Dominion > Puzzles and Challenges
Action Card Equations
rinkworks:
I made up what I hope is an interesting type of puzzle that, besides being fun to solve, will be interesting for others to make up questions for.
The idea is that I provide two or more official Dominion action cards like this:
* Village + Peddler = ?
And you have to come up with a single Dominion action card that is fundamentally equivalent in terms of its effect when you play it. For example, the answer to the question above would be Bazaar, because playing Village, then Peddler, leaves you with five cards still in your hand, two actions left to play, and a coin -- exactly what playing Bazaar does.
General Rules:
* We're only interested in the primary effects of the cards. It doesn't matter that Village + Peddler cycles your deck a little more than a single Bazaar, or that Village + Peddler activates Conspirator better and lowers the cost of Peddler more. Sometimes what constitutes a "primary effect" is a judgment call, but just try to match card effects as close as you can.
* Your answer need not be equivalent in all cases, only in a single case of your choosing. For example, if the question is "Great Hall + Steward = ?" then "Moat," "Chancellor," and "Chapel" are ALL correct answers, because it's your prerogative to decide how the Steward was played in the question. Likewise, with the "Chancellor" answer, it's your prerogative to assert that the "discard deck" option was not taken, and, with the "Chapel" answer, that two cards were trashed to it. Where appropriate, explain what behavior/situation you want to specify for any of the cards in the question or your answer.
* Only action cards are allowed (both in the questions and the answers).
* All turns start with five cards in hand.
* An unlimited number of cards are available to draw. (Otherwise drawing cards could be too easily manipulated to change the number of cards you wind up with in your hand.)
* The cards mentioned in the question are the ONLY cards played thus far on a turn. Likewise, your answer should be the ONLY card played. So if your answer to a question is "Conspirator," it can't be an activated Conspirator.
* Effects to other players don't matter. A Witch, therefore, can be considered equivalent to a Moat. If you do find a solution that matches attack effects as well, though, give yourself bonus points.
* Assume no duration cards played the previous turn. Also, next-turn effects of Duration cards don't matter. For example, "Merchant Ship" is a valid answer to the question "Great Hall + Conspirator = ?" Again, though, if you do find a solution that matches the next-turn effects as well, give yourself bonus points.
Hopefully that's all I need for rules to this. So without further ado, some actual questions, roughly ordered by difficulty. Apologizes in advance if I made any miscalculations.
1. Village + Bazaar + Herbalist = ?
2. Village + Market + Laboratory = ?
3. Native Village + Peddler = ?
4. Laboratory + Village + Chapel + Explorer = ?
5. Trusty Steed + Workshop = ?
6. Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory = ?
7. Village + Spy + Moat + Tournament = ?
8. Laboratory + Village + Village + Steward + Pawn = ?
9. Native Village + Native Village + Native Village + Mine + Mine + Mine + Mine = ?
10. Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory + Laboratory + Village + Village + Village + Village + Bureaucrat + Bureaucrat + Explorer + Explorer + Cellar + Cellar + Chancellor = ?
The Answers, posted as people solve them:
1. Festival.
2. City (fully activated).
3. Fishing Village (with the next-turn effect ignored, as per the rules).
4. Trading Post, with the Chapel having trashed two cards. Alternate solutions: Explorer, if the Chapel is used to trash zero cards. Mine, if the Chapel is used to trash a Copper.
5. Ironworks, gaining a Great Hall or Island. The Trusty Steed is used for +2 Cards, +2 Actions.
6. Scout, turning up four Victory cards. Alternate solutions: Scrying Pool, where the next three cards in the deck are action cards. Apothecary, where three of the four cards turned up are Coppers and/or Potions.
7. Pearl Diver, with a deck of two cards; alternately, Wishing Well with an incorrect guess. Both of these answers provide you with knowledge of the top card of your deck, just as if you'd played Spy and kept the revealed card. Unfortunately, there is a more boring solution: Spy.
8. Grand Market, if you use the Steward for +$2 and the Pawn for +1 Card, +1 Buy.
9. Tactician. Your hand is NV, NV, NV, Mine, Mine. Play two NVs to put two more Mines on the mat, then the third to pull them off. Play all Mines with no treasures in hand. In the end, you have no cards and no actions.
10. Trusty Steed, taking the +2 Coins and 4 Silvers option. The Bureaucrats and Explorers gain the Silvers. The two Cellars flush those Silvers out of your hand and into the discard pile. The Chancellor discards your deck and earns you the +2 Coins. The Laboratories and Villages merely set things up so you can play all those actions and be left with the same number of cards and actions that Trusty Steed would leave you with.
Edit: Corrected question #1 (added a Village).
Edit: Corrected question #2 (swapped Bazaar for Village).
Edit: Corrected question #7 (removed a Village).
Edit: Added an "unlimited draw pile" rule, at guided's suggestion.
guided:
Here's a couple:
1. +$2, +1 buy. Woodcutter.
10. Flip your draw pile and gain 4 Silvers. Trusty Steed can do this.
rinkworks:
--- Quote from: guided on August 04, 2011, 02:24:36 pm ---1. +$2, +1 buy. Woodcutter.
--- End quote ---
I screwed this one up, although this answer is equally incorrect as mine because Bazaar + Herbalist leaves you with one action, whereas playing a Woodcutter leaves you with zero. In my intended solution, you were supposed to have two actions left. I edited my original question to fix that.
guided:
OK, I can add spoiler tags.
If you mean for the action counts to be correct, based on spending some time thinking about these I suspect you have made numerous errors.
rinkworks:
--- Quote from: guided on August 04, 2011, 02:38:42 pm ---If you mean for the action counts to be correct, based on spending some time thinking about these I suspect you have made numerous errors.
--- End quote ---
It's definitely possible, but I just went through them again, and I don't see any more problems. Some of them are tricky, though, and depend on unusual circumstances.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version