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[h1402686]

Code: [Select]

Squire, Stonemason, Great Hall, Lookout, Woodcutter, Bureaucrat, Ironworks, Ill-Gotten Gains, Mystic, Outpost
I looked at this Kingdom and barely saw past the IGG stack. My plan was to buy Ironworks to pump out Great Halls and a single Woodcutter as my terminal action to give me +Buys so I could tack coppers onto my IGGs. The bot I was playing against came up with the perfect response, but perhaps should have waited a little longer to let me dig myself in deeper. The response was a Bureaucrat on turn 2, a card that I had basically ignored when looking at the board. So much for that game plan. I checked with a simulator and the built-in Bureaucrat strategy works wonders against my Ironworks/Great Hall idea.

In fact, 9 of the 10 supply cards got bought in the course of the game: only Lookout was left out. I love it when Kingdoms play like that. And the key card on the board ended up being not IGG but Stonemason, with largely but not entirely for its overpay ability.

I still don't know what the best strategy is with this Kingdom, but the computer got a lot closer than I did.

Here's the log: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150411/log.516cccebe4b082c74d79df9b.1428796850902.txt

[Beyond Awesome]

Ironworks/ Great Hall is almost never a thing. Overall, this is a pretty weak board. B-crat might shine here. I would say with lookout, the effectiveness of IGG is nulled. Also, you can stonemason into double Mystic. Not the greatest thing, but a better buy on $7 than Gold. I would probably just go for a BM strategy opening Lookout/Lookout for thinning and also for protection if an opponent went for IGG. Since the board is weak, I would probably also get a Bureaucrat or two and then buy money or for $7 overpay on Stonemason for the Double Mystic.

[DStu]

I'm not so convinced by your detour over the IW/GH.  You want to Curse asap to have the greatest effect, in a mirror to win the split, against BigMoney or an engine to disrupt the buildup as early as possible.  When the Curses come later they find a larger deck in which they have a smaller effect.

Nevertheless, you are on the right track with the Bureaucrat. In an IGG mirror a single Bureaucrat is a slight help. Bureaucrat is often strong in Curse games, especially with weak curses like SeaHag or Young Witch, that have only a weak effect on your own deck.  This is because these games often turn into slogs, in which Silver is a very good card, your target is more Duchy than Province, and in which Victory cards are relatively long in the deck (compared to a strong engine that buys most of them in the last few turns), so that the attack can work of.

I would say an IGG game is on the edge of that, it also focuses on Duchies, but the deck is quite strong in itself moneywise even without Silver.  But still you would take a free Silver anytime in these games.

edit: Ignoring all the other things on the board just focussing on the IGG game, I could also see starting with IW to gain Silvers, with the option of GHs in lategame to be not so bad.  IW into Silver with the same idea as why Bureaucrat for Silver, with a +1coin on gain and some flexibilty for the IW.

[h1402686]

Some simulator results:

• IGG+Ironworks is a small improvement over IGG when played head-to-head. In this case the Ironworks will be used to gain Silvers until late in the game when it will switch to Estates
• IGG+Bureaucrat is a little worse than IGG when played head-to-head
• IGG+Ironworks beats IGG+Bureaucrat 49% to 41% head-to-head
• IGG+Ironworks+Great Hall clobbers IGG+Ironworks 75% to 18%
• IGG+Bureaucrat loses to IGG+Ironworks+GreatHall 74% to 18%
• Bureaucrat (no IGGs) loses to IGG+Ironworks 72% to 27% BUT beats IGG+Ironworks+GreatHall 77% to 21%

Giving either Bureaucrat or IGG+Bureaucrat a Lookout doesn't change things much.

Code for Geronimoo's simulator is attached (though none of the bots are very complicated).

[pingpongsam]

We've all known for quite some time that Bureaucrat is the most powerful card in the game.

[DStu]

Some simulator results:

• IGG+Ironworks is a small improvement over IGG when played head-to-head. In this case the Ironworks will be used to gain Silvers until late in the game when it will switch to Estates
• IGG+Bureaucrat is a little worse than IGG when played head-to-head
• IGG+Ironworks beats IGG+Bureaucrat 49% to 41% head-to-head
• IGG+Ironworks+Great Hall clobbers IGG+Ironworks 75% to 18%
• IGG+Bureaucrat loses to IGG+Ironworks+GreatHall 74% to 18%
• Bureaucrat (no IGGs) loses to IGG+Ironworks 72% to 27% BUT beats IGG+Ironworks+GreatHall 77% to 21%

Giving either Bureaucrat or IGG+Bureaucrat a Lookout doesn't change things much.

Code for Geronimoo's simulator is attached (though none of the bots are very complicated).

