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[peridot887]

I just finished a game in IRL with the following random kingdom:

Courtyard, Wishing Well, Horse Traders, Bureaucrat, Gardens, Moneylender, Smithy, Jester, Fairgrounds, Harem

I haven't played a game with this many alternate victory cards before, so I'm looking for advice on which ones to focus on and which to ignore.

I went Moneylender/Silver in the opening and my opponent mirrored. I ended up focusing on Jester, Horse Trader and Courtyard while my opponent went Courtyard-BM

Fairgrounds ended up being worth 6 VP for me, and Gardens 4 VP, so I went with those alt victory cards at the end of the game. I couldn't consistently get to 6 gold (perhaps I played Jester one too many times, or bought one or two less Harems than my opponent?), and I ended up losing 51 VP to 47. Is Jester/Horse Traders/Courtyard too hard to pull off without additional actions? Is it possible to recognize before the game starts which alternate victory cards might be useful and which can be safely ignored?

[HiveMindEmulator]

First off, welcome to the forum!

In this kingdom, there are no villages, and the only non-terminal way of increasing your hand-size is Wishing Well. So any hope of making an engine is pretty-much shot. Without an engine, generally going for Fairgrounds is a bad idea, since the amount of buys you spend getting its value up plus the buys spent getting it don't get you enough VPs fast enough. Harem is generally not a huge source of points because it's expensive for just 2 VPs, so the only kingdom VP card that should really come into play here is Gardens.

Moneylender is not a good opening if you're not going for an engine, since the Coppers aren't really that bad. I think you want to focus on HT/Bureaucrat/Jester to get Silver and Copper to help you keep buying Gardens and Duchies and to get the value of your Gardens up.

[Mic Qsenoch]

First off, welcome to the forum!

In this kingdom, there are no villages, and the only non-terminal way of increasing your hand-size is Wishing Well. So any hope of making an engine is pretty-much shot. Without an engine, generally going for Fairgrounds is a bad idea, since the amount of buys you spend getting its value up plus the buys spent getting it don't get you enough VPs fast enough. Harem is generally not a huge source of points because it's expensive for just 2 VPs, so the only kingdom VP card that should really come into play here is Gardens.

Moneylender is not a good opening if you're not going for an engine, since the Coppers aren't really that bad. I think you want to focus on HT/Bureaucrat/Jester to get Silver and Copper to help you keep buying Gardens and Duchies and to get the value of your Gardens up.

I don't think ignoring Fairgrounds here is a good idea. You want enough of the different terminals on this board that getting them to 4 VP will be a piece of cake. Every kingdom card here is somewhat useful, so 6 VP is a definite possibility. You can definitely play for a long game using Jester/Bureaucrat to slow your opponent down. Jester is important here for both Gardens and obtaining Fairgrounds diversity (will probably get a curse at some point). I actually think the best deck here will buy all of the different VP on the board, because a dedicated Province strategy will have a hard time getting 7 or 8 Provinces quickly while under attack.

It's hard to describe a strategy for these boards because you can't really maintain much deck control, you are at the whims of the shuffles and the Jester flips. I do agree with HME that Moneylender seems like a weak opening.

[Warfreak2]

There are plenty of situations in which you can go for Fairgrounds without an engine; Jester lets you gain copies of cards your opponent buys, which is great for Fairgrounds if their strategy is substantially different from yours.

I really want to go for all three of Gardens, Fairgrounds and Harems. Harem is better than Gold if I don't want to buy any Provinces. I doubt I would aim for 6VP Fairgrounds, though the option would be there later if necessary; 4VP for a $6 card is fine.

As mentioned, there's no villages (cards which give +2 Actions), so you don't want many terminal actions. Horse Traders and Bureaucrat are going to be much better for a Gardens strategy than Moneylender; you're looking for +buy and gaining to increase the value of your Gardens, not trashing which devalues them. Bureaucrat is good to start with as the Silvers really speed you up, and you're more likely to hit one of your opponent's Estates in the early game than later when they have more cards. Horse Traders very reliably gets you to $5 hands to buy Gardens or Duchy, even later in the game when your hands are full of green cards, and you can pick up another Copper with the +buy.

The strongest other strategy I can see is just buying money and a few Courtyards ("Courtyard/Big Money"), which is actually often really good.

