Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Puzzles and Challenges => Topic started by: Wolphmaniac on May 15, 2012, 09:04:44 pm
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So I just bought Prosperity and the other night we were playing random kingdoms and Counting House came out twice and of course it just sat there wasting space in both games. I'm trying to think how I can possibly make Counting House useful, at least for one game.
I own Dominion, Seaside, Alchemy, and Prosperity if you care to handicap yourself, but otherwise just pretend that everything is available cuz I can always set that game up online.
OK...here's my solution:
Counting House (given)
Cache (quickly gain more coppers)
Mountebank (quickly gain more coppers)
Ill-Gotten Gains (quickly gain more coppers)
Goons (score points for gaining coppers)
Coppersmith (make all those coppers actually worth something)
King's Court (make all those coppers REALLY worth something)
Gardens (deck is fat with coppers)
Golem (skip coppers to get to actions and leave coppers in discard pile for CH to pick them up)
Stables (sift for actions, discard coppers, delivers the desperately needed +3 actions when KC'd)
Thoughts?
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Something with Kings Court, Scheme, Counting House, and Chancellor, maybe Cache? And a bunch of other dud stuff? Maybe Hamlet too for cheap + buy. Aiming for KC/KC/Scheme/Scheme/Chancellor/Counting House?
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Take out IGG from your set, Wolph. The presence of IGG encourages a simple IGG rush to Gardens, in which there simply isn't enough time for a Counting House to do much.
You have to definitely make it a Colony game, also.
Another way is to make it a 4p Colony game with Mountebanks. Everyone will accumulate coppers way fast, making CH a reasonable investment even without a particular extra way of getting coppers or of discarding your deck.
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King's Court seems horribly out of place in your kingdom. What is its purpose? Obviously it doesn't do anything with the CH. Without +actions or +buys, it will be tough to justify Coppersmith, too. Without +buys and/or Colonies, I don't even want the Counting House. I don't want to make a set, but I will gladly tear others apart...only because CH is such a tough card to make a "must-buy."
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counting house is good as a counter to jester
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counting house is good as a counter to jester
How so? I think that in kingdoms when Jester is good (i.e. kingdoms with strong engine potential), you probably don't want Counting House. I'd venture to say it's less of a "counter" and more of a "is good in completely different situations"... If the best engine actually uses Counting House and wants Copper (for whatever odd reason), then the Jester player will gain the Counting Houses and Coppers, though that situation is probably exceedingly rare.
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You actually only need three cards (plus colony game)
IGG, Counting House, Scheme (maybe a +buy somewhere?)
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120508-135528-9f887547.html (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120508-135528-9f887547.html)
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Toss IGG, Stables and Golem, bring in Workers village, scheme and chancellor. Inn would be nice too.
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i wouldn't bother with king's court, IGG, gardens, or golem. i would instead include worker's village, hamlet, talisman or wishing well, and most importantly...inn.
inn might be the single best card to combo with counting house.
- it helps you line up your counting house with coppersmith, villages, and +buys
- ensures you draw counting house at the end of your deck draw
- you can discard copper to the inn with little consequence
here (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201205/15/game-20120515-194927-beaf94e3.html) is my quick attempt with counting house, clearing all the colonies in 18 turns. i used only hamlet, worker's village, coppersmith, counting house, and inn. i am sure you could trim that up a few turns.
this thread (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1676.msg27086#msg27086) also has a few nice ideas for copper based engines using counting house.
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I like it with warehouse
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I think there's several things to consider here:
First, Counting House needs the cards which support it as a strong strategy.
Second, there needs to be no stronger strategy present.
Third, the game needs to be slow enough that Counting House makes a difference.
That in mind, I'd strongly consider a set that includes Mountebank, Cache, Colony and Warehouse. The remainder of the cards would need to be village cards, or cards of limited other utility: perhaps Inn, Border Village, Worker's Village, Cellar, Village, Militia, Chancellor.
Theory being that in the absence of any +cards, Counting House becomes the only viable drawing option, and the quickest way to reach Colonies.
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Lots of golems plus a single counting house is pretty strong and fast in colony games. Just make sure you have 11 copper! (Cache helps)
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Tried this out, but I find it hard to hit $4P for potion AND $5 for Counting House in any reasonable length of time. It seems slower than straight BM.
