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[Tables]

You're playing a two player game, and your partway through your turn. You've done things already, and as a result the game is ending this turn. And ending the game this turn was probably pretty stupid - you're 85 VPs behind, and you only have a single card (action) in hand and nothing on deck or in your discard. Sighing, you play that one action. After fully resolving it, you do nothing else in your turn (end your action phase and skip your buy phase), and win the game

What was the card, and what happened?

(As far as I know there's only one solution, although you can change some of the details to get slightly different results. As a bonus, what's the maximum VPs you can win by?)

[DStu]

You probably want to exclude something like that (turn 5)

Edit: Not exactly like that, but you should get the point. Having KC and Bridges in play, and doing some weird infinite Ironworks gain. Or was that the solution?

[Tables]

The puzzle already excludes that... as you explicitly only play one action then end your turn.

edit: Although I should mention more clearly that you don't have any 'open' KC's or Throne rooms in play (i.e. you can't play your action 3 times)

[Thisisnotasmile]

You probably want to exclude something like that (turn 5)

Edit: Not exactly like that, but you should get the point. Having KC and Bridges in play, and doing some weird infinite Ironworks gain. Or was that the solution?

I'm guessing that's not it as you don't do anything after playing your single action card, so you can't gain stuff and then go on to play that stuff.

My guess is that the solution involves playing Masquerade, passing nothing and getting something big in return such as a Colony which drops yous opponent's Gardens by a point each and increases your Fairgrounds and Silk Roads for a huge point swing

Not going to calculate it though because I'm not a huge fan of the "add up a whole load of small numbers and see if you can get the biggest number" style puzzles.

[Deadlock39]

Certainly not the answer, but it's the only thought that came to my mind.

You are currently being Possessed.  Your opponent directed you to trash 86 or more VP from your deck during your turn. The action (he made) you play at the end of the turn doesn't matter.  Your VP get returned to you at the end of the turn, the game ends and you are ahead.

I don't know if I can really claim that you are technically 85VP down when your cards are temporarily in the trash or not, but oh well.

[Deadlock39]

Masquerade, passing nothing and getting something big in return such as a Colony which drops yous opponent's Gardens by a point each and increases your Fairgrounds and Silk Roads for a huge point swing

I don't think it is possible to not pass any cards with Masq if your deck contains any victory cards, but idea should work the same way by decreasing the value of your opponents Fairgrounds, ect.

I'm not sure we can get there...
20 point swing from the Colony
8 points from Gardens
16 points from Fairgrounds
8 points from Silk Road

This gets us to a 52 point swing.  Am I forgetting any VP cards that can be affected by losing a Colony.  Vineyards would have to lose an action, which is going to be less points than the Colony swap, so I think it is out.

A 3 player game could get another 16 points from Gardens, SR, and Fairgrounds, but that is still short at 68.

Edit:
With a full Black market deck in the game, you might get Vineyards, Gardens or Fairgrounds up to enough points that trading one would cause a massive VP swing

Checking a previous puzzle, I see Vineyards can get up to 57 points.  That might go up a few points from expansions that have been added since then.  It is worth 0 to you as the recipient, but it can still decrease your opponents Fairgrounds, Gardens and Silk Roads.  32 points from there + a loss of 57 from a Vineyards gets to a 89 point swing, so it would be enough to satisfy the puzzle. 

I suspect the intended solution is simpler.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Masquerade, passing nothing and getting something big in return such as a Colony which drops yous opponent's Gardens by a point each and increases your Fairgrounds and Silk Roads for a huge point swing

I don't think it is possible to not pass any cards with Masq if your deck contains any victory cards, but idea should work the same way by decreasing the value of your opponents Fairgrounds, ect.

I'm not sure we can get there...
20 point swing from the Colony
8 points from Gardens
16 points from Fairgrounds
8 points from Silk Road

This gets us to a 52 point swing.  Am I forgetting any VP cards that can be affected by losing a Colony.  Vineyards would have to lose an action, which is going to be less points than the Colony swap, so I think it is out.