If you give the bots the ability to buy Provinces if they peak $8 (which beats the version without Provinces 2:1), Bureaucrat-IGG should also beat plain IGG something like 55:45

:e also this

Code: [Select]

{
  name: 'IGG-IW'
  author: 'DStu'
  requires: ["Ill-Gotten Gains", "Ironworks"]
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Province"
    "Ill-Gotten Gains"
    "Duchy"
    "Ironworks" if my.countInDeck("Ironworks") == 0
    "Silver"
    "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
  ]
}
greatly beats

Code: [Select]

{
  name: 'IGG-GH-IW'
  author: 'DStu'
  requires: ["Ill-Gotten Gains", "Ironworks", "Great Hall"]
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Province"
    "Ill-Gotten Gains"
    "Duchy"
    "Ironworks" if my.countInDeck("Ironworks") == 0
    "Great Hall"
    "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
    "Silver"
  ]
}

:e2 for the last one, you probably also want to prevent the bot from buying GHs over Silver instead of just gaining them with IW, if you nevertheless decide to play IW-GH

:e3 yepp, this

Code: [Select]

{
  name: 'IGG-GH-IW_2'
  author: 'DStu'
  requires: ["Ill-Gotten Gains", "Ironworks", "Great Hall"]
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Province"
    "Ill-Gotten Gains"
    "Duchy"
    "Ironworks" if my.countInDeck("Ironworks") == 0
    "Great Hall" if state.phase == "action"
    "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
    "Silver"
  ]
}
is just a close loss (47:53@1000 games) against IGG-IW, and kills the one that also buys GHs.

:e4 But of course the GH-variant is more vulnurable to decks with Bureaucrats.

[DG]

You need to be careful with igg scripts as they need specific termination conditions to buy the last igg. Without that, scripts can bypass the suicide condition for 3 pile endings. It's also poor play to buy the last igg before buying any duchies. Furthermore, all the scripts need similar code for those last igg's or else the script with the better endgame will have a clear advantage.

[pubby]

No mention of lookout/mystic/stonemason without IGG? That seems viable here.

[WanderingWinder]

If your opponent isn't contesting you, opening IW to only get Great Halls is kind of like opening Province. It takes a slot in your deck, and all it does for you is score points. Against Bureaucrat it's probably even quite a bit worse, and with IGGs it's probably a bit worse still. Ironworks is still a reasonable card, because it can silver flood in a similar way to Bureaucrat, which is reasonable here. Bureacrat, Squire, and Ironworks all do that - IW is probably just better than squire given that you don't need the buys or actions, but it's not 100% clear on IW vs BCrat. I suspect Ironworks is better, but the thing is, you want to usually be gaining Silver, NOT Great Hall.

The other thing is, I would really be looking at Lookout. Not sure it's good, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[h1402686]

If your opponent isn't contesting you, opening IW to only get Great Halls is kind of like opening Province. It takes a slot in your deck, and all it does for you is score points.

Ironworks does soak up an early $4 when you could be getting something else, but as far as taking up a slot in your deck it's not as bad as it seems. As long as you're buying Great Halls, Ironworks is a cantrip. The key is that Great Halls are both an action and a victory card, so they get two of the Ironworks bonuses.

[Robz888]

If your opponent isn't contesting you, opening IW to only get Great Halls is kind of like opening Province. It takes a slot in your deck, and all it does for you is score points.

Ironworks does soak up an early $4 when you could be getting something else, but as far as taking up a slot in your deck it's not as bad as it seems. As long as you're buying Great Halls, Ironworks is a cantrip. The key is that Great Halls are both an action and a victory card, so they get two of the Ironworks bonuses.

But cantrips aren't very good in decks that consist of mostly money, and are taking on Curses. They are just nothing.

[h1402686]

If your opponent isn't contesting you, opening IW to only get Great Halls is kind of like opening Province. It takes a slot in your deck, and all it does for you is score points.

Ironworks does soak up an early $4 when you could be getting something else, but as far as taking up a slot in your deck it's not as bad as it seems. As long as you're buying Great Halls, Ironworks is a cantrip. The key is that Great Halls are both an action and a victory card, so they get two of the Ironworks bonuses.

But cantrips aren't very good in decks that consist of mostly money, and are taking on Curses. They are just nothing.

Right, they Ironworks and the Great Halls are all "nothing," whereas I think WanderingWinder was saying that the Ironworks is like a regular victory card (a dead card in your hand).

[DStu]

If your opponent isn't contesting you, opening IW to only get Great Halls is kind of like opening Province. It takes a slot in your deck, and all it does for you is score points.

Ironworks does soak up an early $4 when you could be getting something else, but as far as taking up a slot in your deck it's not as bad as it seems. As long as you're buying Great Halls, Ironworks is a cantrip. The key is that Great Halls are both an action and a victory card, so they get two of the Ironworks bonuses.

But cantrips aren't very good in decks that consist of mostly money, and are taking on Curses. They are just nothing.

Right, they Ironworks and the Great Halls are all "nothing," whereas I think WanderingWinder was saying that the Ironworks is like a regular victory card (a dead card in your hand).

What he means is:
Say you buy the IW, gain the 8GHs with it and afterwards don't do anything with it.  In this case, as long as you gain GHs, it replaces itself in hand, afterwards, its a dead card.  The GHs replace themselves, and gain in total 6VPs.  For your game, its the same situation as if the IW was a Victory card worth 8VP.  Just virtually transfer the VPs from the GHs to the IW. As the IW does nothing then gaining the GHs, its the same situation.

There's a slight difference as the IW is not dead until you gained the 8th GH, so if you want to be exact its a 8VP Victory card that you pay $4 for in turn 1/2, and which appears in your deck somewhen around turn 20.

[WanderingWinder]

It's an imperfect analogy, ok? The biggest point is, you aren't really improving your deck.

[pingpongsam]

All analysis aside my goal in this game would be to three pile curses, IGG and Great Halls. So I would have went for the IW/GH combo and probably never tried to buy a Province at all.