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Joke answer incoming
Counting House (given)
Expand (Trash Counting House to gain a Province)
Apprentice (Trash Counting House for +5 cards)
Upgrade (Trash Counting House for a Gold)
Salvager (Trash Counting House for +5$)
Trader (Trash Counting House for 5 Silvers)
Bishop (Trash Counting House for 2+1 VP tokens
Swindler (Swindle opponents 5s into Counting House)
Develop (Trash Counting House to gain Bishop/Trader/Salvager + Gold on top of your deck)
Ambassador (Fill your opponent's deck with Counting Houses)
Honorable mentions
Remodel (Trash Counting House to gain Gold/Expand)
Masquerade (Pass Counting House to your opponent)
Remake (Trash two Counting Houses for Golds)
Vault/Secret Chamber (Discard Counting House for $1)
Trading Post (Trash two Counting Houses to gain a Silver in hand)
Forge (Forge with Silver to gain a Province)
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Might Apothecary have a place here, as bolstering a Copper-driven engine? Or would Apothecary be so powerful that Counting House becomes superfluous?
Also, what about Vault (coupled with some source of +2 actions)? Discard your Coppers (and green) for coin, then draw the Coppers right back to spend them using Counting House?
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Something like:
Colony+Platinum
Mountebank
Counting House
Inn
Cartographer
Coppersmith
Worker's Village
Watchtower
Warehouse
Haven
Hamlet
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Joke answer incoming
Masquerade (Pass Counting House to your opponent)
Well played!
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... If the best engine actually uses Counting House and wants Copper (for whatever odd reason), then the Jester player will gain the Counting Houses and Coppers, though that situation is probably exceedingly rare.
When I say counting house is a good counter to jester, I don't mean you should open counting house when you see a Jester on the board. I mean that it's good to pick up a counting house when you are losing, as in a mountebank game, e.g. when your opponent opens 5/2 and the best 5 is jester. It puts your opponent in the awkward position of having to choose who gets the copper.
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Tried this out, but I find it hard to hit $4P for potion AND $5 for Counting House in any reasonable length of time. It seems slower than straight BM.
It's true, hitting $4P consistently is the toughest part about the 'lots of golems + 1 counting house' strategy; it's a bit slow and (worse) somewhat random, but once it gets going it is extremely consistent at getting colonies every turn. It piledrives colonies in ~27-28 turns on average, and can go quicker with a bit of luck. So it's nothing groundbreaking, but we're talking about counting house here.
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Tried this out, but I find it hard to hit $4P for potion AND $5 for Counting House in any reasonable length of time. It seems slower than straight BM.
I'm pretty sure someone's simmed it. IIRC, in a Colony game it beats straight big money and some BMX strategies. In a Province game it's too slow.
I have actually won with Golem-Counting House at least once against a competent opponent.
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Been messing around solo wise for awhile trying to get something that works with Counting House.
Obviously this isn't entirely applicable, as solo and two player games are very different, especially when we're talking about using Mountebank to slow down the game.
The benchmark has been 28 turns or less in a Colony game, as pure Big Money takes about 30 turns to get all Colonies.
Warehouse/Counting House/Cache is just too slow. Its too hard to acquire a decent number of Counting Houses and draw them at the right time. You then either get overkill $ or not enough for colony, and all in all it takes about 30 turns.
Golem / single Counting House relies a lot on drawing the golems early in the shuffle, and in getting $4P relatively early and frequently. Certainly it doesn't seem like you want more than $11 of copper, and once a Golem is bought buying any other treasure other than Platinums lows the Golems coming up too much to be worthwhile. Again, about 30 turns in solo.
I'd agree its marginally stronger than pure BM, as it can spend misfired turns picking up lower value green cards with less slowdown. Its also very high variance, as you can luck into consecutive golem turns, or draw the potion with $3 several times.
What seemed to work well, however, was Golems + single Counting House + Chancellor + a single other enabling card (either Warehouse or Worker's Village), getting coppers on weak turns, one Cache when there's time, and getting gold and platinum when possible. I've no idea why, but this one seems to gel nicely, with Golems being bought frequently, the occasional turn of $11 just coming out of money, and golem often setting up an $11 hand even if it doesn't draw Counting House/Chancellor. Also, the deck can acquire provinces with no significant slow down to the engine. All in all, this seems to give me 24-26 turns fairly consistently.
