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[schadd]

what is the optimal strategy in this kingdom, do we think?

open militia or witch/chapel and then, initially you would think council room/militia is good but then stop to realize that that gets super very countered by both library and, heh, moat (super big handsize means you're likely to have it if you buy, like, 2)
i would think council room is still good though because your opponent will not have trouble drawing; then do workshop/throneroom/feast and gain your way up to the top, festival/councilroom is probably good. witch is probably only good if you can get it early, just because chapel is there; workshop gardens kinda stinks because it doesn't really benefit from opponent's councilroom.

another fun thing maybe more suited to theory is, if you had to pick 6 kingdom cards that you could buy for the whole game, what would they be? 

competitive:
chapel, throneroom, feast, festival, library, militia (library and militia might be switched with witch and councilroom)
worshop, gardens, cellar, village, thief?, feast?

another another fun thing is analyzing in what way it changes from expansion to expansion: prosperity (kapow!) to dark ages (rats/fortress/what?) to adventures (what)

[Seprix]

I see no Witch, so...

The best ideas are going to either be the Gardens/Workshop rush or the big engine with Militia/Council Room, fueled by Chapel trashing. Considering that the big engine can just dive in and take Gardens later on (with Workshops or buys), I'm inclined to lean towards the engine here.

edit: Witch is there, only forgotten. Got it.

Best time to go for Witch is ASAP. That seals it for me. Engine it is. You can delay the Witch and wait until you start playing Militia every turn, but then you'll have all the junk in your deck.

[schadd]

I see no Witch, so...

haha what are you talking about! hahahaaa

[Seprix]

I see no Witch, so...

haha what are you talking about! hahahaaa

You... You... You trickster...!!!

[Limetime]

Oh by the way workshop gardens loses to bm. The simulators say this.

[Seprix]

Oh by the way workshop gardens loses to bm. The simulators say this.

you're a simulator

[schadd]

Oh by the way workshop gardens loses to bm. The simulators say this.

uh no it doesn't


which bm are you thinking? because it beats that one, the simulator i use says this

[Roadrunner7671]

Oh by the way workshop gardens loses to bm. The simulators say this.

You were missed

[amoffett11]

Here's another fun game:  Play this game with 4P.  Before the game starts, players take turns drafting cards until they have a personal Kingdom of 6.  It's a Snake Draft, so Player 1 will take Cards 1, 8, 9, 16, 17, 24.  And so on.  One card doesn't get drafted (Thief?).  Players can only buy cards from their own Kingdom. 

How does the Draft go?  What strategies might you go for?  Keep in mind there's only 2 villages (3 with Throne Room), so one player will be out of luck for the Engine.  Maybe this is the player who goes for Workshop Gardens.  Maybe the player who drafts 4th takes Festival and Village (the first three players go Chapel, Witch, something else) and just fences everyone else out of the villages.  It's fun to think about. 

If you don't like playing 4P, you can do the same thing, but just have a tournament, player 1 plays player 4, 2 v 3, and the winners face off against each other, still with only their own 6 cards each game. 

[Limetime]

I simulated this against bm on dominate. The best uncontested gardens strat gets 9 workshops before going green. It lost big time. Also the engine here is much stronger than bm.

[McGarnacle]

I simulated this against bm on dominate. The best uncontested gardens strat gets 9 workshops before going green. It lost big time. Also the engine here is much stronger than bm.

I've done Workshop/Gardens quite a few times, and I never, ever got 9 Workshops before getting Gardens.

[Infthitbox]

I simulated this against bm on dominate. The best uncontested gardens strat gets 9 workshops before going green. It lost big time. Also the engine here is much stronger than bm.

Uh, no? Workshop/Gardens trashes Library/BM, Witch/BM, BMU...

Here is the code I used for Workshop/Gardens on Dominiate:

Code: [Select]

{
    name: 'Workshop/Gardens'
    requires: ['Workshop', 'Gardens']
    gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
        'Gardens' if my.countInDeck('Workshop') > 8
        'Workshop'
        'Estate'
        'Silver'
        'Copper'
    ]
}
This won ~80% of games against Library-BM.

[Limetime]

I guess I am wrong

[Seprix]

Here's another fun game:  Play this game with 4P.  Before the game starts, players take turns drafting cards until they have a personal Kingdom of 6.  It's a Snake Draft, so Player 1 will take Cards 1, 8, 9, 16, 17, 24.  And so on.  One card doesn't get drafted (Thief?).  Players can only buy cards from their own Kingdom. 

How does the Draft go?  What strategies might you go for?  Keep in mind there's only 2 villages (3 with Throne Room), so one player will be out of luck for the Engine.  Maybe this is the player who goes for Workshop Gardens.  Maybe the player who drafts 4th takes Festival and Village (the first three players go Chapel, Witch, something else) and just fences everyone else out of the villages.  It's fun to think about. 

If you don't like playing 4P, you can do the same thing, but just have a tournament, player 1 plays player 4, 2 v 3, and the winners face off against each other, still with only their own 6 cards each game.

Put that into a different thread, dude. That's incredibly deep, and deserves it's own thread.

[Chris is me]

It's really hard to win quickly in the Base set, and the strongest attacks aren't very good against a Gardens rush or slog. I would probably go Gardens. Witch and Militia don't really bother it much.

