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Author Topic: Combo: Native Village & Bridge  (Read 31838 times)

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WanderingWinder

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Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« on: June 17, 2011, 12:23:46 am »
+1

We all know that KC-KC-Bridge-Bridge-Bridge is a killer, killer combo. But it's so hard to pull off. There is, however, another extremely reliable way to get many Bridges played in the same turn, and that is through the use of Native Village.
This is more of a total-game-strategy rather than just a little combo. You want to start NV-Bridge (you can do this on either 5/2 or 4/3, which is nice), and then simply keep buying those cards, and more or less only those cards, for the rest of the game.
Every time you play Native Village, always choose to set aside the card. What you're going for eventually is to pick up a massive native village mat, play a ton of bridges (fueled by the actions from NV itself), and win.
There are a few ways you can look to win, and you really need to watch your opponent for that. If they're going for a rather conventional strategy, like big money, you want to hold off on "going off" for quite a long time, so that you can get like 6 bridges (or maybe even more) in one turn and just scream through the provinces and win.
In the mirror matchup, you have to be VERY careful about the game ending on piles and/or be ready to set the combo off what seems like prematurely in order to three-pile and win. In general, three piles are something you always have to watch out for, as the native villages and bridges themselves are going to go pretty quickly, and with so many extra buys, you can easily run out even a fairly full pile pretty quickly.

This combo is very powerful and pretty fast, but it has some limitations. First of all, it's somewhat vulnerable to curse-givers and other deck-bloaters (see ambassador). On the other hand, if you adjust by increasing your NV ratio a little, you can actually trim this a little - not that I'd suggest it against a good curse-giver, but you could probably hold against a weaker one, like Young Witch (needless to say, if NV is the bane, this is a no-brainer).
As for speed, it's pretty fast, but maybe not chapel fast. In fact, I don't know all the baselines for chapel OR for this combo, but I'm guessing this actually beats a standard chapel/big money setup, but you may need to do this with a little guile. For instance (and this is not uncommon with this combo), your chapelling opponent has 5 provinces, a chapel, and money, and you pull the trigger on your combo. If you can get 6 bridges played in a turn, that's enough, even without any money, to buy 3 provinces and 4 duchies, which is as much VP as the 5 provinces, and your 3 estates will win it for you.
Other cards to add to this combo: Well, generally you want to get the native villages and bridges first. Of course, an early Lab or two or three is going to help, but in the most common scenario for this, c+c+c+bridge, it may well be better to grab a bridge and a native village than the lab plus nothing. Of course, any other type of village is going to help, especially in the mirror, but again, you need to prioritize the main combo elements. Cities throw a monkey wrench.

DG

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #1 on: June 17, 2011, 07:20:14 am »
0

This deck can work but can misfire if your put native villages put each other onto the native village mat.
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Geronimoo

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #2 on: June 17, 2011, 08:46:04 am »
0

This strategy is even more powerful than WanderingWinder thinks!! I've been simulating it lately and here are some results:

NV/Bridge (73%) - Single Envoy (22%)
NV/Bridge (54%) - Two Mountebanks (44%)
NV/Bridge (65%) - Two Sea Hags (34%)
NV/Bridge (49%) - Vault/Grand Market (from Annotated Game #8) (47%)

A little surprisingly:
NV/Bridge (48%) - Three Militia (48%)

I get the best overall results if I let the NV/Bridge player go for his big turn when the other player has 4 or more Provinces in his pile (so 24 VP points difference). And this is just a simulation where the program often makes suboptimal decisions, so the combo is even more powerful when played by a good player.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #3 on: June 17, 2011, 08:52:26 am »
0

I'm surprised it's so resilient to cursing. I'm sure that it's really really horrible against a good ambassador player though.
Could you mock it up against Chapel/money?

theory

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #4 on: June 17, 2011, 08:53:41 am »
0

That is quite fascinating.  I tried Native Village/Stash once, which worked out surprisingly well too, but this seems to have the advantage of using the Bridges for the +Buy needed for the NV's.
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Geronimoo

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #5 on: June 17, 2011, 09:24:15 am »
0

I'm surprised it's so resilient to cursing. I'm sure that it's really really horrible against a good ambassador player though.
Could you mock it up against Chapel/money?

