Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Morgrim7]

Inspired by th Best $4 Card list discussion.
My ranking:
Fishing
University
Worker's
Border
Mining
Festival
City
Bazzar
Hamlet
Farming
Native
Walled
Vanilla
Shanty Town

[jonts26]

http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/08/30/comparing-the-villages/

I mostly agree with this list.

[Dsell]

I really don't know, but I want to make a list anyway so I can get yelled at and maybe learn something.

Border
Fishing
Worker's
Mining
City
Festival
Hamlet
University
Farming
Bazaar
Vanilla
Walled
Shanty Town
Native

Also should nobles be on here? If so, I'd probably put it somewhere between bazaar and walled.

Edit: and of course there were a few others I was forgetting that were on the front-page list. Added them to the original list.

[Morgrim7]

I really don't know, but I want to make a list anyway so I can get yelled at and maybe learn something.

Border
Fishing
Worker's
Mining
City
Festival
Hamlet
University
Farming
Bazaar
Vanilla
Walled
Shanty Town
Native

Also should nobles be on here? If so, I'd probably put it somewhere between bazaar and walled.

Edit: and of course there were a few others I was forgetting that were on the front-page list. Added them to the original list.

Why do you hate NV? And why University so low?

[Powerman]

Hm, difficult for sure.  Buttttttt....

Fishing Village
Border Village
Bazaar
City
Worker's Village
Festival
Farming Village
Hamlet
University
Village
Mining Village
Shanty Town
Walled Village
Native Village

[ftl]

University is pretty slow. I'd put it fairly low on the list.

[Dsell]

I really don't know, but I want to make a list anyway so I can get yelled at and maybe learn something.

Border
Fishing
Worker's
Mining
City
Festival
Hamlet
University
Farming
Bazaar
Vanilla
Walled
Shanty Town
Native

Also should nobles be on here? If so, I'd probably put it somewhere between bazaar and walled.

Edit: and of course there were a few others I was forgetting that were on the front-page list. Added them to the original list.

Why do you hate NV? And why University so low?

I don't hate NV, but I don't think I use it well. But for example, if I see hamlet, I think, "I can maybe build an engine here." If I see native village, I think, "Is bridge here? No? Well, guess I can't build an engine unless there is just *nothing* better on the board." I'm actually more surprised about my second-lowest, shanty town. I think it's a little underrated (same with walled) but I still can't justify putting it ahead of many of the others.

And university was actually higher before I added in city, festival, and hamlet, and I really do like it. I just think's a little slow and skippable at times, and sometimes there just aren't 5s to make it worthwhile. I do love it when it works out though, like with wharf and other power 5s.

[werothegreat]

So this is what we're going to do until Dark Ages comes out?  Endlessly make new rankings of different card types?

Here's my list of best Chancellor-type cards:

Trusty Steed
.
.
.
.
.

And no, that wasn't a typo.

[sparky5856]

So this is what we're going to do until Dark Ages comes out?  Endlessly make new rankings of different card types?

Apparently.

Here's my list of best Counting House-type cards:

[ehunt]

including kc/golem/tr which are sort of villages, sort of not, i would say

[King's Court]
Fishing Village
Hamlet
Border Village
Festival
Bazaar
Mining Village
Farming Village
Worker's Village
[Golem]
Walled Village
Village
University
[Throne Room]
Shanty Town
Native Village

[chwhite]

http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/08/30/comparing-the-villages/

I mostly agree with this list.

It's out of date, as it doesn't include the Hinterlands cards.  And I disagree with younger me on a couple things- mostly I underrated Worker's Village pretty badly.  Also University is really super-trappy and bad at winning games.  I don't think it should lose much actual ranking, but I think it belongs in the lowest tier.

My current thinking is:

Fishing Village
Border Village
Hamlet
.
Bazaar
Festival
City
Crossroads
.
Worker's Village
Farming Village
Inn
Mining Village
.
University
Village
Native Village
Shanty Town*
Walled Village

* Shanty Town is somewhat hard to rank: I'd call it arguably the worst "village qua village" but probably better than Native as a card- much of its value is as a pseudo-Lab rather than an actual Village.

As in the old article, there's a lot more space between tiers than there is within tiers: in particular, there's almost no difference between Hamlet/BV; Bazaar/Festival; and NV/ST/WV, and you could very easily switch them around.  Also, none of the villages are bad cards: this should be construed as four tiers out of five, and the fifth tier is empty.  University is probably most commonly bad, but the occasional games where it can do amazing things redeems it. 

