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[Limetime]

I will comment on on one of the recommended boards (from the rule book) from Prosperity and Adventures. Feel free to discuss how you would do things differently. Later you can discuss different recommended boards.

Last Will and Monument

 

There are two decent strategies on this board: vault/rabble;treasure trove;monument;Big money and a counting house engine. In the big money strategy you probably want to open monument+silver on a 4/3 and treasure trove/coin of the realm on a 5/2 split. This is a very simple but fast big money strategy. This probably should be your buy priority outside greening:
For Stagger rabbles or vaults and treasure troves starting with treasure troves.
For get one to two monuments proceed to get
For get silver
For get COTR

The payload of the engine is to play a messenger and the a counting house. To do this you need a whole bunch of dungeons, 1-2 treasure troves, a messenger, 1-2 counting houses(with two you play one mid turn), and two staggered COTRs.
You probably want to inherit dungeons so your deck can explode.
On a turn you should play a bunch of dungeons and then play messenger, calling COTR , then playing counting house drawing all your coppers, play your treasure troves. A deck with two counting houses should play the second one in the middle of the turn.
Edit: oops forgot about inheritance

[werothegreat]

You forgot the most important part of this board - the Event! 



When I played this board against BeyondAwesome, he Inherited Messengers, and I Inherited Monuments.  I won.

[werothegreat]

No?  Both players can Inherit.  The "once per game" is per player.  And remember that you START THE GAME WITH THREE ESTATES.  Normally three Monuments costs $12 and three buys - here, I can get them for only and one buy.

[Beyond Awesome]

Yah. That game was an embarrassment for me.

[Limetime]

Here is another recommended board from alchemy + dark ages
I am changing how this works from an article type thing to discussion.

Infestations

 
It has ruins for cultist
Which strategy is best?

[ConMan]

This board looks designed for a Vineyards rush. Might open MS+Armory, using Armory to get one Rats and then Potions/Market Squares/Wandering Minstrels as necessary. Buy Scrying Pools where possible, and gaze longingly at Transmutes in the hopes that you could feed Golds from the MSes to them to increase Action density, knowing that it will never work and you're a fool for thinking about it.

[Roadrunner7671]

Apprentice + Rats
Scrying Pool and Wandering Minstrel for reliability.
Market Square for +buy, payload and possibly draw with Apprentice.
Vineyards for payload.

[JacquesTheBard]

And of course, Apprentice / Market Square remains an incredible combo.

[Limetime]

And of course, Apprentice / Market Square remains an incredible combo.

Rats makes both strategies better.
Apprentice / Market Square is easier to play correctly too.

[ehunt]

this board is nuts. the problem with apprentice/market square here is that you literally don't want gold except for if you get lucky and draw it with apprentice.

the important thing to remember is that no matter what you do, the game will end in like 2 seconds and your opponent will have more vineyards and so you'll lose.

given this nightmare reality in which we live, open armory/market square. (potion/market square if youre feeling lucky) and on the next shuffle armory for a potion and get a scrying pool. get a rats at some point if you can; armory for armories and maybe a couple moonstrels, stop picking up scrying pools earlier than you want to b/c it is vineyard time, it was always already vineyard time, see above.

[Accatitippi]

I'd also go for the Vineyards crazyness. Open Market Square/Armory, get one Potion ASAP, and Rats  and then more Potions, and aggressively buy out the Vineyards. If I lose the Vineyard split, I've lost here, I think. Then, I'll concentrate on exploding my deck/ending the game, which is really easy here and is the strategically interesting part (in case of evenly split vineyards). I think the fastest way to grow is to buy a few Scrying Pools, Market squares and Rat them Treasures. Problem is this empties only the Rats pile, so I'll have to WM/Armory anyway to end it. I might want to skip the other Market squares and go directly to the WM/Armory/SP engine then.

But I have played very little Dark ages against humans so I'm kind of very unexperienced.