NV/Bridge (81%) - Chapel/Money (15%)
NV/Bridge (61%) - Two Ambassadors and money (35%)

I don't know what you mean by a good ambassador player, but Ambassador+money is a very fair strategy while the Bridge strategy feels like it's playing a completely different game...

What did you have in mind exactly for the Ambassador player???
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danshep

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #6 on: June 17, 2011, 09:50:22 am »
0

Just had a go at this:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201106/17/game-20110617-064021-01c6ba7b.html

Works well even with an opponent getting early provinces for tournament and goons victory points. My plan was probably less than ideal - being able to afford a few more bridges earlier in the game would've powered it up faster. Having any more treasure in the hand would've let me get some colonies at the end too.

I think if I did it again, I'd probably start off with bridge/silver on a 3/4, grab another couple of bridges and then grab the native villages.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #7 on: June 17, 2011, 09:51:54 am »
0

What I mean is that a good player will use ambassador to consistently throw more junk at the opponent, especially in a combo game like this, and not just to clean out his/her own deck.
The resiliency of this is really surprising to me. Curiously, what are your buy rules here?

Geronimoo

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #8 on: June 17, 2011, 10:01:05 am »
0

Buy rules are very simple:

Evaluate from top to bottom:

-Buy Bridge whenever you can
-Buy Silver (or even Copper) if total money in the deck drops below $5 (including bridges)
-Buy Native Village whenever you can

Play rules are also simple:
-Play Native Village for Storage as long as opponent doesn't have 24 VP more than you
-Play Bridge
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Arya Stark

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #9 on: June 17, 2011, 10:01:53 am »
0

I was trying to empty the piles on him and he ended up doing that to me  :-[

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110606-102055-c8e8f2a0.html
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Thisisnotasmile

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #10 on: June 17, 2011, 10:41:10 am »
0

Play rules are also simple:
-Play Native Village for Storage as long as opponent doesn't have 24 VP more than you
Else:
-If you hold more than one native village: play for storage, if you hold only one: play for cards

-Play Bridge

Would this not be a better set of play rules? Or is there no way to make your simulator understand this extra rule?
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #11 on: June 17, 2011, 10:52:47 am »
0

TINAS, I don't think you understand the point of the combo. Playing 7 bridges in one turn is much, much better than playing 1 bridge in each of 7 turns. Heck, it's probably better than playing 3 bridges in each of 7 turns. So you don't want to pick the cards up until you can play a boat-load of bridges.

Thisisnotasmile

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #12 on: June 17, 2011, 10:56:32 am »
0

I understand. The rules as I've edited will play for storage until your opponent has 24VP more than you, THEN you will pick up the cards, BUT only if it's your last NV in hand. If not it'll set aside an extra card for when you do draw (because you still can, because you have at least 1 more NV in hand). Then after drawing, it'll be safe to assume you've drawn a few NVs. The rules will then proceed to set aside a few extra cards before finally drawing them again with the last NV, as opposed to the previous rules which would leave them on the mat. When you've played all possible NVs to draw as many cards as you can, the rules will then play all of your bridges.

That's what I meant anyway.

Edit: For example, a quote from danshep's game above, with my changes in bold which I believe would be strictly better than what actually happened (he still won):

Quote
   — testinganstrategy's turn 15 —
   testinganstrategy plays a Native Village.
   ... getting +2 actions.
   ... picking up 18 cards from the Native Village mat.
   testinganstrategy plays a Native Village.
   ... getting +2 actions.
   ... drawing a card and placing it on the Native Village mat.
   testinganstrategy plays a Native Village.
   ... getting +2 actions.
   ... drawing a card and placing it on the Native Village mat.
   testinganstrategy plays a Native Village.
   ... getting +2 actions.
   ... drawing a card and placing it on the Native Village mat.
   testinganstrategy plays a Native Village.
   ... getting +2 actions.
   ... drawing a card and placing it on the Native Village mat. picking up 3 cards from the Native Village mat.
   testinganstrategy plays a Bridge.
   ... getting +1 buy, +$1, and reducing all costs by $1.

...

Now, obviously, I don't know what was on that mat, and maybe he set aside an extra card because the 3 set-aside cards were useless anyway. But had one of them been a bridge, for example, drawing them would be strictly better than setting aside another card which would go unplayed.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2011, 11:02:13 am by Thisisnotasmile »
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #13 on: June 17, 2011, 11:20:48 am »
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I see what you're saying. That's probably a little better, but you also probably have some NVs on the mat, so it usually won't make much difference.

