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[theParty]

This game is interesting to me primarily because I avoided chapel, which I debated about for a while at the opening.  I'm interested in strategies which beat generally dominant cards like chapel/ambassador/etc.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111216-142833-2839e62f.html
(I should note, ackack has routinely beat me, so this game is an anomaly for us).

I believe ackack has his chapel not quite hit well, but I'm not sure if it would have mattered in terms of outcome, though might have made the score closer.  With the presence of Bank, it makes those wharf turns too good, and hard to justify cleaning out coppers.  Anyway, I open siver/silver, in the hopes of getting a wharf, maybe two, to start off with.  I end up with a wharf and a crossroads after the reshuffle.  Crossroads here was obviously a key card and really makes those wharf turns unbelievable. 

Curious of people's thoughts - if you remove bank OR crossroads, do you think chapel becomes dominant there?  Obviously without either, I think chapel is necessary.  Is one more necessary? 

Really, I think I'm curious of when it is okay to avoid chapel.  Maybe there is no firm heuristic, but thought it might be worth discussing.

[Titandrake]

It's pretty difficult to judge exactly how much utility you get out of trashing a card, but here's my thoughts on this:

1) Chapeling down to 1 Copper, 2 Silver for treasure might not have been the best move. Especially when you need money to pick up Wharf/Bazaar as fast as possible, getting 1 component per turn is too slow. My gut reaction is that playing Chapel exactly once might win out, but gut reactions have a tendency to be wrong.
2) More generally, Chapel tends to not be as good where there's a strategy without Chapel that ends the game quickly enough. Most of the time, the tempo you lose early on with Chapel is made up for in the later turns, when your deck takes off. But if the game's fast enough without Chapel, then you might not have the time to regain that tempo. If memory serves correctly, Envoy-BM > Chapel-Envoy-BM > Chapel-BM.

[chwhite]

I'd say that the presence of Masquerade is a good reason to avoid Chapel... but Masquerade is normally a dominant card itself so maybe that's not what you're looking for.

I've had some success taking Remake instead of Chapel, and obviously Gardens strategies also throw a wrench into Chapel/Ambassador.  I imagine that Unstoppable Hunting Party Stacks might often be faster, especially given something like a Militia/Silver opening.   Here's a game where Remake plus Moneylender is fast enough to outpace Chapel (it also features the most hilarious Bane card): http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110907-170332-d43b9bc3.html

[rspeer]

Wharf alone seems to beat Chapel/Wharf in a Province game.

The problem with Chapel/Wharf is that you either have to ramp up too slowly or risk drawing cards that aren't there.

These are the strategies I used to simulate this in Dominiate, after repeatedly tweaking each to increase its win rate against the other:

Code: [Select]

{
  name: 'Wharf'
  author: 'rspeer'
  requires: ['Wharf']
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Colony" if my.countInDeck("Platinum") > 0
    "Province" if state.countInSupply("Colony") <= 6 and my.getTotalMoney() >= 18
    "Wharf" if my.countInDeck("Wharf") < 1
    "Platinum"
    "Gold"
    "Wharf" if my.countInDeck("Wharf") < 2
    "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 6
    "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
    "Silver"
    "Copper" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
  ]
}

{
  name: 'ChapelWharf'
  author: 'rspeer'
  requires: ['Chapel', 'Wharf']
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Colony" if my.countInDeck("Platinum") > 0
    "Province" if state.countInSupply("Colony") <= 6 and my.getTotalMoney() >= 18
    "Wharf" if my.countInDeck("Wharf") < 1
    "Platinum"
    "Gold"
    "Wharf" if my.countInDeck("Wharf") < 2 and my.getTotalMoney() >= 12
    "Duchy" if 0 < state.gainsToEndGame() <= 5
    "Estate" if 0 < state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
    "Chapel" if my.coins <= 3 and my.countInDeck("Chapel") == 0 and my.turnsTaken <= 2
    "Silver"
    "Copper" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
  ]

  trashPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Curse"
    "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() > 4
    "Copper" if my.getTotalMoney() > 4\
             and not (my.countInDeck("Wharf") == 0 and my.getTreasureInHand() == 5)
    "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() > 2
  ]

}

These strategies allow for Colonies too, in which case of course the non-Chapel bot loses horribly.

[jotheonah]

I've had games where I buy both Crossroads and Chapel and then I'm like "Whoa, this Crossroads is going to be pretty useless until the end of the game." So it seems to me if your strategy involves Crossroads, skip the Chapel. Especially if there's a better way to trash your Coppers like Loan/Mine/Moneylender/Spice Merchant

[DG]

Really, I think I'm curious of when it is okay to avoid chapel.  Maybe there is no firm heuristic, but thought it might be worth discussing.

When you can buy up the vp cards faster without a chapel. Quite straightforward. We play kingdoms without chapels most of the time and the other kingdom cards don't get worse when chapels are around. A lot of other reasons can occur, especially in multiplayer, but the most obvious reason shouldn't be overlooked.

[ackack]

When you can buy up the vp cards faster without a chapel. Quite straightforward . . . but the most obvious reason shouldn't be overlooked.

This is a non-answer, basically saying it's better when it's better. The obvious question given this response (and the major component of the question implicit in the original post, which is "when does avoiding Chapel increase my chances of winning?") is "when can you buy up the VP cards faster without a chapel?"

I'd say this game clearly demonstrated that this was a board where no Chapel is better. While I didn't start very well in terms of Chapeling, it's also clear that I was miles away from catching up. The partial Chapel suggestion in the thread is one that I considered, but it seems like any increase in density of the good stuff is mitigated by the weakening of Bank and Crossroads, which become quite formidable with an untrimmed deck here.

Since this thread is largely about the question of the relative speed of Chapel - I'm pretty sure everybody is aware that in certain types of decks you don't want to Chapel down because it increases your vulnerability to certain types of attack - I think that Bank/Crossroads gives a good example. Chapel is probably not terribly important when the board has cards that either strongly benefit from or substantially lessen the problems of an untrimmed deck, AND when there's no strong engine that demands a trim deck for reliability. The Envoy example given is good. Other examples of various degrees of relevance - Jack of All Trades, Apothecary, Embassy, Vault, Philosopher's Stone.

[DG]

This is a non-answer, basically saying it's better when it's better.

In the past, many players have talked about their purchase rates for chapels and it was above 90%. Mine is about 75% and I still have a higher win rate than my average without the chapel. Maybe those stats shape my personal view that many players, even top players, buy chapels more often than they should do and don't make a full evaluation of the rest of the kingdom.