[AJD]

Note that the +buy from Market Square will also help you get as many Ruins as you want to pad your Vineyard score.

[luser]

I'd also go for the Vineyards crazyness. Open Market Square/Armory, get one Potion ASAP, and Rats  and then more Potions, and aggressively buy out the Vineyards. If I lose the Vineyard split, I've lost here, I think. Then, I'll concentrate on exploding my deck/ending the game, which is really easy here and is the strategically interesting part (in case of evenly split vineyards). I think the fastest way to grow is to buy a few Scrying Pools, Market squares and Rat them Treasures. Problem is this empties only the Rats pile, so I'll have to WM/Armory anyway to end it. I might want to skip the other Market squares and go directly to the WM/Armory/SP engine then.

But I have played very little Dark ages against humans so I'm kind of very unexperienced.

Here engine is much better as you could delay getting vineyards, So open market square armory and gain first rats then potion. Then quickly trash starting hand, get golds for market squares and two potions for as many scrying pools as possible before greening. I would wait with vineyards until I could triple or quad vineyard for two turn to win split unless opponent reliably double-vineyards or could triple-vineyard. For example game I emptied vineyards that in turns 11-12 and ended with 20 point ones.

https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151113/log.0.1447417065105.txt

[Limetime]

I'd also go for the Vineyards crazyness. Open Market Square/Armory, get one Potion ASAP, and Rats  and then more Potions, and aggressively buy out the Vineyards. If I lose the Vineyard split, I've lost here, I think. Then, I'll concentrate on exploding my deck/ending the game, which is really easy here and is the strategically interesting part (in case of evenly split vineyards). I think the fastest way to grow is to buy a few Scrying Pools, Market squares and Rat them Treasures. Problem is this empties only the Rats pile, so I'll have to WM/Armory anyway to end it. I might want to skip the other Market squares and go directly to the WM/Armory/SP engine then.

But I have played very little Dark ages against humans so I'm kind of very unexperienced.

Here engine is much better as you could delay getting vineyards, So open market square armory and gain first rats then potion. Then quickly trash starting hand, get golds for market squares and two potions for as many scrying pools as possible before greening. I would wait with vineyards until I could triple or quad vineyard for two turn to win split unless opponent reliably double-vineyards or could triple-vineyard. For example game I emptied vineyards that in turns 11-12 and ended with 20 point ones.

https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151113/log.0.1447417065105.txt

Apprentice market square is incredibly quick at draining provinces.
Calimero drains 5 provinces + 1 duchy in 13 turns
http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151026/log.0.1445903510648.txt
Ela drains 6 provinces in 13 turns
http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151017/log.0.1445062718303.txt
You have to be able to get enough high point vineyards before the apprentice player finishes the game off.
The engine is probably better but it is pretty close.

[luser]

I'd also go for the Vineyards crazyness. Open Market Square/Armory, get one Potion ASAP, and Rats  and then more Potions, and aggressively buy out the Vineyards. If I lose the Vineyard split, I've lost here, I think. Then, I'll concentrate on exploding my deck/ending the game, which is really easy here and is the strategically interesting part (in case of evenly split vineyards). I think the fastest way to grow is to buy a few Scrying Pools, Market squares and Rat them Treasures. Problem is this empties only the Rats pile, so I'll have to WM/Armory anyway to end it. I might want to skip the other Market squares and go directly to the WM/Armory/SP engine then.

But I have played very little Dark ages against humans so I'm kind of very unexperienced.

Here engine is much better as you could delay getting vineyards, So open market square armory and gain first rats then potion. Then quickly trash starting hand, get golds for market squares and two potions for as many scrying pools as possible before greening. I would wait with vineyards until I could triple or quad vineyard for two turn to win split unless opponent reliably double-vineyards or could triple-vineyard. For example game I emptied vineyards that in turns 11-12 and ended with 20 point ones.

https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151113/log.0.1447417065105.txt

Apprentice market square is incredibly quick at draining provinces.
Calimero drains 5 provinces + 1 duchy in 13 turns
http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151026/log.0.1445903510648.txt
Ela drains 6 provinces in 13 turns
http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151017/log.0.1445062718303.txt
You have to be able to get enough high point vineyards before the apprentice player finishes the game off.
The engine is probably better but it is pretty close.

