Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: GendoIkari on September 27, 2016, 03:39:16 pm
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So the "first game" setup has changed; it has Merchant (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Merchant) instead of Woodcutter (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Woodcutter). The first game engine (https://dominionstrategy.com/2012/07/30/building-the-first-game-engine/) strategy ignores Woodcutter (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Woodcutter). But with Merchant (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Merchant) available, could there be a stronger strategy?
My guess is no, because the first game engine only buys a single Silver (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Silver) I think. Merchant (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Merchant) is a Peddler (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Peddler) whenever it collides with Silver (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Silver), but you'd probably have to buy more Silver (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Silver) than you want to make it worth it.
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Well, by mid-game you want to start drawing your entire deck. If you keep at least one Silver from your Mining, it might be worth it to start picking up Merchants with extra buys instead of more Markets. They're cheaper, at any rate.
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The first game engine strategy is only optimized against Smithy BM though, right? Surely the mirror plays out differently.
I don't think Merchant ends up being much of a factor, but maybe Workshop can gain it at some point, if it isn't too busy gaining everything else you need.
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Wait, Merchants stack? So 2 Merchants + Silver = $4? I didn't know that. Suddenly Merchant looks a lot better and more worthy of a card slot.
But it's still not going to be a key card in the first game engine, I think. Just something that's worth picking up on a spare buy/gain.
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Wait, Merchants stack? So 2 Merchants + Silver = $4? I didn't know that. Suddenly Merchant looks a lot better and more worthy of a card slot.
But it's still not going to be a key card in the first game engine, I think. Just something that's worth picking up on a spare buy/gain.
Merchants do not stack.
"Playing Throne Room on Merchant will give you +2 when you play your first Silver."
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Wait, Merchants stack? So 2 Merchants + Silver = $4?
Sure, just like two Coppersmiths made each Copper worth $3.
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To clear all doubt, official FAQ says:
If you play more than one Merchant, each gives you +$1 when you play that first Silver; but if you play more than one Silver, you only get the +$1 for the first Silver.
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Wait, Merchants stack? So 2 Merchants + Silver = $4? I didn't know that. Suddenly Merchant looks a lot better and more worthy of a card slot.
But it's still not going to be a key card in the first game engine, I think. Just something that's worth picking up on a spare buy/gain.
Merchants do not stack.
"Playing Throne Room on Merchant will give you +2 when you play your first Silver."
That makes it sound like they do stack. Playing one silver activates all instances of Merchant being played. Playing additional Silvers does nothing, but that was well understood.
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Wait, Merchants stack? So 2 Merchants + Silver = $4? I didn't know that. Suddenly Merchant looks a lot better and more worthy of a card slot.
But it's still not going to be a key card in the first game engine, I think. Just something that's worth picking up on a spare buy/gain.
Merchants do not stack.
"Playing Throne Room on Merchant will give you +2 when you play your first Silver."
Your quote contradicts your first sentence...
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Merchant's don't need to collide with your silver. If you are drawing a deck with one silver in it all your merchants are peddlers.
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Wait, Merchants stack? So 2 Merchants + Silver = $4?
Sure, just like two Coppersmiths made each Copper worth $3.
Too soon. :(
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Merchant's don't need to collide with your silver. If you are drawing a deck with one silver in it all your merchants are peddlers.
Not sure what you mean... if you are drawing a deck with one Silver in it, then your merchants will collide with your Silver. I mean, the Silver could be drawn later, or by the Merchant itself, but they still need to collide.
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I ran some simulations of this case. In my sims, Merchants did not significantly help. Silvers were often remodeled to other cards, so Merchants could not reliably get a Silver +x$ when drawing full deck. This led to other $3 cards generally being more useful. If strategy is changed to always keep at least 1 Silver in the deck, then buying Merchants is much better than not buying. However, forcing always 1 Silver to remain in deck hurts you more than the benefit of the Merchants. There are some corner cases of hand combinations where Merchants could be useful, but they were too rare to increase the overall win rate significantly.
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Merchant's don't need to collide with your silver. If you are drawing a deck with one silver in it all your merchants are peddlers.
Not sure what you mean... if you are drawing a deck with one Silver in it, then your merchants will collide with your Silver. I mean, the Silver could be drawn later, or by the Merchant itself, but they still need to collide.
I feel like "collide" it's used pretty exclusively around here to refer to getting two cards in your hands at the same time. Using it for this situation with Merchant will probably cause confusion (as it appears to have here). I would just say your Merchants are worthless if you fail to find a Silver.
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The first game engine strategy is only optimized against Smithy BM though, right? Surely the mirror plays out differently.
IIRC the bot I made (that had the highest win % in Geronimo's article) was only optimized against straight BMU.
edit: heh, apparently my memory is not very trustworthy.
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Merchant's don't need to collide with your silver. If you are drawing a deck with one silver in it all your merchants are peddlers.
Not sure what you mean... if you are drawing a deck with one Silver in it, then your merchants will collide with your Silver. I mean, the Silver could be drawn later, or by the Merchant itself, but they still need to collide.
I feel like "collide" it's used pretty exclusively around here to refer to getting two cards in your hands at the same time. Using it for this situation with Merchant will probably cause confusion (as it appears to have here). I would just say your Merchants are worthless if you fail to find a Silver.
I dunno, I feel like if you hand is Upgrade and 4 Provinces, and you play the Upgrade, drawing a Curse, then you'd say that your Upgrade and Curse collided.
But either way, what I meant by collide was simply that you have to be able to play them both on the same turn.
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I dunno, I feel like if you hand is Upgrade and 4 Provinces, and you play the Upgrade, drawing a Curse, then you'd say that your Upgrade and Curse collided.
You'd also say: "You got some stones, buddy."
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I dunno, I feel like if you hand is Upgrade and 4 Provinces, and you play the Upgrade, drawing a Curse, then you'd say that your Upgrade and Curse collided.
You'd also say: "You got some stones, buddy."
Not really, my entire deck was an Upgrade, 4 Provinces, and 10 Curses.