[werothegreat]

Crossroads and University are both very situational, but University seems to be better at what it does given the right situation.  If you know you're going to have lots of alternate Victory cards, you may want to pick up a Crossroads, but I think I'd honestly rather have a Cellar in a lot of those situations.  Whereas if you've got a kingdom with lots of spammable $5s (Lab, Market, Bazaar, City, Torturer) and even a few that you only want a couple of (Mine, Haggler), University is awesome.  In those setups, if you don't open Potion, you die.  Highway is probably the best $5 to pick up with University, because then it increases the scope, though this is obviously only useful when you have $6s and/or $7s on the board.  Highway->University->Grand Market... *drool*

[jsh357]

Fishing Village
Border Village
Bazaar
Worker's Village
City
Hamlet
Festival
Farming Village
Inn
Crossroads
Mining Village
University
Native Village
Village
Shanty Town
Walled Village

[HiveMindEmulator]

My current thinking is:

Fishing Village
Border Village
Hamlet
.
Bazaar
Festival
City
Crossroads
.
Worker's Village
Farming Village
Inn
Mining Village
.
University
Village
Native Village
Shanty Town*
Walled Village

I'm surprised you put Crossroads so high. As a village, it's not great because you can only play one per turn for +actions. So unless you have another village available, it's tough to make it work with anything other than Wharf. I also (as I did when you made your previous list) think you have Bazaar too high. It should be in the next tier down. It's hard to build an engine where you have to pay so much for the village part. Festival makes up for it by being the village AND the economy AND the buy, and City makes up for it by adding the Lab and potentially Market abilities, but Bazaar doesn't really have as much going for it. Giving the +$1 helps make up for the high cost, though you still can't gain it with Workshop/Ironworks/Remodel(Estate), but that basically just puts it in the same tier as the $4 villages in my book, which don't give the +$1, but are $1 cheaper and give another potentially useful benefit. It's still probably better than Mining and Farming, but it's at least close with Worker's.

[brokoli]

My list is similar to chwhite.

Fishing Village
Hamlet
Border village
.
Festival
City
Bazaar
Crossroads
.
Worker's Village
Farming Village
Mining Village
Inn
.
University
Village
Shanty Town
Native Village
Walled Village

I tend to appreciate Shanty town more and more, and really think it's close to the simple village.
Hamlet is amazing, among others for its combo with library, menagerie, tunnel...

[werothegreat]

Looking at the Hinterlands villages:

Border Village is the best thing since Hamlet.  It was the first revealed card in the Hinterlands previews, and we all could tell pretty quickly what an awesome card it is (unlike Jack).  Gaining $5s with it is such a great deal, and while taking about the same amount of time as University, Border Village is as spammable as the $5s you want, whereas you want, at the most, 3-4 Universities.  Building engines has never been quicker.  The one not-as-good thing about BV is that it can't take advantage of Bridge variants, so you can't suck up any Goons or King's Courts.  Maybe some future card that decreases the cost of only one card could combo well with this.  And when you're starting to green, Border Villages Remodel (or Farmland) very nicely into Provinces.

Crossroads...  this is one of those oscillate-y cards I was talking about.  "Oh wow we could draw soooooo many cards with this!"  "Oh... but that means we have to have shit in our deck..."  "Oh so it'll go great with alt VP!"  "But it's still kinda meh and I'd rather have a Cellar..."  "Unless it's the only source of extra Actions..."  Crossroads is best with Action-Victory cards.  That statement right there equates it essentially to Scout, which just got named the worst $4.

Inn is quirky, a description appropriate for any card that combos well with Chancellor.  I've never really liked sifty cards like Warehouse or Young Witch, mainly because I much prefer to make grandiose engines that fail half the time because I keep buying more engine components instead of Provinces.  I prefer to increase rather than decrease my handsize.  Cellar I enjoy because the discard amount is variable, so it can be very powerful with large hands, and Embassy still increases your handsize.  But Inn?  It's a YW sifty with some Actions thrown in.  Good with Tunnel, but I'd rather keep the cards I draw.  But the on-gain effect makes it all worth it, and the on-gain effect actually makes you consider grabbing Chancellor, which not even Coppersmith/Counting House will make me do.

[chwhite]

My current thinking is:

Fishing Village
Border Village
Hamlet
.
Bazaar
Festival
City
Crossroads
.
Worker's Village
Farming Village
Inn
Mining Village
.
University
Village
Native Village
Shanty Town*
Walled Village

I'm surprised you put Crossroads so high. As a village, it's not great because you can only play one per turn for +actions. So unless you have another village available, it's tough to make it work with anything other than Wharf. I also (as I did when you made your previous list) think you have Bazaar too high. It should be in the next tier down. It's hard to build an engine where you have to pay so much for the village part. Festival makes up for it by being the village AND the economy AND the buy, and City makes up for it by adding the Lab and potentially Market abilities, but Bazaar doesn't really have as much going for it. Giving the +$1 helps make up for the high cost, though you still can't gain it with Workshop/Ironworks/Remodel(Estate), but that basically just puts it in the same tier as the $4 villages in my book, which don't give the +$1, but are $1 cheaper and give another potentially useful benefit. It's still probably better than Mining and Farming, but it's at least close with Worker's.

Crossroads is sort of like Shanty Town in that much of its value is tied up in the card draw rather than the +Actions.  As a Village qua Village it's far, far lower, but as an overall card I'd put it up there.  Again, somewhat hard to rank- it's almost a card I'd keep off this list (like Nobles) because the Village effect is so secondary (but it's not nearly as secondary as Nobles, where the +2 Actions is merely an escape valve).

I could see putting it at the top of the next tier instead.

