Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: tko on July 12, 2011, 05:38:29 pm
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I got the following hand and imagined there is some optimal though not obvious play yet I couldn't figure it out.
2 Shanty Towns, 2 King's Courts, 1 Horse Traders
How would you play that hand?
I entered up getting 9 coin from KC'd Horse Traders and buying a Platinum.
--- tko's turn 27 ---
tko plays a King's Court.
... and plays a King's Court.
... ... and plays a Shanty Town.
... ... ... revealing a Shanty Town and a Horse Traders.
... ... ... getting +2 actions.
... ... and plays the Shanty Town again.
... ... ... revealing a Shanty Town and a Horse Traders.
... ... ... getting +2 actions.
... ... and plays the Shanty Town a third time.
... ... ... revealing a Shanty Town and a Horse Traders.
... ... ... getting +2 actions.
... and plays the King's Court again.
... ... and plays a Horse Traders.
... ... ... getting +1 buy and +$3.
... ... ... discarding 1 card.
... ... and plays the Horse Traders again.
... ... ... getting +1 buy and +$3.
... ... ... discarding nothing.
... ... and plays the Horse Traders a third time.
... ... ... getting +1 buy and +$3.
... ... ... discarding nothing.
... and plays the King's Court a third time.
... ... but plays no action with it.
tko buys a Platinum.
Note I made a severe misclick on another turn this game where I could have played Goons twice and ended up losing pretty bad so I'm not proud of this game... but I've been puzzling about this hand.
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Shanty Town stacks lead to frustrating hands with some regularity.
If you're feeling optimistic about the next 2 cards in your deck, you could play ST, HT (discard both KCs), ST to draw 2 cards. But it's awfully doubtful that will provide a better result than KC/HT.
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You can't draw off of Shanty Town unless you empty the rest of your hand. You can't get Horse Traders out of your hand unless you play it somehow. Playing it means discarding 2 other cards. If you want to play anything else you'll have played at least 1 ST first. After going "ST, HT" you will only have 1 card in hand, so you couldn't have done anything else before that if you want to do something afterward. Since a single King's Court is useless, the one card would be a ST, which you'd draw 2 cards off of and have 2 actions to spend. Whether this is better than having $6 more and +2 buys depends on your deck.
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Ya, I think the problem is more how you got here. Kings Court is a really bad pick-up with Shanty Town and Horse Traders. It doesn't really do a whole lot with either of them, and likely a gold is better in it's spot most times (I don't know what else is in the kingdom)
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I played the King's Court generally on Goons or Merchant Ship that game. Note it was painful looking at the game log and reliving that horrible game.
It sounds like King's Court on Horse Traders for 9 coin to buy a Platinum was the optimal play... for some reason, it felt like there was some super awesome way to play that hand that I wasn't seeing - turns out, the hand just wasn't super awesome. I agree I made many bad purchases that game.
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Oh I missed the bottom of your post where you mention Goons is on the board. Kings court is a decent buy then, used not really as an engine, just as the potential to turn your horse traders into a pseudo-Vault to Platinum, or for that potential triple Goons.
Early game, Horse Traders helps you accelerate to Goons with a few silver purchases, and protects against his goons. It may slightly hurt your chances of buying KC though.
Shanty town is the key card I think that could/should have been skipped.
Regarding that specific hand, ya there really is no elegant combo. The specific hand is rather restricting just because of how those two cards play with KC.
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The only one I can think of that wasn't mentioned is a slight variance on guided's solution: King's Court, then Shanty Town, then Horse Traders, then King's Court, then Shanty Town. This, too, suffers from getting lucky on what comes next.
It helps to actually visualize things every now and then...
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King's court really doesn't work with goons so well directly, since the VP chips on buys aren't duplicated. Playing king's court on something else (like lab) to get a better goons hand, on the other hand, is quite reasonable. But I don't really see that here.
Seems to me that from your description, your deck was discombobulated. You had so much different stuff going on, 1) your shanty towns are going to pretty bad, and 2)it's going to be hard to get a hand which gels together well.
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The only one I can think of that wasn't mentioned is a slight variance on guided's solution: King's Court, then Shanty Town, then Horse Traders, then King's Court, then Shanty Town. This, too, suffers from getting lucky on what comes next.
The action phase ends at Horse Traders. This forces you to discard your last 2 cards in hand.
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If you're really desperate for 2 more cards, because you think that will save your turn, you could play shanty town, horse traders, throwing 2 KC, shanty town. I would only do that If I was swimming in scrying pools or labs or something. Otherwise, what you did was all you could do.