A 3 player game could get another 16 points from Gardens, SR, and Fairgrounds, but that is still short at 68.

It is vital that you don't pass anything otherwise the Gardens point drop/increase (depending on who has them) wouldn't work. Luckily the OP stipulates that "you only have a single card (action) in hand and nothing on deck or in your discard", so we're fine. I guess any non-playable cards we have are on an Island or Native Village mat.

[Deadlock39]

Whoops, I overlooked Island/NV for hiding cards.  Either way, the point gain to you or point loss to your opponent have the same max value, so it doesn't matter whose deck those are in.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Another idea to work with might be that Opponent has a vineyard and a load of generic green cards adding up to 85 points. You play Masquerade and get passed the Vineyard which causes a huge point swing because you have all 110 action cards in the kingdom + the entire BM deck worth of actions (which is where the Vineyard came from but you took your opponent's BM off him on a previous Masquerade). Does something along those lines come up with enough points?

[Deadlock39]

I think it works.  I ran through that idea in an Edit to my other post, so you may not have noticed it.I think it works if you throw in the Fairgrounds, Gardens, and Silk Roads too.  I checked max value of Vineyards from a previous post and found 57, but that was before Hinterlands, and maybe Cornucopia.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Only problem is if you have Gardens, Silk Road and Fairgrounds in the kingdom then there are less actions available for the Vineyards

Probably still just about works though.

[Deadlock39]

Good call.  With extra actions from the newer expansions and the extra 4 points that were already there, it is probably still covered as you said.  It seems unlikely that is the OPs solution though.

[Captain_Frisk]

I think having your opponent pass you the vineyards is cheating though... the opponent has 5 cards in hand... if passing any of them to you results in you winning, he'll pass something else.

Unless we're talking about a 3+ player game, in which both you the player before you have exactly 1 card in active deck?

[Ozle]

Workshop a Garden and already have a 849 card deck?

[WanderingWinder]

I think having your opponent pass you the vineyards is cheating though... the opponent has 5 cards in hand... if passing any of them to you results in you winning, he'll pass something else.

Unless we're talking about a 3+ player game, in which both you the player before you have exactly 1 card in active deck?

Not if he has 5 in his hand...

[Deadlock39]

Workshop a Garden and already have a 849 card deck?

You can only make it to that many cards if you allow "unlimited treasures".  I think that option (variant?) was discussed a bit too much in a recent puzzle.

[jomini]

Alternate victory cards can give rise to the following outcomes for passing a single standard VP card:
8 points from gardens by crossing a threshold (all gardens on the NV mat)
16 points from bumping up fairgrounds
8 points for bumping up silk roads
8 points for bumping up 8 dukes (gain a duchy only)
8 points for bumping up a vineyard (gain an action, like island)

So total possible swing from alternate VP is only 8+16+8+8 = 40 for a single card. One cannot get both a duchy & an action with a single card so you cannot get both the vineyard points and they duke points. With a 6 point swing for passing the duchy itself, that leaves us with 46 points moving. While massive, is not what the OP has in mind. The max swing from one card passing hands is 20 points for a colony, which makes it less than swapping a duchy with all dukes in play.

Passing a single VP alternate VP card have the following limitations:
Max values per card (note I'm assuming that the regular VP cards, including colony, can be used to make the distributions such that both players on right on the cusp for fairgrounds and silk roads):

Passing a garden: 24 point swing from silk roads & fairgrounds. This still leaves you needing a 610 cards in play (e.g. 310 per player) to make this hit a 85 point swing. I believe I remember there is no specified limit on treasures, so you could in theory setup with whatever you want and eventually get here.

Passing a fairground: This could swing up to 16 points for gardens and silk roads, this would then require you to have 175 unique cards in play per player; this would require gaining 155 cards from the black market per player.


Passing a vineyard: You can get a swing of 32 from gardens, fairgrounds, and silk roads. This leaves us needing to find 53 points to swing. That means we need 159 action cards. That leaves us with 8 kingdom stacks (bane) full of actions to exhaust 80 cards, this would require us to gain 79 actions from the black market deck assuming the vineyard was gained there as well. With only vineyards we could have 110 actions in play (bane) which would require gaining 145 actions out of the black market deck (and the vineyard itself).