That isn't problem, in few games vs bots when I pulled megaturn it was like 4 ten point vineyards in turn 10, So engine is much better unless there is severe bad luck like minstrels skipping potion lot of times.

[Limetime]

I'd also go for the Vineyards crazyness. Open Market Square/Armory, get one Potion ASAP, and Rats  and then more Potions, and aggressively buy out the Vineyards. If I lose the Vineyard split, I've lost here, I think. Then, I'll concentrate on exploding my deck/ending the game, which is really easy here and is the strategically interesting part (in case of evenly split vineyards). I think the fastest way to grow is to buy a few Scrying Pools, Market squares and Rat them Treasures. Problem is this empties only the Rats pile, so I'll have to WM/Armory anyway to end it. I might want to skip the other Market squares and go directly to the WM/Armory/SP engine then.

But I have played very little Dark ages against humans so I'm kind of very unexperienced.

Here engine is much better as you could delay getting vineyards, So open market square armory and gain first rats then potion. Then quickly trash starting hand, get golds for market squares and two potions for as many scrying pools as possible before greening. I would wait with vineyards until I could triple or quad vineyard for two turn to win split unless opponent reliably double-vineyards or could triple-vineyard. For example game I emptied vineyards that in turns 11-12 and ended with 20 point ones.

https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151113/log.0.1447417065105.txt

Apprentice market square is incredibly quick at draining provinces.
Calimero drains 5 provinces + 1 duchy in 13 turns
http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151026/log.0.1445903510648.txt
Ela drains 6 provinces in 13 turns
http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151017/log.0.1445062718303.txt
You have to be able to get enough high point vineyards before the apprentice player finishes the game off.
The engine is probably better but it is pretty close.

That isn't problem, in few games vs bots when I pulled megaturn it was like 4 ten point vineyards in turn 10, So engine is much better unless there is severe bad luck like minstrels skipping potion lot of times.

Rats improves apprentice/market square a lot, that said I think that the vineyard rush is best.
What about a hybrid?(Skip SP, use apprentice market square for draw, rush vineyards earlier)

[Limetime]

Now for the next kingdom:

Queen of Tan

 

Which strategy is best?

[Donald X.]

Now for the next kingdom:

Infestations

Infestations is a Dark Ages / Alchemy set with Rats. What you have there is Queen of Tan.

[Chris is me]

Queen of Tan is a great but tricky board since you basically want a little of everything. Royal Carriage, Ratcatcher, and Duplicate are the most important of the top row and should be bought early. You want Duplicate to pick up a ton of Heralds to propel your engine; I don't like using Coin for a village here when you can just do a bunch of Heralds and a few Journeymen. I think you eventually want to use Pathfinding on either Herald or even CSM - making Pathfinding target CSM turns it into a $2 Baker / Market hybrid which is really great payload. This would be fun to play a few times.

[Limetime]

Royal carriage kinda anti synergises with with other reserve cards. I think that pathfinding should go on herald (I could be wrong) Butcher is an important payload.

[JacquesTheBard]

Pretty much everything is a good Pathfinding target, but the one time I played Queen of Tan, Pathfinding Candlestick Makers won me the game.

[Limetime]

Pathfinding is good with either cards you want anyway or cards that are easy to get. Candlestick maker falls into one category herald falls into another.
Edit 100th post

[werothegreat]

Besides being able to get a bunch of them, Pathfinding works best on cards that are either already drawing cards, or give +Action. For instance, you'd much rather have that token on Laboratory than Bridge.

[Limetime]

Pathfinding works well with cards that would otherwise help your deck and is a lot better on non payload items.