[amoffett11]

Put that into a different thread, dude. That's incredibly deep, and deserves it's own thread.

I might do just that at some point, but I don't want to steal the thunder of this discussion either, because it is in and of itself an interesting one.  Where would that go?  Here in General Discussion?  In Variants?  Somewhere else?


I'm surprised by all the Workshop Gardens talk.  I can't imagine Gardens (or specifically Workshop Gardens) would actually be the best strategy, given all 25 Kingdom cards.  I don't know the simulator results, but it seems to me that while Workshop Gardens is powerful, it's not always the best option on every Base board.  Doesn't it then follow that it couldn't possibly be the best strategy on a board that has every Base card available?  Whatever the best engine you can make, I would have to think that wins the majority of the time.  I think OP's idea might be best; Throne Room/Feast can build really quick into whatever Council Room's and Festival's you need, grab a Militia, and go on from there.  You can probably steal a Gardens or two if that is what your opponent is going for.  I can't see the Gardens player ending the game before you can pull back ahead. 

[Infthitbox]

Put that into a different thread, dude. That's incredibly deep, and deserves it's own thread.

Doesn't it then follow that it couldn't possibly be the best strategy on a board that has every Base card available?  Whatever the best engine you can make, I would have to think that wins the majority of the time.

Rock/Paper/Scissors

But, I agree some engine has got to be best here. I think with Chapel, you can get going fast enough to set up whichever attack you need. Against some non-engine Gardens strategy, I think Militia, perhaps even with Spy support, can do enough damage.

[Limetime]

It's really hard to win quickly in the Base set, and the strongest attacks aren't very good against a Gardens rush or slog. I would probably go Gardens. Witch and Militia don't really bother it much.

Council room, festival, chapel should beat it. Council room doesn't help the gardens player that much for the same reason militia doesn't hurt it very much.
You can also add in militia and witch after you are drawing your deck.
Also you can possibly use the b-crat pin

[dedicateddan]

Workshop/Gardens looks like a great way to take a 15 point lead before the engine player hands you 10 curses and triple provinces

[Chris is me]

Workshop/Gardens looks like a great way to take a 15 point lead before the engine player hands you 10 curses and triple provinces

The Curses barely bother you. You can still Workshop something and buy a Copper most turns, and your opponent still needs all 8 Provinces to end the game usually. The curses end up being a net total of -2 VP if you have all 8 Gardens - in "who cares" territory at that point.

The Workshop player has to watch out for a Chapel / CR engine, so maybe if they see that coming they pivot to a competing engine with Militia or something. Hmm.

[Limetime]

Workshop/Gardens looks like a great way to take a 15 point lead before the engine player hands you 10 curses and triple provinces

The Curses barely bother you. You can still Workshop something and buy a Copper most turns, and your opponent still needs all 8 Provinces to end the game usually. The curses end up being a net total of -2 VP if you have all 8 Gardens - in "who cares" territory at that point.

The Workshop player has to watch out for a Chapel / CR engine, so maybe if they see that coming they pivot to a competing engine with Militia or something. Hmm.

The  engine player can deny 5 gardens if they get one-2 workshops and some thrones. Then they trash them and get 2 provinces before you can drain piles.

[schadd]

The Workshop player has to watch out for a Chapel / CR engine, so maybe if they see that coming they pivot to a competing engine with Militia or something. Hmm.

that doesn't strike me as a particularly doable thing

[Chris is me]

Workshop/Gardens looks like a great way to take a 15 point lead before the engine player hands you 10 curses and triple provinces

The Curses barely bother you. You can still Workshop something and buy a Copper most turns, and your opponent still needs all 8 Provinces to end the game usually. The curses end up being a net total of -2 VP if you have all 8 Gardens - in "who cares" territory at that point.

The Workshop player has to watch out for a Chapel / CR engine, so maybe if they see that coming they pivot to a competing engine with Militia or something. Hmm.

The  engine player can deny 5 gardens if they get one-2 workshops and some thrones. Then they trash them and get 2 provinces before you can drain piles.

If you lose the split of the card central to your strategy, you're already not going to win. I find it hard to believe the engine player can just casually win the Gardens split while also building their engine - if they can gain gardens faster than you via some method, why wouldn't you just use the same method?

[AdrianHealey]

I'd open Chapel/Gardens

[Limetime]

Workshop/Gardens looks like a great way to take a 15 point lead before the engine player hands you 10 curses and triple provinces

The Curses barely bother you. You can still Workshop something and buy a Copper most turns, and your opponent still needs all 8 Provinces to end the game usually. The curses end up being a net total of -2 VP if you have all 8 Gardens - in "who cares" territory at that point.

The Workshop player has to watch out for a Chapel / CR engine, so maybe if they see that coming they pivot to a competing engine with Militia or something. Hmm.

The  engine player can deny 5 gardens if they get one-2 workshops and some thrones. Then they trash them and get 2 provinces before you can drain piles.

If you lose the split of the card central to your strategy, you're already not going to win. I find it hard to believe the engine player can just casually win the Gardens split while also building their engine - if they can gain gardens faster than you via some method, why wouldn't you just use the same method?

The engine player should already have a couple workshops and throne rooms by the time the gardens player starts greening. If the gardens player starts greening sooner they won't be able to gain't enough cards for high value cards.  Chapel is the key card here.