I'm pretty confident Bazaar deserves the high ranking I give it.  It's the only Village which gives +Card and +Coin.  This tends to ensure that, once you start getting $5 hands, you're not going to stop getting them.  And the $5 price point, while certainly expensive, is usually not all that fatal anyway: the chance you actually have it with Workshop/Ironworks/Remodel AND want to actually bother with those cards is low; oftentimes you're chaining other cards that don't cost $5- say Nobles or Oracle; and even when your +Card source is $5 I like Bazaar for its seamless ability to add cash to your deck.  Obviously Festival and Worker's Village are cards that sometimes need to be prioritized for the +Buy, and if you have Library/Watchtower than Festival is better for sure.  But Bazaar is a top-tier option far more than you'd think: despite sharing a $5 price point, Bazaar/Wharf is clearly better than Wharf-BM in a way that is not quite true for the $4 Villages, for instance.

[ehunt]

xroads can be an ok vqv in a pinch, e.g. you can't ignore torturer in a torturer game if there is xroads but there are no other sources of extra actions.

but the real power of the card is the draw, of course.

[cayvie]

xroads can be an ok vqv in a pinch, e.g. you can't ignore torturer in a torturer game if there is xroads but there are no other sources of extra actions.

but the real power of the card is the draw, of course.

...did you just initialize "village qua village"?

edit--oh hey, just noticed that chwhite said it first. oh well, not as funny anymore.

[Ozle]

My ranking:
Fishing
Border
Mining
Worker's
Hamlet
Festival
Bazzar
City
University
Native
Vanilla
Farming
Walled
Shanty Town


Is how I would do them. I rank Mining village higher because I love it in engines, it has the ability to tash for 2, meaning that you dont have to buy silver that you cannot get rid of to get those higher up engine parts. And if you done need the money, well thats fine as well!

[HiveMindEmulator]

Bazaar/Wharf is clearly better than Wharf-BM in a way that is not quite true for the $4 Villages, for instance.

Are you talking about building a full-blown engine, or just like playing Wharf BM, but preferring Bazaar to Silver? I assume the latter. So we're talking about a deck that has at most like 2 Bazaars. It's hard to bump the value of Bazaar a lot because of that situation... And I think that still probably loses to stuff like Wharf/Farming Village/Ironworks. I guess your point is that since it's also a peddler, it works in situations where you don't really care for villages, and that takes it up the extra notch? I guess I can buy that, but I still think it's lower than Festival and City, which seem more like game-changers to me (where Bazaar is just a generally nice thrown-in).

[chwhite]

Bazaar/Wharf is clearly better than Wharf-BM in a way that is not quite true for the $4 Villages, for instance.

Are you talking about building a full-blown engine, or just like playing Wharf BM, but preferring Bazaar to Silver? I assume the latter. So we're talking about a deck that has at most like 2 Bazaars. It's hard to bump the value of Bazaar a lot because of that situation... And I think that still probably loses to stuff like Wharf/Farming Village/Ironworks. I guess your point is that since it's also a peddler, it works in situations where you don't really care for villages, and that takes it up the extra notch? I guess I can buy that, but I still think it's lower than Festival and City, which seem more like game-changers to me (where Bazaar is just a generally nice thrown-in).

No, I am in fact talking about a full-blown engine.  Here are two good examples of what I'm talking about:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120531-143122-c4f3e730.html
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111115-101250-75695ce4.html

Bazaar is pretty clearly stronger than Festival and City in this situation, and is in fact for most cases where you're building an engine that already has +Buy elsewhere.  If you already have said +Buy, then Bazaar's +1 Card is going to be a good deal more useful than Festival's extra +$1, for instance.

[dondon151]

No, I am in fact talking about a full-blown engine.  Here are two good examples of what I'm talking about:

In your first game, you get 5/5 on turns 3 and 4 with a Salvager/Silver opening; $4 villages are better for consistency with such an opening because the chance of getting 5/5 is not exceedingly high. In your second game, the presence of a $4 village likely would have helped you ramp up faster because you got a Silver with $4 on turn 4.

[kopoljones]

Festival seems overloved IMHO; i find its really a 4.5 worth card.  At 4, it would still be worse than chapel, and where it sits at 5, Festival usually winds up looking like a bad afterthought (esp when sitting with a couple other 5s).  Its main use is as a final engine part, mostly in engines that could find a way to win with other cards on the board.  City costs 5, Minion costs 5, Torturer, Margrave, Council Room, etc.  City is even a Village-type card


I also feel ShantyTown is getting short-shrift, but then its main use is not in enginey decks.  Its a nice card to toss into a BM-engine deck, and it works nicely in the greening/cursing parts of the games.  Obvi its pretty crappy in an action deck, but then, it wasn't really designed for that as it stands.

I'd prob switch Shanty up to the middle, and toss Festival lower, way lower.  For its cost, I'd say vanilla village gives me better value at 3 than festival does at 5, esp in the boards that would inspire me to buy festival.

[HiveMindEmulator]

No, I am in fact talking about a full-blown engine.

Are you sure that's actually better than Wharf going Wharf BM with 1-2 Bazaars?