I can see two ways of causing most of these point swings:
1. Masq with nothing in hand/draw & gain this card. This has the upshot of taking from one player & giving to the other. However, with vineyard only one player can have all those actions so it is pretty moot. If we don't want this to be a helpmate, then we can say that you played a bunch of cut purses on a hand of four coppers & his vineyard.
2. Swindle. If there is nothing in the supply of the correct price, you are just SoL and lose the VP card. So I swindle your only vineyard into nothing (I have exactly one swindler and one NV in my deck, everything else is VP & treasures on the NV mat) and poof go the points.

[Ozle]

Yeah, wasnt supposed to be a serious answer, thats why I didnt use spoiler tags

[Ozle]

Also, im not sure any of these Vinyard/Fairground solutions work
because You have no cards in your discard pile either. So where are you keeping all these other cards? You can only keep 8 on the island mat


hmm, thinking about it You could put most on the Native village mat, and then island off the last native village. But whats that, 100+ turns while your oppoenent is passing each round

[GendoIkari]

Also, im not sure any of these Vinyard/Fairground solutions work
because You have no cards in your discard pile either. So where are you keeping all these other cards? You can only keep 8 on the island mat


hmm, thinking about it You could put most on the Native village mat, and then island off the last native village. But whats that, 100+ turns while your oppoenent is passing each round

[superextranitpicky]You can actually store 24 cards on your Island mat (plus the 8 Islands) with King's Court[/superextranitpicky]

[jotheonah]

Alternate victory cards can give rise to the following outcomes for passing a single standard VP card:
8 points from gardens by crossing a threshold (all gardens on the NV mat)
16 points from bumping up fairgrounds
8 points for bumping up silk roads
8 points for bumping up 8 dukes (gain a duchy only)
8 points for bumping up a vineyard (gain an action, like island)

So total possible swing from alternate VP is only 8+16+8+8 = 40 for a single card. One cannot get both a duchy & an action with a single card so you cannot get both the vineyard points and they duke points.

Couldn't you get both the Duke and the Vineyards points by gaining a Duchess with your Duchy?

[GendoIkari]

Alternate victory cards can give rise to the following outcomes for passing a single standard VP card:
8 points from gardens by crossing a threshold (all gardens on the NV mat)
16 points from bumping up fairgrounds
8 points for bumping up silk roads
8 points for bumping up 8 dukes (gain a duchy only)
8 points for bumping up a vineyard (gain an action, like island)

So total possible swing from alternate VP is only 8+16+8+8 = 40 for a single card. One cannot get both a duchy & an action with a single card so you cannot get both the vineyard points and they duke points.

Couldn't you get both the Duke and the Vineyards points by gaining a Duchess with your Duchy?

In this case, we're talking about getting a Duchy through Masquerade, which is different than gaining a Duchy. You can't take a Duchess when you get a Duchy through Masq.

[WanderingWinder]

Since you're in the middle of your turn, you can actually have stored everything on the NV mat and played an NV this turn. No need for islands.

[eHalcyon]

The puzzle says really little about what has already happened during your turn.  Going with the already-proposed Masquerade idea, what if you had already played King's Court, so this "one action" (Masquerade) gets played three times?

Is that against the spirit of the puzzle?  It's a bit ambiguous to me.

[def]

That's clarified in reply # 2.

[aaron0013]

Could it possibly have something to do with playing Golem and fully resolving it by using a Native Village or Black Market or something?

[Deadlock39]

...there might be a solution there.  Possibly a Golem that hits two Swindlers that turn two supercharged Black Market Vineyards into nothing.   

That's the easiest Golem solution I can come up with, but it probably isn't intended.  The OP mentioned that it is just one action and there aren't any pending King's Courts or Throne Rooms, so Golem just seems like one additional loop hole.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Golem is excluded because you have no cards in your deck or discard...

