  But simulations would certainly be needed to get a definitive understanding of this.

[Awaclus]

-Do you ever want multiple terminal draw cards in a Big Money game?

In the standard Smithy-BM game you want to buy 2 smithies, right?

You don't want to want to buy 2 Smithies, but if the game drags, the second Smithy can be the correct play.

[Mic Qsenoch]

-Do you ever want multiple terminal draw cards in a Big Money game?

In the standard Smithy-BM game you want to buy 2 smithies, right?

You don't want to want to buy 2 Smithies, but if the game drags, the second Smithy can be the correct play.

This is wrong. You want a second Smithy for sure, sometimes even a third.

[Titandrake]

Why would you want to skip Village if you still have actions left? Any card you manage to skip with Journeyman is basically a cantrip and Village is strictly better than a cantrip.

Because you don't need the extra actions.  I'd rather take the gold or the second journeyman/other power card over another village.  There's a chance you won't get the other power card, sure, but it's still better than being the village idiot

But even if you don't need the extra actions, naming Village is no better than naming Black Lotus.

Name Village, reveal Estate, Copper, Village, Copper -> get the following cards in hand: Estate, Copper, Copper
Name Black Lotus, reveal Estate, Copper, Village -> play Village, draw Copper -> Get the following cards in hand: Estate, Copper, Copper

You might want to name Squire or another splitter that doesn't draw a card, though, but any card that gives +1 card, +1 action and additionally does something else (such as giving another extra action) is strictly better than getting that card skipped by Journeyman as long as you have that one action left.

Remember, this is working under the assumption that you have good trashing, and thus you no longer have Estates and Coppers.  In this case, you'd rather find your other Journeymen, rather than yet another Village, so you can draw your entire deck this turn.

No, you'd rather get the Village, since that would be more beneficial to drawing your entire deck.  Really.  You'd be better off naming Province, Silver, Chapel, Mountebank, or what not if your goal is to draw your full deck.  There is no reason to skip over cantrips unless you specifically want them to be in your discard (perhaps towards triggering a nice shuffle, or something).

If you know you have lots of Villages in your discard, you won't be as averse to triggering a reshuffle mid turn, whereas if you had drawn them, it's a harder choice because you have more villages that miss the shuffle.

Granted, not naming a cantrip is better ~90% of the time by my estimate, but if you have a surplus of actions, and know you don't need more, naming the cantrip can give better consistency, at the cost of a slightly worse hand this turn from not naming a junk card.

[Awaclus]

-Do you ever want multiple terminal draw cards in a Big Money game?

In the standard Smithy-BM game you want to buy 2 smithies, right?

You don't want to want to buy 2 Smithies, but if the game drags, the second Smithy can be the correct play.

This is wrong. You want a second Smithy for sure, sometimes even a third.

True. I was thinking of Envoy there, please ignore my post. 

[WanderingWinder]

-Do you ever want multiple terminal draw cards in a Big Money game?

In the standard Smithy-BM game you want to buy 2 smithies, right?

You don't want to want to buy 2 Smithies, but if the game drags, the second Smithy can be the correct play.

This is wrong. You want a second Smithy for sure, sometimes even a third.

To expand on this:
You particularly actually want the second one. You almost always end up with a spot where it's better than silver, too.
You most often want the third one, but it's not common (though not unheard of) to get into the point where it's the best buy, over silver (and, if possible, duchy/gold).

[Schneau]

-Do you ever want multiple terminal draw cards in a Big Money game?

In the standard Smithy-BM game you want to buy 2 smithies, right?

You don't want to want to buy 2 Smithies, but if the game drags, the second Smithy can be the correct play.

This is wrong. You want a second Smithy for sure, sometimes even a third.

To expand on this:
You particularly actually want the second one. You almost always end up with a spot where it's better than silver, too.
You most often want the third one, but it's not common (though not unheard of) to get into the point where it's the best buy, over smithy (and, if possible, duchy/gold).

It is hard to find a time when Smithy is a better buy than Smithy. 

[WanderingWinder]

-Do you ever want multiple terminal draw cards in a Big Money game?

In the standard Smithy-BM game you want to buy 2 smithies, right?

You don't want to want to buy 2 Smithies, but if the game drags, the second Smithy can be the correct play.

This is wrong. You want a second Smithy for sure, sometimes even a third.

To expand on this:
You particularly actually want the second one. You almost always end up with a spot where it's better than silver, too.
You most often want the third one, but it's not common (though not unheard of) to get into the point where it's the best buy, over smithy (and, if possible, duchy/gold).

It is hard to find a time when Smithy is a better buy than Smithy. 

That's the key to reaching level 75.

[Davio]

The whole "if the game drags" is true about BM-style games anyway, so extra Smithies and/or Journeymen are always helpful. I think of any drawer you want at least 2 at some point, even Envoy, although Envoy is a special case, because you need more resilience against greening, meaning money.

