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werothegreat

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Feodum
« on: August 22, 2018, 01:52:39 pm »
+8


Feodum, like its counting Victory card brethren, is a rather niche card.  In a few instances, it can be worth a staggering amount of VP, vastly outweighing Provinces; however, it is also often ignorable, and can sometimes be worth nothing at all.  There does exist a middle ground, though, where it can be treated like a pinata full of Silver, or where it can help add a few tie-breaking points in a sloggier game.

If Feodum is on the board, quickly run through this mental checklist:
* Is there a way to gain Silver very quickly?
* Is there a way to gain Silver more slowly?
* Is there a way to trash Feodum?
Let’s look at each of these individually.

Feeding the Feoda

The time Feodum shines brighter than a supernova is when there is a powerful Silver gainer.  Masterpiece and Delve are the cream of the crop here, letting you buy multiple Silvers per turn.  Also noteworthy is Raid, which has the added benefit of hurting your opponent, though it does require you to gain a few Silvers the hard way first.  All of these are helped by any kind of strong draw: Masterpiece and Delve want as much $ as possible to spend on a Buy, while Raid wants you to get as many Silvers into play as you can.

If you find yourself in this optimal situation, your aim should be to empty out the Silver pile as quickly as possible, picking up Feoda along the way (assuming your opponent mirrors).  In this specific combo instance, winning the Silver split is more important than getting more Feoda (though if you don’t get any, you’re screwed); if you get 27 Silvers and 3 Feoda (27 VP total), that will beat an opponent with 13 Silvers and 5 Feoda (20 VP total).  If your opponent goes for Provinces instead, emptying the Silver pile isn’t strictly necessary; you just need enough to make sure your Feoda give more points than their Provinces, so make sure you actually grab Feoda before the game ends!

In a Masterpiece game, ideally you want to finish with a three pile ending: Silvers, Masterpieces, and Feoda.  However, if the Masterpieces don’t quite run out (or you’re using an Event gainer), your deck jammed full of Silver is perfect for buying Provinces, and can easily end the game conventionally.

If your opponent doesn’t try to mirror you, you’re looking at a maximum of 8 Feoda worth up to 13VP each - more than Colony!  In such a case, run down the Silver and Feodum piles as quick as you can while your opponent dawdles trying to get Provinces.  Do not buy any Provinces yourself until you’ve secured enough VP to trounce them.

The Middle Ground

Unfortunately, most Silver gainers are not as dramatic as those mentioned above.  However, that doesn’t mean Feodum is down for the count!  In a game with Bureaucrat or Squire, while emptying the Silver pile entirely is unrealistic, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect to have 10 or more Silvers by the end of the game.  In such cases, Feodum becomes a cheaper Duchy, and another option for three-piling.  While it’s no longer the star of the show, it can still be a nice supplement to your main VP from Provinces.

If you’re aiming to use Feodum in this way, try to get your Silver gainer early.  Not only do the Silvers help your Feoda, they also, as previously discussed, make buying Provinces easier.

Some Silver gainers can also trash.  Jack of All Trades, Hermit, and Amulet can also fill this middle ground role, but don’t mind if you get a Feodum early, just to trash for the Silvers inside.  Jack and Hermit are better for this, as they can trash and gain Silver at the same time.  In such cases, if you’re uncontested, the Feodum pile is unlikely to empty, so you’re not really losing any VP, as you can always just pick up another one, now worth 1VP more!

A word of warning, though: in a lot of these cases, there’s usually something better to do on the board than just slowly trickle Silvers into your deck, so keep an eye out for faster or more productive strategies.

Silver Slogs

In junking games, particularly with Cultist, the game can be extended significantly as players wade through Ruins or Curses.  In such cases, you might end up buying 12 or more Silvers throughout the course of the game, making Feodum particularly attractive as the game drags on.  In these cases, try to keep track of how many Silvers you think you’ll have by the end of the game; if it’s at least 9, start buying Feodum over Duchy, and keeping adding more Silver as you can.

Popping the Pinata

But what about trashers that don’t gain Silver?  Mass trashers like Chapel and Donate see Feodum as an early game boost; in this case, you don’t really care about the VP, but the 3 Silvers are very nice.  Working with only a single card trasher is a little risky, as it’s harder to line them up, but with Remodelers like Upgrade or Remake, or trash for benefit cards like Salvager or Bishop, it can be worth it, especially since a popped Feodum provides three more pieces of fodder for later use.  Upgrade can actually get a significant amount of VP from Feoda, as it can convert Estates into Silvers, Silvers into Feoda, and Feoda into more Upgrades.

