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[Qvist]

I was pretty sure this puzzle was around somewhere, but I can't find it.
If this is a double-post, sorry.

It's a solitaire game. You can choose any kingdom you like and take one card from any pile. This card is your starting deck. How many turns does it take to gain all 8 Provinces (which have to stay all in your deck) assuming worst shuffle luck? Outpost and Possession turns count as separate turns.

In combination to the above, a solo challenge: Gain all the 8 Provinces as fast as possible after you started your turn with only one card. Same rules as above. Fewest total turns (including those to get to the one card hand) wins with points as tie-breaker.

[O]

Probably a terrible idea but I found this opening hilarious:

HT

T1 3$->Tunnel
T2 gain gold 3$-tunnel
T3 gain 2 golds 6$-gold

[Morgrim7]

10 turns. Baron
1) Play baron, gain an estate.
2) Play B, buy Treasure map.
3) Play b, buy TM
4) Play TM, gain 4 golds.
5) Baron GGGG, play baron, buy chancellor and Crossroads.
6) E GGGG buy CR.
7) Cross Baron E CR. Play Cross draw G. Play CR draw GGG Ch. Play B, discard E. Play Ch. Buy 2x P.
"
9) "
10) "

[Powerman]

Starting with Platinum

1) Buy Bridge
2) Buy KC
3) Play KC-Bridge + Platinum, Buy KC + Bridge + Bridge + Governor
4) KC-KC-Bridge-Bridge-Bridge

Modified from http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2256.0

[Dsell]

10 turns. Baron
1) Play baron, gain an estate.
2) Play B, buy Treasure map.
3) Play b, buy TM
4) Play TM, gain 4 golds.
5) Baron GGGG, play baron, buy chancellor and Crossroads.
6) E GGGG buy CR.
7) Cross Baron E CR. Play Cross draw G. Play CR draw GGG Ch. Play B, discard E. Play Ch. Buy 2x P.
"
9) "
10) "

assuming worst shuffle luck?

[Morgrim7]

10 turns. Baron
1) Play baron, gain an estate.
2) Play B, buy Treasure map.
3) Play b, buy TM
4) Play TM, gain 4 golds.
5) Baron GGGG, play baron, buy chancellor and Crossroads.
6) E GGGG buy CR.
7) Cross Baron E CR. Play Cross draw G. Play CR draw GGG Ch. Play B, discard E. Play Ch. Buy 2x P.
"
9) "
10) "

assuming worst shuffle luck?

Oh, whoops. Eh, it is cool anyway.

[yudantaiteki]

Starting with Platinum

1) Buy Bridge
2) Buy KC
3) Play KC-Bridge + Platinum, Buy KC + Bridge + Bridge + Governor
4) KC-KC-Bridge-Bridge-Bridge

Modified from http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2256.0

I guess this raises the question of what "worst shuffle luck" means...what if you draw the Platinum or the Governor instead on 4) ?  (Why bother with governor anyway?)

[AJD]

Starting with Platinum

1) Buy Bridge
2) Buy KC
3) Play KC-Bridge + Platinum, Buy KC + Bridge + Bridge + Governor
4) KC-KC-Bridge-Bridge-Bridge

Modified from http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2256.0

I guess this raises the question of what "worst shuffle luck" means...what if you draw the Platinum or the Governor instead on 4) ?  (Why bother with governor anyway?)

In the context of a puzzle like this, "worst shuffle luck" should mean "shuffle luck that makes it take the maximum number of turns possible to guarantee achieving the aims of the puzzle. So I think the attempt above can't guarantee eight provinces by the end of turn 4, since you can't do it with KC-KC-Bridge-Bridge Platinum. We can guarantee it by the end of turn 5, though, with the following modification:

3. Play Bridge, Platinum. Buy Scheme, Scheme.
4. Play Scheme, Scheme, KC-Bridge, Platinum. Buy KC, Bridge, Bridge, Inn (shuffling in KC, Bridge, Bridge). Scheme topdecks KC, Bridge.
5. KC-KC-Bridge-Bridge-Bridge.

Shuffle luck is irrelevant here; at all times the draw pile has 5 or fewer cards, whose identities are determined.

[AJD]

Accomplished here in a total of 16 turns, including trimming the deck down to a single card:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/27/game-20120727-230720-6768f241.html

[zahlman]

Accomplished here in a total of 16 turns, including trimming the deck down to a single card:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/27/game-20120727-230720-6768f241.html

Doesn't that mean the 4-turn solution works just swapping Governor for Inn and using it to set the deck? Or is there some subtlety of how Inn works that prevents this...

[wuthefwasthat]

So the OP's puzzle included the count for getting to the card, but the puzzle seems far more interesting the way everyone is interpreting it anyways. 

Anyways, I achieved 4 turns guaranteed!  Many simple ways were very close (got 7 provinces, or ALMOST had a guarantee, or needed one more card's worth of draw power), but I couldn't get any to work.  Finally, I did come up with a solution, but it's pretty complicated and uses all 10 Kingdom cards...

