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Dominion Articles / Ghost Town
« on: June 09, 2018, 06:20:09 am »
Hey all! I decided to write a strategy article on Ghost Town, since my opinion of it has changed a lot since Nocturne's release.
Feedback welcome and appreciated.
Ghost Town is a surprisingly hard-to-value village. It's usually
worse than a vanilla Village, but it's better than it looks at first
glance, and in some situations you should actually prefer it.
The Main Tradeoff
If you're drawing your whole deck every turn, you need two Ghost Towns
in your deck to get the same +action as one normal village (i.e. an
extra action every turn). To compensate for this, Ghost Town adds a
decent amount of reliability to your deck.
If you're playing a Ghost Town every turn, you're starting every turn
with 6 cards and two actions. This feels very similar to playing a
Hireling, and being lucky enough to always draw a village in your
opening hand.
In any deck where you'd want to pick up a Hireling for consistency,
you should strongly consider picking up two Ghost Towns. It's the
same total cost (6), with a bunch of other minor considerations that
mostly cancel out (you need two buys, but you get the effect right
away, etc. etc.).
In my experience, 90% of the time when I have a choice between Ghost
Town and a normal village, the decision comes down to whether or not I
need the extra reliability. In a game with strong terminal draw and
weak trashing, it can matter a lot. Even then, though, I'd advise
only picking up as many Ghost Towns as you need to reliably draw your
deck, and then switching back to normal villages.
What if you aren't drawing your whole deck every turn?
If you aren't drawing your whole deck every turn, the
efficiency/reliability tradeoff mostly goes away, and Ghost Town
becomes much more comparable to a normal village. It's slightly
better because it's gained to your hand and isn't dead if you pick it
up off of a terminal draw, it's slightly worse because it doesn't play
nice with action synergy cards.
Usually in this case the decision comes down to whether or not there's
a good action synergy card on the board. If there is, I usually
prefer a normal village. The only exception is when there's strong
terminal draw and good junking / weak trashing. I would pick up Ghost
Town over a normal village close to 100% of the time in Cultist games,
for example.
Other Considerations: Gaining to Your Hand
Aside from the main benefit of reliability, the fact that Ghost Town
is gained to your hand is relevant fairly often.
If this seems like a weak effect, consider that people will sometimes
pay $3 for Expedition, which draws two extra cards for your next hand.
Buying a Ghost Town lets you pay $3 to draw one extra card for your
next hand, and also start with an extra action. This is usually a
weaker effect, but remember that you get to keep the Ghost Town.
There are two main uses for this: attempting to spike up to $5 or
higher to buy a power card, and racing in the late game. (If you're
racing on provinces, often the best use of a weak turn is drawing an
extra card for your next turn.)
Note that it's usually a bad idea to buy Ghost Town with $3 turn one
to try and get a 5-buy turn two. You only have a 3/5 chance of
hitting the 5-buy, and even when you do hit it, the extra card you
drew triggered a reshuffle, so it needs to wait an extra turn to enter
circulation. This makes Ghost Town notably worse than Nomad Camp as
an early spike.
Gaining to your hand becomes much stronger in long slogs, when the
game might be over by the time a card you buy circulates back to your
hand. In slogs where Ghost Town and a normal village are close in
value, often I will pick up normal villages early and switch to Ghost
Towns once the first province is bought.
Other Considerations: Gainers
The main downside of Ghost Town is that you often have to gain twice
as many of them for the same effect. In games with lots of card
gaining (Workshop, Talisman, Artificer, etc.), this downside matters a
little bit less. This usually isn't enough on its own to justify
picking up Ghost Towns, but it might sway the balance if it's already
a hard call.
Other Considerations: Delayed Effect
In a game where you aren't drawing your whole deck every turn, playing
a Ghost Town is kind of like drawing a 4 card hand followed by a 6
card hand. Often it's preferable to have one weak hand and one strong
hand rather than two mediocre hands, so this can be surprisingly
useful, especially in games with strong junking and weak trashing.
My Ghost Town Flowchart
Do I expect to draw my whole deck every turn?
* Yes: is my engine reliable?
* Yes: Do I desperately need an extra card next turn?
* Yes: Get Ghost Towns.
* No: Get normal villages.
* No: Get at least two Ghost Towns.
* No: Do I expect to be drawing villages dead (e.g. Cultist)?
* Yes: Get Ghost Towns.
* No: Is there action synergy (e.g. King's Court)?
* Yes: Do I desperately need an extra card next turn?