[ftl]

Well, if the one action is Golem, you can make that chain to a huge number of actions, I think. Golem -> Draw Library and King's Court, Library draws 6 king's courts and a golem, so you king's court a king's court (x6) and KC a golem...

I bet there's a way to make that single chain include enough bridges/highways/ironworks/workshops/black markets/whatever to gain/buy whatever the heck is necessary for the 85 VPs.

[aaron0013]

If only there were some way to get the cards off the NV mat before playing the Golem.....

[Davio]

I had thought that it was Masquerade too...


If we Masq a Vineyard over or use Possession + Ambassador, we could get a lot of points.

With YW in the BM, we can have 11 * 10 action cards in the regular supply for 110 action cards.
With a full BM there are 128 action cards in there, having counted prizes too (if my quick 'calculator.exe' math is correct).

So this gives a total of 238 action cards and makes each Vineyard worth 79 points.

Of course, this Vineyard also triggers:
Gardens: 1 VP
Silk Roads: 1 VP
Fairgrounds: 2 VP

This would give a total of 83 VP, but I'm sure there's something I overlooked...

[ftl]

If only there were some way to get the cards off the NV mat before playing the Golem.....

Oh, right, you can have an endless NV mat...

In that case, you can Play a golem, drawing an NV and a King's Court; play the NV first, drawing 9 more KCs, 3 bridges, and 10 ironworks and 5 workshops; playing the KC second, then chaining KC->KC->[x10 KCs]. By my count, that gives you 18 actions to play 3 times each; the first 3 are bridges, making colonies and everything else gainable, the other 15 are the gainers which then let you gain more than 85 vp by pile-driving the colonies AND provinces and having a bunch of gains still left over.

Does that work? I

[Ozle]

No, because you have nothing in your library to draw...

[ftl]

Oh, nothing in your deck or discard. Heh. Missed that, somehow. So definitely not a Golem-based solution, then.

[Deadlock39]

I had thought that it was Masquerade too...


If we Masq a Vineyard over or use Possession + Ambassador, we could get a lot of points.

With YW in the BM, we can have 11 * 10 action cards in the regular supply for 110 action cards.
With a full BM there are 128 action cards in there, having counted prizes too (if my quick 'calculator.exe' math is correct).

So this gives a total of 238 action cards and makes each Vineyard worth 79 points.

Of course, this Vineyard also triggers:
Gardens: 1 VP
Silk Roads: 1 VP
Fairgrounds: 2 VP

This would give a total of 83 VP, but I'm sure there's something I overlooked...

Take Gardens, Fairgrounds and Silk Road out of the Black Market.  This drops Vineyards by 9 points (-9 action cards for each stack moved into the Black Market), but increases the others to 8, 16 and 8 points which is a net gain of 19 points and a total of 98.   This is the solution TINAS and I discussed, but never did the BM calculations for.

[eHalcyon]

That's clarified in reply # 2.

Ah.  Read it before the edit.

[aaron0013]

I know, I know, I know!!! The card that was played was a Ghost Ship, and it was the 10th one you had played on that turn. Your opponent resigned after the 9th one. Therefore, you win after skipping your buy phase.

A stroke of genius.

[Thisisnotasmile]

I know, I know, I know!!! The card that was played was a Ghost Ship, and it was the 10th one you had played on that turn. Your opponent resigned after the 9th one. Therefore, you win after skipping your buy phase.

A stroke of genius.

But why would you resign after 9 Ghost Ship's in a turn? Only the first one does any damage...

[Tables]

Somehow, after ensuring I'd checked every possible alternate victory card so there wasn't anything else that could screw up the puzzle, I somehow overlooked Vineyards existing TWICE. My original solution didn't use Vineyards, but it looks like it could just about beat my solution if optimised. Fortunately, I don't need to do anything nearly as complex... if the game is set up correctly, at least.