[DG]

The whole "if the game drags" is true about BM-style games anyway, so extra Smithies and/or Journeymen are always helpful.

But when is a second journeyman more helpful than a duchy?

[Davio]

The whole "if the game drags" is true about BM-style games anyway, so extra Smithies and/or Journeymen are always helpful.

But when is a second journeyman more helpful than a duchy?

With these kinds of problems, I find it's better to just get the second drawer ASAP, because when you're waiting for a certain threshold, you could indeed be well into Duchy territory and curse yourself for not being able or having wanted to pick one up earlier.

The effect of better drag resilience outweighs the early terminal collisions for me.
These BM-style games tend to follow a certain flow where you'll either be able to get to 5 Provinces quickly or have to fight the Duchy drag. Having an extra drawer helps with both.

[werothegreat]

Tonight I'm going to play a few test games against bots to see the relative speed of Journeyman+BM strategies.

For both Province and Colony games:
*Control (one Journeyman, green at first $8)
*Two Journeymen
*One Journeyman, belay greening till second $8
*Two Journeymen, belay greening till second $8
*Three Journeymen

[ragingduckd]

Well, it's at least a Smithy.



Strategy improvements? Dominiate with Journeyman

[Davio]

Getting a second Journeyman without the condition does seem to up the percentage and so does never skipping Copper.

[Titandrake]

Off topic, but Masq-BM seems to lose 35-65 to BigSmithy on Dominiate. I thought Masq-BM was supposed to beat Smithy-BM. Unless there's been a new understanding of how to play it I don't see why it's so much better.

[ragingduckd]

Off topic, but Masq-BM seems to lose 35-65 to BigSmithy on Dominiate. I thought Masq-BM was supposed to beat Smithy-BM. Unless there's been a new understanding of how to play it I don't see why it's so much better.

The strategy is only as good as its code. I'm pretty sure that rspeer's goal was to create a framework for others to use rather than to define optimal strategies. Many of the default strategies could be improved upon.

[DG]

Geronimo's sim has it 51-44 in favor of masquerade. There is likely to be something going on with the decision to trash a copper when you might need it for gold or a duchy. The BigJourneyman script makes draw calculations based on the whole deck rather than the draw deck and this will lose some efficiency.

[SCSN]

Geronimo's sim has it 51-44 in favor of masquerade. There is likely to be something going on with the decision to trash a copper when you might need it for gold or a duchy. The BigJourneyman script makes draw calculations based on the whole deck rather than the draw deck and this will lose some efficiency.

In pure BM-Masq, how often do you want to trash Copper when it doesn't directly help you with buying a better card? My (quite simplistic) understanding is that you don't want alot of Copper trashing in BM games with Provinces because it will make you choke on green much faster. But there's surely some sort of trade off, as buying Cache for $6 is usually pretty terrible, as is BM-Beggar.

A similar issue arises with Counterfeit. In a recent game with Courtyard and Counterfeit, I started greening after 2 Courtyards and 3 Counterfeits (picking up Golds later). Because I had been mindlessly trashing Copper each time I got my Counterfeits, I stalled hard, and was eventually outrun by some wacky Squire-Courtyard-Merchant Guild engine. It feels like I totally botched it, but at the same time I'm not quite sure what I should have done differently, besides perhaps not trashing Copper so aggressively and getting a Gold or two earlier. Here's the log.

[DG]

In that counterfeit game you went green too early. At least one gold was needed. A masquerade has the advantage of trashing estates before the copper so the effects of greening are much less.

[SCSN]

In that counterfeit game you went green too early. At least one gold was needed. A masquerade has the advantage of trashing estates before the copper so the effects of greening are much less.

I bought my first Province on T7, another on T8 and then a Gold on both T9 and T10, and then again a Province on T11, after which I got a fresh reshuffle. I agree that getting a Gold over the first (and maybe the second also?) Province would have been better in general, but I'm not seeing how interchanging any of of the purchases in those 5 turns would have had any effect on the subsequent game here, let alone how it could affect the outcome in any significant way.

[Titandrake]

My gut feeling is that 2 Counterfeits is as much as you want in Big Money. Otherwise you run out of Treasures to trash too quickly. You buy some Coppers to feed Counterfeit, which I think is the right call if you already have the Counterfeits, but ideally you don't want to do that very often. Say you have $10 + 2 buys after a Counterfeit play; if you know your deck can last you're free to double Duchy or Prov + Estate instead of thinking about whether to pick up Copper.

[WanderingWinder]

Geronimo's sim has it 51-44 in favor of masquerade. There is likely to be something going on with the decision to trash a copper when you might need it for gold or a duchy. The BigJourneyman script makes draw calculations based on the whole deck rather than the draw deck and this will lose some efficiency.

In pure BM-Masq, how often do you want to trash Copper when it doesn't directly help you with buying a better card?

Basically every time. You aren't going to get to the point where you are crashing from having too few coppers. Or if you were, it just means you want more silvers or golds before greening.