Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Puzzles and Challenges => Topic started by: gamesou on March 06, 2012, 03:57:19 am
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I believe that there is only one Dominion card which is most often bought when it is embargoed than when it is not. What's this card ?
The "buy rate" of a card could be computed from isotropic logs, e.g. as the proportion of times players did buy it when they could afford it. So I want to find X such that "embargoed X" has a higher buy rate than "non-embargoed X" (I didn't make these computations, so my puzzle is very speculative). In other words the embargo token is a incentive to buy X.
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Curse, since it makes it easier to run out the pile?
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Exactly !
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That was my thought as well, but it had two problems:
Firstly, why would you Embargo the Curses instead of something more strategcic?
Secondly, I've often bought Curses without them being Embargoed (Goons + Watchtower).
So I doubt whether they're actually bought more often when they're Embargoed.
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That was my thought as well, but it had two problems:
Firstly, why would you Embargo the Curses instead of something more strategcic?
Secondly, I've often bought Curses without them being Embargoed (Goons + Watchtower).
So I doubt whether they're actually bought more often when they're Embargoed.
These are not problems. Probably my formulation was not clear.
In your life you will buy much more unembargoed curses than emboargoed curses, obviously.
What I mean is the buy rate of embargoed curses given availability is higher. Of course this is a bit silly since this availability is close to zero: as you point out, there always should be something more strategic to embargo. But there is one case when you should embargo the curses: when you want to buy embargoed curses :)
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In other words the embargo token is a incentive to buy X.
I would certainly be inclined to buy something with an Embargo token if I had a Trader in my hand.
Edit: Misunderstood the original puzzle. Standing by my misguided answer anyway.
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Would it be good to buy something with an embargo token on it if your opponent was loaded with sea hags? You would gain those curses anyway, and it would only be shortening the time until his sea hags were useless.
Also, If you had a lot of fairgrounds, it would be a quick way to get another card.
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Probably Curse is the only card that fits the precise requirements of the puzzle. However, Gardens is probably an honorable mention. Embargoing the Gardens is rarely an effective deterrent to an otherwise-viable Gardens strategy. (I believe I recall a game in which Theory embargoed the Gardens as part of his Gardens strategy.)
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The exact answer is clearly Curse, but there's another question of cards that might in certain circumstances be attractive buys only with an Embargo token.
Fairgrounds is a possibility. You typically have 10 Kingdom cards, 3 VP, 3 treasure, and Curse. If there's no +buy or other cursers and either Horn of Plenty or Feast are on the table (that is, you have a potential expectation that you will not have any of a particular Kingdom card because it provides more points trashing it), it would be possible to be interested in Fairgrounds only when it's Embargo'd.
Maybe the Ambassador pile could fit too. If there's no +buy or other cursers and you opponent doesn't open Ambassador and you open with just one, it might be reasonable that you're more drawn to buying a second when you're going to get a curse in your deck for free.
Menagerie with Secret Chamber or Vault, or maybe even Cellar, on the board is a bit of a stretch, but you might think that one more Menagerie would be a good idea if you can get another unique card in your deck to make it more likely to fire off big Menagerie draws which turn into cash or other cards.
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You would have to rebuy the Embargo at any time in the game and you could just as well not play it the first time and buy the curse in that turn instead. Ofc, that means you don't get the +$2 from Embargo.
On some boards with a strong opener against not so experienced players, I often start with strong opener / embargo and then embargo the strong card, when they haven't bought it in their first two turns. This is even meaner, if I open Trading Post / Embargo.