Thats not to say we're looking at a strong engine here, but rather a viable good choice in a particular extreme kingdom layout. How this solo strategy translates to multiplayer, I dont know.
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Why is Counting House priced at $5? Would it play better at $4?
Counting House/Copper is not a power opening at the moment, so a cut in price wouldn't obviously affect the early game.
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If Counting House looks remotely useful in a Kingdom, I take the auto loss and try to make it worse.
"Hey this card has the word copper written on it" isn't actually Counting House's key synergy. The key to Counting House is to draw it right before the reshuffle, when your discard is as large as possible.
The most forced way to do this is Chancellor.
Colony game, of course.
Mandarin
Ghost Ship
Inn
Counting House
Worker's Village
Salvager
Warehouse
Chancellor
Hamlet
Embargo
I could improve that, but I think in a Colony game you won't win that set without Counting House. If you choose not to play the Counting House strategy, the Counting House player can Embargo you back to the Dark Ages when you buy a Plat.
Once you buy 4 coppers off Salvagers and Hamlets, put Counting House and Chancellor in your deck, you can buy Inns that guarantee Colonies.
Mandarin is for our theoretical perfect player who will know when he's about to trigger a reshuffle while his Counting House is in the last two cards, so he plays Embargo and buys a Mandarin with three coppers to guarantee a Colony next turn instead of a fail.
WW has the deck control idea with the Haven, I don't have room for it in mine with 2 2s though.
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A fun (and strong) combo I once stumbled on is Counting House, Worker's Village, Cellar, Bank. Horse Traders is also nice, to help get the initial Counting House. Basically, you want to spam-buy Worker's Village, Cellar, and Copper. You want three or four Counting Houses. As the deck gets strong, you want Banks.
Basically, the goal, once you've got significant Copper reserves, is to draw one each of Worker's Village, Cellar, and Counting House. It's got to be somewhere past the middle of your deck. You want a lot of Coppers in the discard, but it doesn't have to be all of them. Just a chunk.
Now, you play Worker's Village, then Counting House. Cellar away the chunk of Coppers, taking care not to trigger a reshuffle. This will give you a chunk of new cards, and among them will be more Cellars, Worker's Villages, and Counting Houses. Again, play Worker's Village, Counting House to get back all those Coppers, and then Cellar.
Repeating these steps allows you to draw your whole bloated deck. Between the Coppers, Banks, and Worker's Villages, you'll have a bunch of buys to spend a lot of coin.
Anyway, it worked that one time.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111211-100548-2ae5d99b.html (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111211-100548-2ae5d99b.html)
Here it is in solitaire, buying all the Colonies and three Provinces on turn 21.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201205/16/game-20120516-234944-08a0df5e.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201205/16/game-20120516-234944-08a0df5e.html)
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How about Counting House in conjunction with Hunting Party for a colony game? With terrible other Hunting Party support, and maybe bank?
With a few hunting parties most of the copper will be in the discard, and since counting house is unique it should be in hand to draw them back. I'd imagine that the other cards would have to lack any sort of +$ though.
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Hmm. Sounds promising. You'd need trashing for the uniquely named Estates I think. Steward seems best because you could use it for +2$ after it trashes Estates. A Village of some sort could then let you use both the Steward and the Counting House. Fishing Village works best because it can supply actions from outside of your deck, and it supplies $, which as mentioned is a problem. That's 3$ from non-copper sources, so you could just buy 1 copper sometime whenever you hit 2$ or fail to get 5$ for Hunting Party when you already have the Steward and FV. So..
Colony game.
Adventurer
Explorer
Hunting Party
Counting House
Bureacrat
Salvager
Chancellor
Oasis
Steward
Fishing Village
Might be better than mine.
EDIT: I forgot that Steward will cause you to trash a few coppers. I added Salvager, open FV/Salvager, start trashing estates and buying copper as soon as possible, then get a Steward to trash Salvager and estates.
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How about Counting House in conjunction with Hunting Party for a colony game? With terrible other Hunting Party support, and maybe bank?
With a few hunting parties most of the copper will be in the discard, and since counting house is unique it should be in hand to draw them back. I'd imagine that the other cards would have to lack any sort of +$ though.
Sounds decent. A cantrip +buy (Market, Hamlet) might be in order with Bank in the equation.
