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[lespeutere]

I stumbled upon this game I played against Psyduck. I won and he thought he chose the wrong strategy so we replayed it a few times. How would you play here in general - and then in detail, cause that is what it really is about.. ;-)

[XerxesPraelor]

I'm pretty amateur at this game, but I'd go for Ironworks straight away, and pick up some monuments and wandering minstrels once the ironworks are out, after a few turns get a gardens every turn and end the game with ironworks/wandering minstral/gardens.

[Ozle]

I would generally play very poorly, and possibly slowly while I had to remember all the cards.

[TrojH]

Open Chapel/Ironworks. Use the Chapel to trash all the starting Coppers and Estates. Use Ironworks to grab more Ironworks and Wandering Minstrels. Once the engine is ready, dive into the Gardens. End the game with Ironworks, Wandering Minstrels, and Gardens depleting.

I'm basically agreeing with Xerxes here, except that I would open with Chapel, and I wouldn't bother grabbing Monuments. I need to end the game ASAP.

[flies]

first impression is IW/chapel opening, looking at a monument bonanza with minstrels and caravans, buying oasis on 3.  I think you need two IW here. 

OTOH, IW/oasis opening for a hybrid gardens rush might be really strong here, tho.  get several IW to pick up lots of minstrels, monuments and gardens toward the end.  I think this is probably the thing to do, actually, as you are now contesting two piles with the non-gardens strategy (minstrel and monument), so piling out quickly is likely and with the gardens you ought to come out on top.  So you start looking at gaining gardens somewhat late, or as draw when the IW start clogging your hand and you've got spare actions.  Loading up on minstrels is key.  I can't tell if you want any caravans or not. 

militia is much worse than monument playing against the no-chapel opponent, and the chapel'd opponent has lots of caravans it's probably not worth it for the gardens player.

[SCSN]

I guess Ironworks-Gardens wins but I'm not convinced enough to not go for the much more enjoyable alternative of building an engine that plays a whole bunch of Monuments each turn.

I'd Probably open Ironworks/Chapel and get a second Ironworks as soon as possible; then Monuments, Minstrels and Caravans. Had Gardens not been on the board I'd certainly add a couple of Alchemists but against a Gardens player that's going to be terrible. You'll have enough economy to scoop a few Provinces, hopefully enough to squeeze out a win from the Gardens player. One important thing to note is that you want the game to last as long as possible (in the long run you're scoring more off Monuments than your opponent off of a larger deck), so I won't be denying a single Gardens, Duchy or Estate.

Had there been a Smithy or Watchtower on the board I'd certainly expect the engine to be superior.

[Destierro]

There are two main strategies that I see here. There's the simple, but strong, Ironworks/Gardens. I would be tempted to go for this one myself. Then there's the enginey thing with Ironworks/Monument/Wandering Minstrel. This also looks very strong, the big question is "Is it fast enough?".

First, IW Gardens. The rushing player would have several advantages. One: They are competing with the engine for Ironworks. Two: The engine player will need several Wandering MInstrels(At least 5), giving the rush player an easy pile to run out while they are still ahead. Three: Ironworks gardens is very fast. Once on isotropic I had a mirror last 8 turns. It would be difficult to accrue the points advantage before the rushing player simply ends the game.

On the other hand, the engine has a lot of enablers. My opening would be IW/Chapel on 4/3 or 5/2. I would like a second, or possibly even a third Ironworks with which I can pick up every engine piece I would want. Monument is the crux of this engine. It gives money and a quick way to get the points to fight the gardens player from ending it too soon. Expand here is effectively useless, there are no 5s to turn to provinces, and expanding province -> province doesnt help as much here. Militia is fairly important here, but it hurts IW/Gardens less than it hurts other strategies. Caravan will be important, as it is the only source of draw(alchemist is far too slow), and it costs 4$ which means IW can easily pick it up.

