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[Ghacob]

New Puzzle: With a 5-card hand of only terminal actions with no {cards that can play other cards, no Durations, and no Reserves aside from Distant Lands} in the Supply or Black Market, and no Events in a solo game, how can I put 4 Distant Lands onto my Reserve mat in one turn? There are no tokens on any Supply Card.

Disciple is not in the Supply.

Using this silly set of rules, I could just as easily put 12 Distant lands onto the Tavern mat, as well as buy 20 cards from the Black Market deck, and even buy out the whole supply, solution trivial

[werothegreat]

I would ask then what your definition of a terminal action is. As far as I'm concerned, Disciple is not terminal

According to the wiki, a terminal action is an Action card that does not give +Action when played.

But Throne Room variants do, in a broad sense, give extra Action when played, because they allow (or force) you to play another card.  They certainly aren't terminal in the conventional sense, not even soft terminal.  There's a reason why they're sometimes called pseudo-villages.

[Awaclus]

There's a reason why they're sometimes called pseudo-villages.

And for the same reason, I always try to use the term splitter which already includes Throne variants without the need of a "pseudo" in front of it.

[liopoil]

Heck, I don't feel bad about going right ahead and calling anything that is a splitter in any sense at all a village.

[GendoIkari]

Heck, I don't feel bad about going right ahead and calling anything that is a splitter in any sense at all a village.

Agreed. While a more literal definition of a village might be "a card that provides +2 (or more) actions when played"; the entire purpose behind categorizing things as villages in the first place is to answer the question "can you play more than 1 terminal on a turn if this card is available?" And for that question, Throne Room qualifies as much as Village does.

[liopoil]

Here's a puzzle that starts with many solutions, but then I add restrictions and gets harder and probably still has many solutions:

Premise: Infinite supply piles, single player, you choose your initial deckstate and kingdom, but from then on you have the worst possible shuffle luck. Can you guarantee that you can gain a duchy every turn forever, following as many of the below restrictions as possible?

1. Without trashing any duchies, or revealing trader to the duchies.
2. Without setting aside the duchies.
3. Without ever drawing any cards apart from the cleanup phase.
4. Keeping the average cost of cards used below 4 coins. (This includes only cards that show up in your hand sometimes).
5. Without getting to choose your starting deck, only your starting hand.
6. Only using 4 different kingdom cards.

I can think of a solution that fits all 6 restrictions. Feel free to add more! The spoiler in #2 is because it gives a hint to how you might satisfy #1.

[AJD]

Heck, I don't feel bad about going right ahead and calling anything that is a splitter in any sense at all a village.

Agreed. While a more literal definition of a village might be "a card that provides +2 (or more) actions when played"; the entire purpose behind categorizing things as villages in the first place is to answer the question "can you play more than 1 terminal on a turn if this card is available?" And for that question, Throne Room qualifies as much as Village does.

Hmm, well. By that argument we could say a Throne Room qualifies only half as much as a Village does, since you have to have two Throne Rooms in order to play two terminals. (With one Throne Room you can play one terminal, but you play it twice.)

[AJD]

Here's a puzzle that starts with many solutions, but then I add restrictions and gets harder and probably still has many solutions:

I kind of feel like "Easy Puzzles" is not the thread for this?

[liopoil]

Here's a puzzle that starts with many solutions, but then I add restrictions and gets harder and probably still has many solutions:

I kind of feel like "Easy Puzzles" is not the thread for this?

There is no "general dominion puzzles thread" besides this one. I don't think it deserves a thread, and the case without any restrictions should be fairly easy.

[eHalcyon]

Here's a puzzle that starts with many solutions, but then I add restrictions and gets harder and probably still has many solutions:

Premise: Infinite supply piles, single player, you choose your initial deckstate and kingdom, but from then on you have the worst possible shuffle luck. Can you guarantee that you can gain a duchy every turn forever, following as many of the below restrictions as possible?

1. Without trashing any duchies, or revealing trader to the duchies.
2. Without setting aside the duchies.
3. Without ever drawing any cards apart from the cleanup phase.
4. Keeping the average cost of cards used below 4 coins. (This includes only cards that show up in your hand sometimes).
5. Without getting to choose your starting deck, only your starting hand.
6. Only using 4 different kingdom cards.

I can think of a solution that fits all 6 restrictions. Feel free to add more! The spoiler in #2 is because it gives a hint to how you might satisfy #1.

1. Revealing Trader doesn't help anyway.  If you do, you never actually gain Duchy.
4. Uh, is that "only" a mistake?  I assume that you'd also want to include cards that always show up in your hand, not only those that show up sometimes.  And does this count cards that never show up in your hand, e.g. the Duchy itself?

Edit:

By the way, I can do this with the additional restrictions:

7. Only using 2 different kingdom cards.
8. Gaining Province instead of Duchy.

My average cost is lower too, but it depends on exactly what cards you are counting.  If you only count cards in hand, my average is $2. 