Here is what I was originally thinking:

Pre-req stuff: The game is a Black Market game with a full Black Market deck (i.e. every kingdom card not in the game is in it). It is also a Colony game, and because of BM (or otherwise) Potion is in the supply. In the supply there are Fairgrounds, Silk Roads, Black Market and Gardens as well as various other cards. You have lots of victory cards still - you've put them all on your native village mat. You have over 165 different cards in your deck - There are 10 basic cards and 157 kingdom cards, which you have one of each of. Your opponent also has 20 different cards.

The action you play is Masquerade. You draw nothing, and pass nothing. Your opponent passes you a Fairgrounds (the fact the game has taken this long probably means your opponent has been playing strangely anyway, but if you really need the confirmation, he has 5 Fairgrounds in hand). That loses him 8 VPs, and gains you 66. It also puts you up to a multiple of 4 victory cards and drops him away from 1, gaining you 8 VPs from Silk Roads, and the same for a multiple of 10 for Gardens (he has to have at least 1 SR or 1 Garden to have the 20 different cards. Fortunately it's a two player game so him losing points is as good as you gaining them). That's immediately a difference of 66+8 (Fairgrounds)+8 (SR)+8 (Gardens), for a swing of 90 points.

Now, for added insanity (not that I expect anyone to want to solve this...), what if the same conditions as I originally stated held (play one action & fully resolve it etc.) except you have any number of cards on deck, in your discard and in hand? You can still play an absurdly large number of actions, thanks to Throne Room, King's Court and Golem. It's enough that I certainly don't want to tackle the problem .

[aaron0013]

I know, I know, I know!!! The card that was played was a Ghost Ship, and it was the 10th one you had played on that turn. Your opponent resigned after the 9th one. Therefore, you win after skipping your buy phase.

A stroke of genius.

But why would you resign after 9 Ghost Ship's in a turn? Only the first one does any damage...

Okay, not so genius-ish, but Mountebank or Torturer could do it.

[Insomniac]

You previously played 10 Goons and 10 Bridges. Your last card is Monument. You buy 8 Colonies (The game is ending on piles) You buy 8 Provinces and 5 Duchies. (21 buys).

The Goons net you 10 points a buy 10*21=210. The 8 Colonies net you 80. The 8 Provinces net you 48 and the 5 duchies net you 30. Monument adds 1

Total Change=369

Since you have 1 card in hand and 0 in deck/discard you cannot have vp cards already. I think this way nets more points than alternate strategies

[Thisisnotasmile]

You previously played 10 Goons and 10 Bridges. Your last card is Monument. You buy 8 Colonies (The game is ending on piles) You buy 8 Provinces and 5 Duchies. (21 buys).

The Goons net you 10 points a buy 10*21=210. The 8 Colonies net you 80. The 8 Provinces net you 48 and the 5 duchies net you 30. Monument adds 1

Total Change=369

Since you have 1 card in hand and 0 in deck/discard you cannot have vp cards already. I think this way nets more points than alternate strategies

Only problem with this is that it completely ignores the rules of the puzzle.

[chwhite]

The action is a Black Market.
Your deck consists of a boatload of Actions, all on the table,including at least ten Goons some Hagglers, a King's Court, and another Black Market with which you had previously played a Potion.  It also includes some Fairgrounds and Gardens tucked under the Native Village mat.  Let's assume your opponent has seven Colonies and Provinces and enough points from Monuments to actually be ahead by 85, unrealistic as that may seem.

Previous to playing the Black Market, you had played a King's Court, so you get three buys from the BM deck, all of which you can easily afford.  Let's say you pick up Border Village (which gets Gardens from the main board), Silk Road, and Vineyards.  They're worth at least 30 VP from Goons, plus with the excess Haggler gains you can boost your Fairgrounds by 4 VP each and your Gardens by 2 VP each, and of course the Gardens, Vineyards, and Silk Road you buy will be worth a bunch of points too.

That should hopefully do it, I'll leave it to others to actually optimize the points.