Here it is:

We will use the 10 Kingdom cards: 
Watchtower, Develop, Bridge, Throne Room, Ironworks, Minion, Inn, Library, Border Village, King's Court

1. Buy Bridge

2. Buy King's Court

3. Play King's Court the Bridge, and play Platinum.  Buy Develop, Throne Room, Border Village gaining Minion, and Border Village gaining Inn.  Shuffle all the cards into your deck.

4. Play a Border Village (we necessarily draw one of them), drawing the last card in deck (discard is King's Court, Bridge, Platinum).  Throne Room a Develop, turning Border Village into King's Court + Library, and then Inn into Border Village, gaining Ironworks, and Ironworks.  Minion for cards, drawing Border Village, Ironworks, King's Court, Library (necessarily, since the other Ironworks goes in discard).  King's Court Ironworks, for Throne Room, Watchtower, Bridge.  Library, drawing Platinum (in worst case), and the rest of our actions except Bridge.  Throne Room a King's Court, playing Bridge, and then Ironworks, gaining King's Court, King's Court, Bridge.  Watchtower to draw these and the last Bridge.  Play King's Court, King's Court, Bridge, Bridge (and Border Village).

Extending the ending, a bit, we can actually get 8 Colonies (and 3 Provinces).

4*. On what was the last Ironworks, instead take King's Court, King's Court, Ironworks.  Watchtower to draw these and the last Bridge.  Play King's Court on King's Court, first playing Bridge, then Ironworks for King's Court, Bridge, Bridge, and finally Border Village to draw what we just gained.  King's Court a Bridge, and Bridge, making a total of 10 Bridges out (along with a useless Platinum that got us this far in the first place...)


Unfortunately, I can't provide a game log since this set of cards doesn't allow for getting my deck down to that one card.... so I sorta haven't fully solved the puzzle.  Can anyone figure out how to use less cards?  Or just generally figure out something simpler than what I did?

One thing that surprised me was that I didn't Governor, which I thought would be good for this.  I thought King's Courting it was great for the draw, for turning the damn Inn into a King's Court, and for turning Border Villages and gained Golds into Provinces.  But it wasn't working out.  Maybe you can find it effective?

[Thisisnotasmile]

Unfortunately, I can't provide a game log since this set of cards doesn't allow for getting my deck down to that one card.... so I sorta haven't fully solved the puzzle.  Can anyone figure out how to use less cards?  Or just generally figure out something simpler than what I did?

Substitute Develop out for Black Market. Put Young Witch into the Black Market. Introduce Develop as the Bane pile. Put a trasher in the BM deck.

[blueblimp]

Very nice solution. A minor tweak allows it to use only 9 kingdom cards (so you can have Island in the kingdom), assuming I didn't make an error:


Do the same thing, but replacing Minion and Watchtower by Menagerie. When the Minion is played, it doesn't matter whether we draw the Border Village. (If we draw it, we can play it to draw the remaining card. If we don't, we can set it aside with Library, and if we draw it later, we can play it.) So, play Menagerie instead.

When we play Library, originally we would end with the hand Border Village (was in hand already), Platinum, KC, Bridge, Throne Room, Watchtower, Ironworks; having set aside and discarded Bridge. In this setting, we don't have a Border Village in hand, so instead playing Library can give us the hand Platinum, KC, 2 Bridges, Throne Room, Menagerie, Ironworks; with either BV having been played earlier or having been set aside and discarded.

When we originally played Watchtower, we originally had BV and Platinum in hand. Now, when we play Menagerie instead, we have Bridge and Platinum in hand, so we draw either KC+KC+Bridge or possibly draw a Border Village (if we didn't play it earlier) and need to play it once to get the rest of our cards.

[blueblimp]

Log: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/28/game-20120728-094152-57ace2d7.html. (This is wuthefwasthat's solution with my tweak.) Begins at turn 35.

A very minor improvement:

Having replaced Minion by Menagerie, the Watchtower and final Ironworks can be replaced by two Bridges, since now Library can draw our whole deck. Then TR-KC-Bridge-Bridge, plus another Bridge play, gives us 8 buys total and makes Provinces cost $1, allowing us to buy them out.


Edit: Log with that improvement: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/28/game-20120728-094910-2c42f194.html. Starts turn 26.

[wuthefwasthat]

We can guarantee it by the end of turn 5, though, with the following modification:

That is overcomplicating.  The original solution doesn't draw Governor on turn 4 (the only way to fail), he can just do nothing.  Then he draws it on turn 5, guaranteed, plays it for cards, and then plays 9 Bridges as he would've on turn 4.    There's lots of ways to get turn 5 guaranteed 

Doesn't that mean the 4-turn solution works just swapping Governor for Inn and using it to set the deck? Or is there some subtlety of how Inn works that prevents this...

Doesn't work because King's Court and Inn are in play.

Substitute Develop out for Black Market. Put Young Witch into the Black Market. Introduce Develop as the Bane pile. Put a trasher in the BM deck.

Right!  Of course!

Very nice solution. A minor tweak allows it to use only 9 kingdom cards (so you can have Island in the kingdom), assuming I didn't make an error:


Do the same thing, but replacing Minion and Watchtower by Menagerie. When the Minion is played, it doesn't matter whether we draw the Border Village. (If we draw it, we can play it to draw the remaining card. If we don't, we can set it aside with Library, and if we draw it later, we can play it.) So, play Menagerie instead.