Trader is an interesting example: it can generate a lot of Silvers for Feodum, but requires fodder to do so.  Popping open a Feodum gives you 7 Silvers, while Tradering a Silver gives it back to you with two more.  It’s not quite as reliable as Masterpiece or Delve, and you need to make sure you don’t trash too many Feoda, but it can be very potent, though you may still want to supplement with Provinces.

If you have a single card trasher that doesn’t scale, like Forager or Trade Route, it’s probably not worth the trouble.  An exception would be Ratcatcher, as it’s cheap, and a lot easier to line up with a target.

Being able to trash a Feodum on gain can also be quite nice - Watchtower and Salt the Earth are prime examples, essentially letting you pay $4 for 3 Silvers, and a little bonus.

Miscellaneous

Feodum provides a decent defense against trashing Attacks, particularly Knights.  If it gets hit, you still get 3 Silvers, which then in turn are preferred targets of the Attack, keeping your more valuable cards safe.

At first thought, it might seem like Treasure Hunter would be a good Feodum rush enabler, but it can be pretty easy for your opponent to play around letting you gain lots of Silvers with it, and Feodum and Silver are both prime targets for Warriors.
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Feodum
« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2018, 02:06:18 pm »
0

Maybe mention Conquest?

It can be a Silver-gainer (to complement other gainers) for going after Feodum points OR Feodum trashing can be a means of generating more Conquest points.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2018, 02:08:14 pm by Cave-o-sapien »
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werothegreat

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Re: Feodum
« Reply #2 on: August 22, 2018, 04:54:06 pm »
+1

Maybe mention Conquest?

It can be a Silver-gainer (to complement other gainers) for going after Feodum points OR Feodum trashing can be a means of generating more Conquest points.

I think Conquest can be implied.  It's not the best Feodum enabler, though.  Feodum giving more Conquest points might be better off in a Conquest article.
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Trogdor the Burninator

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Re: Feodum
« Reply #3 on: August 22, 2018, 06:46:17 pm »
0

Feodum is probably my favorite non-landmark or event way of gaining alt-vp. Managing to get your Feoda to the point where they're worth 6 vp or above each is one of the more satisfying things I can think of achieving in this game
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crj

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Re: Feodum
« Reply #4 on: August 22, 2018, 11:07:28 pm »
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Anyone got thoughts on the apparent synergy between Feodum and Treasure Hunter, especially in a mirror?

What about bouncing a Feodum in and out of the Trash for Silver?
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cascadestyler

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Re: Feodum
« Reply #5 on: August 23, 2018, 06:43:43 am »
+2

I disagree with not really considering Treasure Hunter to be a strong Feodum enabler. In order for your opponent to prevent you from using TH as a good Feodum-enabler, they have to play a fairly slow game without much gaining, which is exactly what one shouldn't be doing on a Page board. A good Page board engine building towards doing a lot with Champion is very vulnerable to allowing a TH-as-Feodum-enabler rush, and if the TH player gets 3-4 TH then realises that the opponent is doing something low-gain to block it, then the TH player is set up to quickly switch into a Warrior/Champion engine and crush them that way. Every time I've seen a Page/Feodum board, I've seen no other feasible option than TH/Feodum. The only way I can think that it wouldn't work is if there's a pretty decent low-gain strategy and the board isn't Champion-friendly. These boards are pretty rare. A mess of cantrips with Hermit/MS, Minion, or maybe Governor would be such a board, but I reckon ~80-90% of Page/Feodum boards will find TH/Feodum to be the dominant strategy. Even if this isn't the case, it probably deserves a mention just for how super-powered it is when both players do go for it. My opponent and I both gained 14 silvers in a turn in the fairly early midgame once. I know that isn't what would happen outside the mirror, because the gains don't snowball in the same way, but it's still pretty crushing non-mirrored against and enginey strategy and, as I mentioned, it's unwise to try to block it with a low-gain strategy because that's so vulnerable to the Warrior/Champion pivot, so you're generally going to see massive silver gaining on a Page/Feodum board.
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crj

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Re: Feodum
« Reply #6 on: August 23, 2018, 09:52:34 am »
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Thanks. That's pretty much what I'd have expected. But I've never seen Page and Feodum in the same kingdom, so didn't know how it would pan out in practice.
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aku_chi

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Re: Feodum
« Reply #7 on: August 24, 2018, 09:58:35 am »
+3

I was curious about this Treasure Hunter + Feodum thing.  I played several games against Lord Rattington to converge on the best build and get a sense for speed.  I never lost (the Rat is especially bad when you don't contest Provinces), but the speed to 48+ points was slower than I anticipated due to Lord Rattington having so many 1-gain turns.  Then, amoffett11 and I looked at 8 kingdoms and played 5 (the ones where the conclusion wasn't obvious).