[eHalcyon]

The action is a Black Market.
Your deck consists of a boatload of Actions, all on the table,including at least ten Goons some Hagglers, a King's Court, and another Black Market with which you had previously played a Potion.  It also includes some Fairgrounds and Gardens tucked under the Native Village mat.  Let's assume your opponent has seven Colonies and Provinces and enough points from Monuments to actually be ahead by 85, unrealistic as that may seem.

Previous to playing the Black Market, you had played a King's Court, so you get three buys from the BM deck, all of which you can easily afford.  Let's say you pick up Border Village (which gets Gardens from the main board), Silk Road, and Vineyards.  They're worth at least 30 VP from Goons, plus with the excess Haggler gains you can boost your Fairgrounds by 4 VP each and your Gardens by 2 VP each, and of course the Gardens, Vineyards, and Silk Road you buy will be worth a bunch of points too.

That should hopefully do it, I'll leave it to others to actually optimize the points.

It wasn't specified in the OP, but it was later clarified that there are no King's Courts in play.

[Axxle]

The action is a Black Market.
Your deck consists of a boatload of Actions, all on the table,including at least ten Goons some Hagglers, a King's Court, and another Black Market with which you had previously played a Potion.  It also includes some Fairgrounds and Gardens tucked under the Native Village mat.  Let's assume your opponent has seven Colonies and Provinces and enough points from Monuments to actually be ahead by 85, unrealistic as that may seem.

Previous to playing the Black Market, you had played a King's Court, so you get three buys from the BM deck, all of which you can easily afford.  Let's say you pick up Border Village (which gets Gardens from the main board), Silk Road, and Vineyards.  They're worth at least 30 VP from Goons, plus with the excess Haggler gains you can boost your Fairgrounds by 4 VP each and your Gardens by 2 VP each, and of course the Gardens, Vineyards, and Silk Road you buy will be worth a bunch of points too.

That should hopefully do it, I'll leave it to others to actually optimize the points.

It wasn't specified in the OP, but it was later clarified that there are no King's Courts in play.

And you can't buy anything...

[Deadlock39]

Hmm, I don't know.  The King's Court isn't allowed as per the clarification in the third post, but the initial puzzle says "...you play that one action. After fully resolving it, you do nothing else in your turn (end your action phase and skip your buy phase), and win the game".  It doesn't say you can't buy anything, it just says you skip your buy phase. Black Market isn't part of your buy phase, and I would consider buying a card from Black Market to be part of "fully resolving it".  You can only get 10VP from Goons on the one buy, but if you bought a card costing $7 or more and then Haggle into 10 Border Villages, which let you pick up the whole stack of Gardens, and a couple of Silk Roads.  Unless I am missing another restriction it looks like a valid answer.

[O]

4 player solution

Masquerade a gardens. P2/P3 have no deck, P4 has 5 gardens (ambassador/torturer/thief/masquerade works without trashing))
12 Fairgrounds (*2) = 24
12 Silkroads (*1) = 12
Gardens = "X" points

Opponent: (p2)
11 Gardens = -11
-Gardens (him)

11+24+12=47 so Gardens (you)+Gardens (him) = 36 EDIT: DOHH, math is useful. 38....

90 set actions (YW, BM +Deck) + ([Fairgrounds, SR, Gardens, Island, Estate, Duchy, Province, Colony]) *12 + (plat*12+Golden*30+Silver*40+copper*60)+Curse*30 +9 original starting estates = 367)

You have 6 cards able to be trashed (you pass one card to P2 to make this work)

Summary: Supply = Fairgrounds + Silk Road + Gardens + Native Village + Island + Black Market + Young Witch + Ambassador + Masquerade (9 cards out of 11)
Somewhere in supply/BM deck: Thief/Torturer/Monument (guarantees the possibility of a 85 point spread in the above situation)


Edit: Yes, I know the problem asked for 2P. I was wondering if anyone could improve on this to make take out the two intermediate players.

[blueblimp]

Haven't read any spoilers yet, so this may be duplicate, but:


Play Black Market, buying a King's Court. This triggers the 10 Hagglers you have in play, with which you gain 10 Border Villages. From these, you gain 8 Duchies (which are worth a total of 8*3 + 8*8 = 88 points due to the 8 Dukes you bought earlier in the game) and 2 Estates, for a total of +90 points.