* Yes: Get Ghost Towns.
* No: Get normal villages.
* No: Get Ghost Towns.
Feedback welcome and appreciated.
Ghost Town is a surprisingly hard-to-value village. It's usually
worse than a vanilla Village, but it's better than it looks at first
glance, and in some situations you should actually prefer it.
The Main Tradeoff
If you're drawing your whole deck every turn, you need two Ghost Towns
in your deck to get the same +action as one normal village (i.e. an
extra action every turn). To compensate for this, Ghost Town adds a
decent amount of reliability to your deck.
If you're playing a Ghost Town every turn, you're starting every turn
with 6 cards and two actions. This feels very similar to playing a
Hireling, and being lucky enough to always draw a village in your
opening hand.
In any deck where you'd want to pick up a Hireling for consistency,
you should strongly consider picking up two Ghost Towns. It's the
same total cost (6), with a bunch of other minor considerations that
mostly cancel out (you need two buys, but you get the effect right
away, etc. etc.).
In my experience, 90% of the time when I have a choice between Ghost
Town and a normal village, the decision comes down to whether or not I
need the extra reliability. In a game with strong terminal draw and
weak trashing, it can matter a lot. Even then, though, I'd advise
only picking up as many Ghost Towns as you need to reliably draw your
deck, and then switching back to normal villages.
What if you aren't drawing your whole deck every turn?
If you aren't drawing your whole deck every turn, the
efficiency/reliability tradeoff mostly goes away, and Ghost Town
becomes much more comparable to a normal village. It's slightly
better because it's gained to your hand and isn't dead if you pick it
up off of a terminal draw, it's slightly worse because it doesn't play
nice with action synergy cards.
Usually in this case the decision comes down to whether or not there's
a good action synergy card on the board. If there is, I usually
prefer a normal village. The only exception is when there's strong
terminal draw and good junking / weak trashing. I would pick up Ghost
Town over a normal village close to 100% of the time in Cultist games,
for example.
Other Considerations: Gaining to Your Hand
Aside from the main benefit of reliability, the fact that Ghost Town
is gained to your hand is relevant fairly often.
If this seems like a weak effect, consider that people will sometimes
pay $3 for Expedition, which draws two extra cards for your next hand.
Buying a Ghost Town lets you pay $3 to draw one extra card for your
next hand, and also start with an extra action. This is usually a
weaker effect, but remember that you get to keep the Ghost Town.
There are two main uses for this: attempting to spike up to $5 or
higher to buy a power card, and racing in the late game. (If you're
racing on provinces, often the best use of a weak turn is drawing an
extra card for your next turn.)
Note that it's usually a bad idea to buy Ghost Town with $3 turn one
to try and get a 5-buy turn two. You only have a 3/5 chance of
hitting the 5-buy, and even when you do hit it, the extra card you
drew triggered a reshuffle, so it needs to wait an extra turn to enter
circulation. This makes Ghost Town notably worse than Nomad Camp as
an early spike.
Gaining to your hand becomes much stronger in long slogs, when the
game might be over by the time a card you buy circulates back to your
hand. In slogs where Ghost Town and a normal village are close in
value, often I will pick up normal villages early and switch to Ghost
Towns once the first province is bought.
Other Considerations: Gainers
The main downside of Ghost Town is that you often have to gain twice
as many of them for the same effect. In games with lots of card
gaining (Workshop, Talisman, Artificer, etc.), this downside matters a
little bit less. This usually isn't enough on its own to justify
picking up Ghost Towns, but it might sway the balance if it's already
a hard call.
Other Considerations: Delayed Effect
In a game where you aren't drawing your whole deck every turn, playing
a Ghost Town is kind of like drawing a 4 card hand followed by a 6
card hand. Often it's preferable to have one weak hand and one strong
hand rather than two mediocre hands, so this can be surprisingly
useful, especially in games with strong junking and weak trashing.
My Ghost Town Flowchart
Do I expect to draw my whole deck every turn?
* Yes: is my engine reliable?
* Yes: Do I desperately need an extra card next turn?
* Yes: Get Ghost Towns.
* No: Get normal villages.
* No: Get at least two Ghost Towns.
* No: Do I expect to be drawing villages dead (e.g. Cultist)?
* Yes: Get Ghost Towns.
* No: Is there action synergy (e.g. King's Court)?
* Yes: Do I desperately need an extra card next turn?
* Yes: Get Ghost Towns.
* No: Get normal villages.
* No: Get Ghost Towns.