And you'd have a tough time getting it going, since you would need a lot of HPs to make it work. Also, you'd have to give up a HP buy to get Counting House, making it slightly less appealing.
I think it would be more viable in a Colony game.
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I don't think Bank is best with the HP strategy. You need as many HPs as possible and as few uniquely named cards as possible. You can't afford a unique card with +buy, and it's not hard to acquire at least one copper, so it seems like a fancy Gold to me.
If you use Market and Bank, and leave Estates in the deck, and buy a Colony, you have 6 uniquely named cards in your deck, and that takes tons of Hunting Parties.
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HP+CH just does not seem viable. as you all have commented, you realistically need plus buy, trashing, or another power card to pull it off. it is very unlikely you can't find a faster combo for HP on that board, and the necessity of these other pieces means at the very best you will manage a 6/4 HP split against a competitive opponent.
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Add spy, noble brigand, and secret chamber.
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You'd need trashing for the uniquely named Estates I think. Steward seems best because you could use it for +2$ after it trashes Estates. A Village of some sort could then let you use both the Steward and the Counting House.
I knew this old woman who swallowed a fly.
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Might be viable if you could ditch your Estates some other way. Opponent's Bishop or Governor, maybe, or Island. Though in that case Bishop or Governor strats are probably better.
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You actually only need three cards (plus colony game)
IGG, Counting House, Scheme (maybe a +buy somewhere?)
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120508-135528-9f887547.html (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120508-135528-9f887547.html)
I repeat this ;D.
But guys, solutions actually need to be simple, not complex. If you're adding in good cards after good cards to try to synergize with a use of counting house, you're just introducing cards that can take the place of counting house to make a quicker strategy that doesn't include it.
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Inn, Chancellor, CH is simple. :/
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Hmmm, adding any card with +Buy and at least +1 Action to Inn, Chancellor, Counting House would allow you to buy a Victory card and another Inn to re-stack your deck every turn (2 copies of Chancellor, CH, and +Buy.)
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My full kingdom contains +buy. Was trying to emphasize simplicity.. lots of strategies need +buy.
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I wonder if the strongest use of counting house is not as payload (hey I played this card for +8 coin), but as draw (+8 cards). Suppose you have cellar/counting house and some big combo (like TR/bridge); but you have no draw or deck management options to enable the mega turn of play three thrones and 4 bridges.
So you are looking for a big payout turn where you can play something like:
TR-> cellar (discard everything looking for a counting house/cellar combo) -> counting house (pick up a large number of coppers) -> TR -> Cellar (looking for TR/Bridges) -> TR(x3) -> Bridge (x4)
Like a lot of complicated stuff, this looks to work better in a colony game than in a province game.
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In any event, the key is to be able to get it at the end of a shuffle. So there are a few ideas here. Inn, chancellor, some kind of warehouse/courtyard/native village nonsense, haven... well, you can do some very cute things.
On the other hand, it's really not that terrible. Very rarely worth it to get, but if you do happen to pick one up, it's not SO terrible.
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With a cellar/counting house option you don't necessarily need to draw the CH at the end of the shuffle. You could discard the coppers from hand, and then draw them back (either for further cycling or for payout).
I've found cellar/apothecary to be extremely powerful as you can toss the coppers & redraw them later with apothecaries - cycling like mad for some big payout card (militia, cache, margrave); I haven't tried it, but I think apothecary/cellar/counting house set up would work well.
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In any event, the key is to be able to get it at the end of a shuffle. So there are a few ideas here. Inn, chancellor, some kind of warehouse/courtyard/native village nonsense, haven... well, you can do some very cute things.
On the other hand, it's really not that terrible. Very rarely worth it to get, but if you do happen to pick one up, it's not SO terrible.
I agree. People Swindle 5's into Counting House way too early.
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With a cellar/counting house option you don't necessarily need to draw the CH at the end of the shuffle. You could discard the coppers from hand, and then draw them back (either for further cycling or for payout).
I've found cellar/apothecary to be extremely powerful as you can toss the coppers & redraw them later with apothecaries - cycling like mad for some big payout card (militia, cache, margrave); I haven't tried it, but I think apothecary/cellar/counting house set up would work well.
I agree that apothecary/cellar is pretty nice, though its fast enough for Counting House not to add much pace to it: probably less than adding another copper or cellar with that $5.