Edit: Oh, and the Dukes were on your Island mat or NV mat, whichever you prefer.

[chwhite]

The action is a Black Market.
Your deck consists of a boatload of Actions, all on the table,including at least ten Goons some Hagglers, a King's Court, and another Black Market with which you had previously played a Potion.  It also includes some Fairgrounds and Gardens tucked under the Native Village mat.  Let's assume your opponent has seven Colonies and Provinces and enough points from Monuments to actually be ahead by 85, unrealistic as that may seem.

Previous to playing the Black Market, you had played a King's Court, so you get three buys from the BM deck, all of which you can easily afford.  Let's say you pick up Border Village (which gets Gardens from the main board), Silk Road, and Vineyards.  They're worth at least 30 VP from Goons, plus with the excess Haggler gains you can boost your Fairgrounds by 4 VP each and your Gardens by 2 VP each, and of course the Gardens, Vineyards, and Silk Road you buy will be worth a bunch of points too.

That should hopefully do it, I'll leave it to others to actually optimize the points.

It wasn't specified in the OP, but it was later clarified that there are no King's Courts in play.

And you can't buy anything...

It says you don't do anything in your buy phase, not that you don't buy anything.

[Razzishi]

I find it highly amusing that there's one card that features in both solutions, doing completely different things.  I also hate the card quite a lot.  The best I can do without it is Masquerading (or Swindling, as all the variable VP work in either direction) a Vineyards for a 65 point swing.  Gaining an Island tops out at 42.

[blueblimp]

I find it highly amusing that there's one card that features in both solutions, doing completely different things.  I also hate the card quite a lot.  The best I can do without it is Masquerading (or Swindling, as all the variable VP work in either direction) a Vineyards for a 65 point swing.  Gaining an Island tops out at 42.

If you're swindling, assuming you have Bridges/Highways in play allows you to swindle your target into a curse, if that helps.

[Axxle]

And you can't buy anything...

It says you don't do anything in your buy phase, not that you don't buy anything.

I am terrible at reading anything on these forums... 

[Tables]

I think the Black Market solution works very well. That's definitely one I didn't think of in the puzzle. Nice job.

[Ozle]

Except it uses a Kings Court in play...

[blueblimp]

Except it uses a Kings Court in play...

Huh? Mine doesn't. It just needed to buy something worth at least $7 to trigger the Hagglers. Could have been a Forge too.

[Ozle]

Didn't realise there was more than one, too much damn hidden text!

[jomini]

Haven't read any spoilers yet, so this may be duplicate, but:


Play Black Market, buying a King's Court. This triggers the 10 Hagglers you have in play, with which you gain 10 Border Villages. From these, you gain 8 Duchies (which are worth a total of 8*3 + 8*8 = 88 points due to the 8 Dukes you bought earlier in the game) and 2 Estates, for a total of +90 points.

Edit: Oh, and the Dukes were on your Island mat or NV mat, whichever you prefer.

If we are allowed to do black market buys, then we could build off this solution to do BM with 10 hagglers in play:
Buy a BM bank:

You currently have on your NV mat (NV pulled from the BM): 8 gardens, 8 fairgrounds and 8 vineyards.

You use the hagglers to acquire 10 BV which are used to gain 6 actions (bane) from the kingdom, a duchy (with duchess), a gold, an estate, a copper, and a silver. All of these cards unique to your deck. Net card gain 22. Net unique card gain 12. Net action gain 16.

This, coincidentally, tips you over the threshold for each of your alternate VP cards.
Net gain:
24 points from gardens
48 points from fairgrounds
40 points from vineyards
3 points for a duchy
1 point for an estate

net total:
116

I believe we could juice BB's solution further by playing around with dukes but that requires a way to empty & play even more piles before getting to the BM - right now I'm just going for you got a BM, then pulled bridge, KC, TR, IW, workshop, and an ecletic draw engine out the BM deck before splurging.