Hand is 5 Fool's Gold.  Buy Travelling Fair, Mandarin, Province.

[eHalcyon]

Alternatively, I can do it with these restrictions:

7. Only using 3 different kingdom cards.
8. Gaining Colony in addition to Duchy.
9. Using no treasures.
10. With other players attacking me (but Masquerade and Possession would stop me).

And if you only count cards in hand, my average card cost is $1.

Kingdom cards are Page, Peasant, Poor House.

Champion is in play.  Poor House has +1 Buy token on it via Teacher and +1 Coin token on it from Training.  Hand is 5x Poor House.

Play all PH for $25 and 6 Buys. Buy Travelling Fair, 5 top-decked Poor Houses, Colony and Duchy.



And for the original puzzle, if requirement 4 only counts cost of cards in hand, I have a solution that should work even against a pin and without choosing my starting hand.

Prince of Counts

[ephesos]

Here's a puzzle that starts with many solutions, but then I add restrictions and gets harder and probably still has many solutions:

Premise: Infinite supply piles, single player, you choose your initial deckstate and kingdom, but from then on you have the worst possible shuffle luck. Can you guarantee that you can gain a duchy every turn forever, following as many of the below restrictions as possible?

1. Without trashing any duchies, or revealing trader to the duchies.
2. Without setting aside the duchies.
3. Without ever drawing any cards apart from the cleanup phase.
4. Keeping the average cost of cards used below 4 coins. (This includes only cards that show up in your hand sometimes).
5. Without getting to choose your starting deck, only your starting hand.
6. Only using 4 different kingdom cards.

I can think of a solution that fits all 6 restrictions. Feel free to add more! The spoiler in #2 is because it gives a hint to how you might satisfy #1.

Watchtower, Travelling Fair, and Mandarin seem like the most likely culprits to me. Develop could be used, but it's really restrictive.

5 Poor House with Champion in play/+Action on Poor House gets you $20 for 5 Travelling Fairs, 5 Poor Houses(topdecked), and a Duchy. Not sure if having a Champion is part of "choosing your initial deckstate", but it only uses 2 different Kingdom cards(and an Event)

And, as eHalcyon said, 5 FG gets you $17 for Travelling Fair, Mandarin, and Province.

Also, FG, Copper, Silver, Plat, HoP for Mandarin buys Province with $9 and has $1 left over.
Diadem Silver Gold Contraband HoP is about as far as I'm willing to go with optimizing this, and gets you $10 for 2 guaranteed Duchies.

[ephesos]

And for the original puzzle, if requirement 4 only counts cost of cards in hand, I have a solution that should work even against a pin and without choosing my starting hand.

Prince of Counts

Prince of Altars
Prince of Smugglers(with you starting with $5 and buying a Duchy)
Prince of Bridges, buying Ball with 2 FG, gaining Mandarin and Duchy
Prince (any actions giving you $5), etc. Prince makes it trivial

[swedenman]

Heck, I don't feel bad about going right ahead and calling anything that is a splitter in any sense at all a village.

Agreed. While a more literal definition of a village might be "a card that provides +2 (or more) actions when played"; the entire purpose behind categorizing things as villages in the first place is to answer the question "can you play more than 1 terminal on a turn if this card is available?" And for that question, Throne Room qualifies as much as Village does.

Hmm, well. By that argument we could say a Throne Room qualifies only half as much as a Village does, since you have to have two Throne Rooms in order to play two terminals. (With one Throne Room you can play one terminal, but you play it twice.)

Well no, you're still playing two terminal actions, they just both come from the same card.

[AJD]

Heck, I don't feel bad about going right ahead and calling anything that is a splitter in any sense at all a village.

Agreed. While a more literal definition of a village might be "a card that provides +2 (or more) actions when played"; the entire purpose behind categorizing things as villages in the first place is to answer the question "can you play more than 1 terminal on a turn if this card is available?" And for that question, Throne Room qualifies as much as Village does.

Hmm, well. By that argument we could say a Throne Room qualifies only half as much as a Village does, since you have to have two Throne Rooms in order to play two terminals. (With one Throne Room you can play one terminal, but you play it twice.)

Well no, you're still playing two terminal actions, they just both come from the same card.

Maybe, but it doesn't stop you from drawing Actions dead and it doesn't save you from terminal collisions...

[ConMan]

As a follow-up, a slightly trickier one. I start my turn with a 5-card hand of only terminal actions. I have not played any Duration cards this game, and there are no cards on my Tavern mat. Further, there are no cards in my deck that play more cards as part of their resolution, and I haven't put my +1 Action token on any pile. How can I put 4 Distant Lands onto my Tavern mat this turn?

Alternative without Prince:

Hand: Black Market x2, Distant Lands x2, Hunting Grounds x1. +1 card token on BM. Play BM, draw Coin of the Realm (CotR), play CotR, put BM cards back (BM finished resolving), call CotR. Play Hunting Grounds, drawing CotR x2, Distant Lands x2. Play second BM, play CotR x2, put cards back, call CotR x2, play 4 Distant Lands.