Results
2/8 A Treasure Hunter + Feodum strategy won two games.  In the first game, amoffett11 built an engine with several gains per turn, but I don't know if this could have been avoided in the kingdom.  In the second game, I was supported by Amulet and Tower, and prevailed against amoffett11's Knights onslaught.
2/8 Feodum was probably worth gaining or trashing in two other kingdoms: one with Masterpiece, the other with Salt the Earth + Jack of all Trades.  We didn't play these.  Maybe a single Treasure Hunter could have helped the Feodum player?  Unclear.
1/8 We skipped a Governor game where it seemed like that was the obvious thing to do.
3/8 amoffett11 won the other 3 games we played with a non-Feodum strategy.  One was a Colony game where Feodums couldn't compete.  In another, amoffett11 was able to get two Warriors and destroy my deck (if the opponent gets the Pages early enough, they can get Treasure Hunters before you have them all).  In the third game, I think amoffett11 defeated me with a low-gain strategy into a consistent Ghost Ship attack.

So, based on those results, a Treasure Hunter + Feodum strategy is neither usually dominant nor always counter-able.  It's worth keeping in mind, but I'd be very reluctant to play for Treasure Hunter + Feodums in a game against a skilled opponent; they have a lot of opportunity for counterplay.
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JW

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Re: Feodum
« Reply #8 on: August 24, 2018, 01:57:37 pm »
0

aku_chi, what about a strategy involving Treasure Hunter-Feodum but advancing one traveler to Champion? Seems like attacks destroyed the Treasure Hunter- Feodum deck in two of the three games you mention at the end of your post.
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aku_chi

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Re: Feodum
« Reply #9 on: August 24, 2018, 02:08:42 pm »
+1

aku_chi, what about a strategy involving Treasure Hunter-Feodum but advancing one traveler to Champion? Seems like attacks destroyed the Treasure Hunter- Feodum deck in two of the three games you mention at the end of your post.

My first instinct was to upgrade one Treasure Hunter to Champion, but some napkin math showed that this would likely be too slow.
Turns 3/4: Play at least one Page.
Turns 5/6: Play at least one Treasure Hunter.
Turns 7-9: Play Warrior.
Turns 10-14: Play Hero.
So, it's impossible to get a Champion into your shuffle faster than turn 15 (when pursuing a Treasure Hunter heavy strategy).  And your deck at this point is likely over 30 cards, so the odds that you even see your Champion before emptying Feodums is low.  And this is assuming neither your Warrior nor your Hero miss the shuffle!
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cascadestyler

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Re: Feodum
« Reply #10 on: August 25, 2018, 05:52:21 pm »
0

Ah yeah I’d failed to notice the fact that Colonies, or other really high-scoring games (Goons, Dominate, Groundskeeper, Vineyards) would make TH/Feodum less viable. As for the counter with Warriors, it seems like it would go one way or the other quickly. Taking out one or two THs early would be gg, but if the Warriors whiffed a few times, the TH deck might get so padded out with silver that it would become increasingly hard for the Warriors to do much.
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gamesou

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Re: Feodum
« Reply #11 on: August 27, 2018, 03:22:53 am »
+1

Very nice article!

A niche Silver gainer is Trusty Steed. This ability is often useless, but can be game-winning in a slog!
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crj

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Re: Feodum
« Reply #12 on: August 27, 2018, 08:32:02 pm »
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Trusty Steed doesn't strike me as a likely card for someone to have in their deck when playing a slog!
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ConMan

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Re: Feodum
« Reply #13 on: August 27, 2018, 11:39:44 pm »
+1

Trusty Steed doesn't strike me as a likely card for someone to have in their deck when playing a slog!
I agree, although I suspect that whoever gets Followers has a decent chance of turning the game into a slog, which may affect Trusty Steed's desirability. (Not convinced that it's the right move in a Feodum game, though.)
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Re: Feodum
« Reply #14 on: October 10, 2018, 06:16:34 am »
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Actually I think Trader holds up its own in terms of getting Silvers. The only games where I've seen the Silvers run out is with Masterpiece and Trader. The trick is to get a lot of Silver early from Estates/other Traders, then get $5-costs/Golds/Provinces with those Silvers, then turn those into Silvers. Plus trashing with Trader doesn't take up your buy.
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