[eHalcyon]

How many players?  It sounds like just 2.  If more than 2, Jester is fantastic, especially with Gardens.  Definitely focus on Gardens because there are multiple cards here that help with that -- Horse Traders for +Buy, Bureacrat for Silver gaining, Jester for gaining different things. 

My plan would be: Open HT or Bureaucrat and aim for Jester.  Get Gold first on $6, then Harem.  Pick up a single Province if the opportunity comes up, otherwise focus on bloating your deck with HT, Bureacrat and Jester.  Depending on what the opponent does, it may be necessary to contest Gardens as well.  Gardens is part of the ultimate plan -- that's why I am bloating the deck.  Hopefully it's a non-mirror and Jester can snipe a few other cards I didn't pick up myself, making 6VP Fairgrounds without too much effort on my part.  Mid to late game I would like a few extra HTs; the +Buy can help pick up cheap cards like CY and Wishing Well if they are still missing from my deck, but more importantly it can be helpful in reaching $6 for Fairgrounds.

[HiveMindEmulator]

You want enough of the different terminals on this board that getting them to 4 VP will be a piece of cake. Every kingdom card here is somewhat useful, so 6 VP is a definite possibility. You can definitely play for a long game using Jester/Bureaucrat to slow your opponent down. Jester is important here for both Gardens and obtaining Fairgrounds diversity (will probably get a curse at some point). I actually think the best deck here will buy all of the different VP on the board, because a dedicated Province strategy will have a hard time getting 7 or 8 Provinces quickly while under attack.

Jester only helps get Fairgrounds diversity if your opponent(s) is/are buying the cards you don't want to buy yourself. Realistically, you're going to get: Copper, Silver, Estate, Gardens, Duchy, Fairgrounds, Curse, Bureaucrat, Horse Traders, Jester, and maybe Province/Gold/Harem. Even with all of these, you still need 2 more to get to 15. Spending 2-3 extra buys just to power up your Fairgrounds with a deck that is likely buying only 1 non-Copper card per turn seems a waste of turns. Sure you should take Fairgrounds for the 4VP, but any effort to actually get them up to 6 VP doesn't appear to me to be worth it.

[Mic Qsenoch]

You want enough of the different terminals on this board that getting them to 4 VP will be a piece of cake. Every kingdom card here is somewhat useful, so 6 VP is a definite possibility. You can definitely play for a long game using Jester/Bureaucrat to slow your opponent down. Jester is important here for both Gardens and obtaining Fairgrounds diversity (will probably get a curse at some point). I actually think the best deck here will buy all of the different VP on the board, because a dedicated Province strategy will have a hard time getting 7 or 8 Provinces quickly while under attack.

Jester only helps get Fairgrounds diversity if your opponent(s) is/are buying the cards you don't want to buy yourself. Realistically, you're going to get: Copper, Silver, Estate, Gardens, Duchy, Fairgrounds, Curse, Bureaucrat, Horse Traders, Jester, and maybe Province/Gold/Harem. Even with all of these, you still need 2 more to get to 15. Spending 2-3 extra buys just to power up your Fairgrounds with a deck that is likely buying only 1 non-Copper card per turn seems a waste of turns. Sure you should take Fairgrounds for the 4VP, but any effort to actually get them up to 6 VP doesn't appear to me to be worth it.

It's something that will depend on the Jester flips, but buying any of Wishing Well, Smithy, or Courtyard will be just fine for your deck. Wishing Well won't hurt you, and the other two should be useful overall. You can pick two of them up in a turn with Horse Traders. This game should last a long time, which makes it worthwhile to take a couple turns to give yourself a cheap source of 6 VP.

When I read your original post, it seemed to me that you are saying to ignore Fairgrounds completely, I guess I was mistaken, but it wasn't clear to me.

[peridot887]

Thanks for all the feedback and the warm welcome.

It sounds like I was on the right track but just started with a weak opening, which makes sense. I'm pretty sure that I ended up using Moneylender only once or twice. I think Fairgrounds makes a lot of sense for this board; I didn't have to spend more than a buy or two to get the action cards I was missing from not hitting them with Jester. I think ignoring Duchy and Moneylender (assuming you'll eventually get a curse from Jester) is fine, and Duchy might not be a bad idea late game if Gardens and Jester are depleted when hitting 5 treasure.

How many players?  It sounds like just 2.  If more than 2, Jester is fantastic, especially with Gardens.

This particular game was with 2 players, though I usually play with more people. I haven't ever had a kingdom with Jester and Gardens together with more players, but I can definitely see how that could be useful!