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[Throwaway_bicycling]

So this not really a game report, but is in the spirt of one.

This was the Reddit Kingdom of the Week (KoTW) this week:

Code: [Select]

Embargo, Masquerade, Warehouse, Caravan, JackOfAllTrades, Pirate Ship, Worker's Village, Highway, Tactician, Vault
Obviously a massive engine, albeit one limited somewhat by the meh draw. An active discussion has broken out over exactly how to approach this kingdom, since in a real game you expect a WV/Highway mirror possibly transitioning (if there is time) into Double Tac with Vault to support if you need it.

Pretty obviously, you don't want to lose the Highway split, but assuming you compete halfway reasonably for highways, it strikes me that Worker's Villages are almost as important, since you want to be the person with 8 to 10 buys so you can end this right away on your terms. Unless you are playing a Bot (and the Bots lose this board 100% of the time; I think it is the epitome of a bad 'bot board) this basically *has* to be a three-pile ending. Bots lose this by scores like 82-8 in 13 or 14 turns, which suggests to me that this can three pile in like eleven turns if you somebody can grab the buy advantage.

So what this all gets down to, is whether a 4/3 opening should be WV/Masquerade, Silver/Masq, or I guess something else. My initial inclination was Masq/Silver, since that guarantees no dead draws on Masq, and makes it a bit easier to hit $5 early. However...WV/Masq gets you one of the many WVs you need and seems to be slightly better for circulation, as well, as making it easier to say yes to embargo on a $2 hand, which often ends up being a "disappearing Silver" on a turn where you buy Highway.

Comments or opinions?

[SCSN]

Meh draw???

Open Silver/Masq for sure, it makes it a lot (not a little) easier to hit 5 and you don't care for a WV early on. Get Tactician with your first 5. Game should play itself from there.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Get Tactician with your first 5. Game should play itself from there.

I don't see Tactician as being a given for your first $5. Think it's totally possible to skip Tactician entirely with 2-3 Masquerades.

[Throwaway_bicycling]

Get Tactician with your first 5. Game should play itself from there.

I don't see Tactician as being a given for your first $5. Think it's totally possible to skip Tactician entirely with 2-3 Masquerades.

So based on SCSN's suggestion, I did play several more games against the (hopeless, to be sure) bot opponents, and Tac on your first $5 did seem to slow things down by a turn or two. Which, I admit, did surprise me a bit, except that early Tac does seem to give up some cheap hands ($3 or $4) that were better spent getting WV or Masq. Most times, it seemed the optimal thing (again, against a hopeless opponent) not to bother with Tac until you bought two for $0 with spare buys. That is, you basically built it out with WV/Masq/Highway and then cashed in with a couple of devastating double Tac turns. But against a real opponent, my guess is that would end up three-piling on like turn 11, which is the only thing that made me wonder about WV on your first $4. Which does seem weird, I agree, but seemed to work pretty well.

[Throwaway_bicycling]

Meh draw???

Uh...okay. You got me there. Just because you can't reliably draw everything until turn 8 or so doesn't mean it's meh draw. I plead "difficult work week".

[SCSN]

Thinking about it a bit more I like one Highway before getting Tactician, but I'm not a fan of delaying it further or skipping it entirely as it feels by far the fastest way to get your first double-5 turn.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Thinking about it a bit more I like one Highway before getting Tactician, but I'm not a fan of delaying it further or skipping it entirely as it feels by far the fastest way to get your first double-5 turn.

Getting nothing / 2 5s is worse than just going 5/5 over two turns for winning the splits here. So the Tactician turn has to really give you more value than 2 5s (like an extra WV or Masq) and it's hard to do that until you have 2-3 Highways. At that point you're probably taking Highway anyway because they are disappearing. I don't see Tactician being worth it until the Highways are gone.

But, I think an early Tactician is only a little worse than Highway, not a huge blunder or anything. And also I'm just guessing.