When we play Library, originally we would end with the hand Border Village (was in hand already), Platinum, KC, Bridge, Throne Room, Watchtower, Ironworks; having set aside and discarded Bridge. In this setting, we don't have a Border Village in hand, so instead playing Library can give us the hand Platinum, KC, 2 Bridges, Throne Room, Menagerie, Ironworks; with either BV having been played earlier or having been set aside and discarded.

When we originally played Watchtower, we originally had BV and Platinum in hand. Now, when we play Menagerie instead, we have Bridge and Platinum in hand, so we draw either KC+KC+Bridge or possibly draw a Border Village (if we didn't play it earlier) and need to play it once to get the rest of our cards.

Ahh, nice!  Of course, Menagerie isn't worse than Minion, since the Library draws anyways.  Good stuff.  By the way, Develop gives you control to assure drawing or not drawing the Border Village!

Unfortunately, Menagerie isn't as good as Watchtower for the other part, and it looks like this won't work for getting Colonies anymore. 

Log: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/28/game-20120728-094152-57ace2d7.html. (This is wuthefwasthat's solution with my tweak.) Begins at turn 35.

A very minor improvement:

Having replaced Minion by Menagerie, the Watchtower and final Ironworks can be replaced by two Bridges, since now Library can draw our whole deck. Then TR-KC-Bridge-Bridge, plus another Bridge play, gives us 8 buys total and makes Provinces cost $1, allowing us to buy them out.


Edit: Log with that improvement: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/28/game-20120728-094910-2c42f194.html. Starts turn 26.

Fun to do!

[Qvist]

I hoped to get the premise right. But I didn't. Nice solutions so far. But it is a non-Colony game, thus the 8 Provinces. Platinum isn't allowed.

My solution:
I get 4 turns too and 11 turns for preparation and execution. Anyone can beat that?

[jomini]

Well this is a 6 turn (counting the opening free gain) without Plat; I'm not sure if understand the challenge correctly. Please double check

Notation notes:
Turn #: Starting Hand: Actions: buys : Clean up
? denotes any card

T1: Gain Gold
T2: G: - : buy Develop: Shuff
T3: GDev: Dev (G to Kc/Gov): - : shuff
T4: KcGovDev: Kc -> Gov (gain 2 G, draw them) -> Dev (G to Kc/Gov): buy Scheme : shuff

Deck: KcGov(top)KcGovDevGSch
T5: KcGov???: Kc -> Gov (gain G, +3 cards to get GGKcGovDevSch, gain G) ->  Dev (G to Kc/Gov)  -> Kc -> Sch (draw GKcGov; current hand GGKcGovGov)  -> Kc -> Gov (gain 3 G) -> Gov (draw 3 G): buy Prov: Top deck Kc/Kc/Gov: shuff

Deck:
KcKcGov(top)GovDevSchKcGovGovProvGGGGG
T6: KcKcGov??: Kc -> Kc -> Gov (draw 9 cards so hand is KcGovGovProvDevSchGGGGG) -> Kc (4 triple plays open) -> Dev (G to Kc/Explorer x2, G to Gov/Expand; hand is GovGovGGSch) -> Gov (draw to KcKcExpdExplExplGovGovGGProvSch, gain G) -> Kc -> Kc (6 triple plays open)-> Expl -> Expl -> Gov (draw G, G to Prov x2) -> Expd (G to Prov x3) -> Gov (G to Prov x2, Sch to Duch)

[Qvist]

Nice solution. The free gain doesn't count as turn, so you have a 5-turn solution. But in turn 5, if I saw it right, you haven't assumed worst shuffle luck because you have 7 cards in your deck: KC, KC, Gov, Gov, Dev, Scheme, Gold and so you can't assume a KC in your starting hand. You could have drawn Gov, Gov, Dev, Scheme, Gold.

[Rabid]

Scheme fixes shuffle luck.

[Qvist]

Scheme fixes shuffle luck.

Yeah, but not on-buy

[jomini]

Nice solution. The free gain doesn't count as turn, so you have a 5-turn solution. But in turn 5, if I saw it right, you haven't assumed worst shuffle luck because you have 7 cards in your deck: KC, KC, Gov, Gov, Dev, Scheme, Gold and so you can't assume a KC in your starting hand. You could have drawn Gov, Gov, Dev, Scheme, Gold.

No:
I leave a Kc/Gov on deck top at turn 4. Dev (G to Kc/Gov) means I have the assured hit to start T5

[Rabid]

Oops sorry got the wrong turn.
Develop puts them on top of the deck.

[Qvist]

Right, forgot about the top-deck of Develop. So, nice solution. Anyone manages 4 turns or has another nice 5 turn solution?

[jomini]

Did you say you have a 4 turn solution that doesn't use plat? I'm not really sure what you mean by preparation and execution.

[Qvist]

Yes, I have a 4 turn solution without Platinum as starting card.
And I have a log where I executed it in 11 turns (7 turns for trimming down the deck to that one card and 4 turns to get all Provinces).