The game is going to be a balancing act for the engine player. They are going to need to get enough engine pieces to win, but keep the piles high so they can't pull out a surprise ending.When the piles get low, they have to have the points to keep the rusher from ending it immediately. I would go for the engine here, as I like a challenge, but I would love to see some logs from your games. It looks like it could be very close either way.

[Polk5440]

I am terrible at Gardens games, but I will take a guess anyway: focus on Ironworks Gardens, but instead of trying to empty Estates, grab Monuments and maybe Wandering Minstrels. Focus on emptying the Monument pile if your opponent attempts to build an engine based around it.

Normally engines provide more flexibility, but I think here, Ironworks Gardens has a lot of options against an engine. Especially since that engine needs pieces that help the Gardens player, too. The Ironworks-Gardens player can easily compete for Monument, Wandering Minstrel, Oasis, Caravan, whatever is going to be that third pile.

I think the Ironworks-Gardens mirror is interesting, too. How many Monuments to get and when and whether to switch to gaining Estates could be a difficult road to navigate.

[lespeutere]

The two competing ways here are, as most of us agree, IW/Gardens rush and something based on WM and monuments. For the latter, you definitely want to open IW/chapel, several comments mentioned another IW, either at all or ASAP. In the first game, I went for IW/Gardens while Psyduck had 5/2 and opened militia/chapel (which is also pretty reasonable if you expect your opponent to go chapel, too). He then made the mistake to go for alchemists which was just too slow to do anything against the rush:

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131008/log.505f5ec4a2e6714a97eee844.1381242972237.txt

We then changed sides so that he played the rush and I went IW/chapel to try and beat him. I managed to do that all three times, one of which was very close, though (funnily, it was the one with the highest VP difference, I believe, cause he was 2 cards short of ending it giving me the time to get ahead and another turn to increase the lead and end it). I indeed got a 2nd IW.
In the first game, I left caravans mainly aside, but I found them rather important so I went after them a little more in the following two.
Another thing is denying gardens or not. SCSN says he wouldn't do that at all. I did, when I figured from the second, pretty fast, game that one gardens more for him and one less for me would've led to a loss for me. I didn't try ignoring gardens, though, and ended up with 3 of them in every game. Also note that I bought expand in the first two (which is a clear mistake), and that he also picked up some WM which a) speeds up 3piling, b) enables him to play 2 IW for Gardens in one turn if he happens to hold WM/2 IW or draws a 2nd IW. We didn't have enough time to check what happens if he goes for Gardens earlier, disabling me from stealing 3. So this, and me ignoring Gardens would be interesting to check now. Or somebody try and simulate it, I've never really really dived into simulations.

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131008/log.505f5ec4a2e6714a97eee844.1381244250595.txt
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131008/log.50fa840ae4b0f82020d81dfd.1381244884822.txt
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131008/log.50fa840ae4b0f82020d81dfd.1381245438167.txt

[pingpongsam]

Depends on the opening split.

4/3
Ironworks/Oasis
With some early focus on gaining Oases and buying Ironworks. I would avoid buying any treasure.
Very quickly move to gaining Gardens and buying Oases/Gardens/Estates as available money allows.
Oasis sifts the clog and provides buying power regardless of clog. If I tied or lost the Gardens split I would be hoping for Duchies.

5/2
The Chapel strategy as outlined by TrojH

[flies]

The engine definitely beats straight IW/gardens.  I've played this setup a few times against lord boddington, who does a very decent IW/gardens ('cept he starts with silver instead of oasis), and won basically every time with two IW and no gardens. 

I agree that caravans are very important to the engineer. I would aim for about four of them, starting aiming for IW, IW, WM, car, WM, car, monu, car, WM, car, then alternating monuments and WM with occasional caravan gains, which are key for longevity and help in getting max monument plays.  The few oases you pick up along the way help a lot in getting provinces and dealing with them once they're in the deck.

[flies]

awesome kingdom, tho.