This was my intention (or at least close enough to it, the key part being "+1 Card token on BM, CotR plus draw and more actions to play the DLs"). One thing that tends to make these puzzles easier is the need to be ridiculously specific in what you aren't allowing, which often gives useful hints about what is actually needed to solve it.

[GendoIkari]

Heck, I don't feel bad about going right ahead and calling anything that is a splitter in any sense at all a village.

Agreed. While a more literal definition of a village might be "a card that provides +2 (or more) actions when played"; the entire purpose behind categorizing things as villages in the first place is to answer the question "can you play more than 1 terminal on a turn if this card is available?" And for that question, Throne Room qualifies as much as Village does.

Hmm, well. By that argument we could say a Throne Room qualifies only half as much as a Village does, since you have to have two Throne Rooms in order to play two terminals. (With one Throne Room you can play one terminal, but you play it twice.)

Well you can also Throne a non-terminal; then play 2 different terminals. But true you do still need 2 cards to make that work (in addition to the 2 terminals you want to play).

[TheOthin]

Prince of Altars wouldn't work; you'd eventually run out of non-Duchy cards to trash.

[Ghacob]

In [Kingdom]: Prince, Nomad Camp, Altar, Alms
Starting hand: Prince, Altar, _ , _ , _
Prince Altar, buy Alms to gain Nomad Camp
Every turn, trash the Nomad Camp, gaining a Duchy, then buy Alms to gain Nomad Camp

[TheOthin]

In [Kingdom]: Prince, Nomad Camp, Altar, Alms
Starting hand: Prince, Altar, _ , _ , _
Prince Altar, buy Alms to gain Nomad Camp
Every turn, trash the Nomad Camp, gaining a Duchy, then buy Alms to gain Nomad Camp

Oh, that works.

[belugawhale]

Two princed schemes, topdecking Upgrade/Fortress every turn?

KC+KC+Scheme+Scheme+X?

KC+Scavenger?

Golem+Scavenger+Counting House?

Scavenger+4xStash, topdecking another Scavenger every turn?

etc...

[liopoil]

Restrictions 8 and 10 change the premise of the puzzle, so I veto them

Nice solutions with Prince and Adventures. Therefore, two more restrictions!

- No prince
- No adventures

4. Uh, is that "only" a mistake?  I assume that you'd also want to include cards that always show up in your hand, not only those that show up sometimes.  And does this count cards that never show up in your hand, e.g. the Duchy itself?

If it always shows up, it shows up sometimes. If it never shows up, it doesn't sometimes show up. So I don't see what's wrong with the 'only'.

Without adventures/prince, I'm not sure that restriction 7 is possible to satisfy. Of course, I am only banning adventures and prince to make my own solution special! It also does not involve Mandarin.

[eHalcyon]

Two princed schemes, topdecking Upgrade/Fortress every turn?

KC+KC+Scheme+Scheme+X?

KC+Scavenger?

Golem+Scavenger+Counting House?

Scavenger+4xStash, topdecking another Scavenger every turn?

etc...

Scheme and Upgrade draw cards so they don't work for the most restrictive version of the puzzle.  Your other solutions run afoul of the average card cost restriction (which still isn't fully explained).

4. Uh, is that "only" a mistake?  I assume that you'd also want to include cards that always show up in your hand, not only those that show up sometimes.  And does this count cards that never show up in your hand, e.g. the Duchy itself?

If it always shows up, it shows up sometimes. If it never shows up, it doesn't sometimes show up. So I don't see what's wrong with the 'only'.

In colloquial speech, "sometimes" means sometimes yes, sometimes no.  "Always" is never no.

[liopoil]

I mean, I suppose I could say "shows up in your hand at least once", but I'm having trouble finding a way to read what I said and decide that it excludes cards that are always in my hand.

Do you ever have a scout in hand? If yes, add 4 to the total.
Repeat for every card in the game, then divide by the number of times you answered yes. Alternatively count each instance that a card shows up in your hand, I don't care.

[eHalcyon]

I mean, I suppose I could say "shows up in your hand at least once", but I'm having trouble finding a way to read what I said and decide that it excludes cards that are always in my hand.

Do you ever have a scout in hand? If yes, add 4 to the total.
Repeat for every card in the game, then divide by the number of times you answered yes. Alternatively count each instance that a card shows up in your hand, I don't care.

Keeping the average cost of cards used below 4 coins. (This includes only cards that show up in your hand sometimes).

It's like the word "or".  In logic, x or y is true if x is true, y is true, or both x and y are true.  In colloquial speech though, people saying "or" usually mean "xor".

When you say "this includes only cards that show up sometimes", it sounds like you mean that you only count cards if there is a chance they show up and a chance that they don't show up.  Cards that will be in your hand every time are cards that show up always, not just sometimes.  From context I infer that this isn't what you meant, which is why I asked about it to confirm.