Thisisnotasmile

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #14 on: June 17, 2011, 11:24:14 am »
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But if you have more than 1 native village on the mat, you play them to draw even more cards ;)

If you have only 1 on the mat, at least you've picked up whatever else is on the mat, and you get an extra action because you have 1 more native village you can play this turn.

Not picking them up at all is worse than both of these cases.
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Kuildeous

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #15 on: June 17, 2011, 02:29:03 pm »
0

I had thought that I could add Wishing Wells as an accelerant. I'm not quite making it work out, but I also have a pretty poor method of simulating it. I figured that when Wishing Well came up, you would always choose Native Village, for that is the one card you absolutely never want on your Native Village mat. Anything else could remain on top and be filed away for the big play.

I'll have to try this at home when I can log onto Isotropic.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #16 on: June 17, 2011, 02:35:48 pm »
0

I had thought that I could add Wishing Wells as an accelerant. I'm not quite making it work out, but I also have a pretty poor method of simulating it. I figured that when Wishing Well came up, you would always choose Native Village, for that is the one card you absolutely never want on your Native Village mat. Anything else could remain on top and be filed away for the big play.
1. I doubt there are really many, if any, accelerants to this combo. But I suppose it's possible
2. You actually do want Native Villages on your mat, because you need there actions to play all your bridges.

I should add (I think I forgot to in my original post) that obviously Throne Room and KC are great with this combo, but you probably can't get up to KCs. TRs you might want to get after a handful of bridges, and then start alternating bridge and TR.

drg

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #17 on: June 17, 2011, 02:48:31 pm »
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This strategy is dangerous (but can be utterly devastating) in that if you want more than 2 provinces at once (and you need to because you can only build up 1 big turn with it before the game ends on piles) you need some luck putting your crappy cards on the mat early and not your native villages which will slow you down a lot.  You also have to be very careful that a 3rd pile doesn't vanish before you get your big turn off, or you will wind up with nothing, as there is a good chance the bridges and native villages will be gone.  I've pulled it off, had it fail because I could never get anything but actions onto the mat, had my opps pull it off and prevented my opps from winning with it.  Throw a watchtower or library in there and you can accelerate it though, or just have general good turns instead of going for the one big one.
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michaeljb

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #18 on: June 17, 2011, 05:04:19 pm »
0

Check it: two days before the OP posted, I played this very combo <a href="http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110614-084126-b6c017cb.html">here</a>.

When I saw the title of the post my first thought was my opponent had done a write up on what beat him :P
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #19 on: June 17, 2011, 05:30:19 pm »
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I've actually played this several times, and I've been wanting to do a write-up for a while and submit it to the main site, but I'm lazy. Somehow the forums make it seem so much easier.

michaeljb

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #20 on: June 17, 2011, 05:41:36 pm »
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I've actually played this several times, and I've been wanting to do a write-up for a while and submit it to the main site, but I'm lazy. Somehow the forums make it seem so much easier.
I've thought about doing write-ups on games I've played a few times, but I'm also lazy. I might get around to it with this new forum though...plus it would help me overcome this Pawn status ;D
edit: lol and this is the post that moves me from Pawn to Herbalist
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Thisisnotasmile

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #21 on: June 18, 2011, 06:20:32 am »
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201106/18/game-20110618-031722-e3b8a5e5.html

Just came up in a random game and I had to give it a go. In my final turn I managed to pull my whole deck into my hand and pull off a comfortable win. It's worth noting that had I not drawn cards with my final native village, I would have left 3 bridges on the mat and probably (too lazy to do the maths but I'm pretty sure) wouldn't have been able to buy enough to win.
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Silverback

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #22 on: June 18, 2011, 07:10:27 am »
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I like this combo a lot and played it a few times.
 
As this combo relies heavily on having a lot of bridges, it gets completely wrecked by swindler and saboteur. Could you simulate that geronimoo?
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Geronimoo

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #23 on: June 18, 2011, 10:15:01 am »
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NV/Bridge (78%) - Two Saboteur (20%)
NV/Bridge (55%) - Two Swindlers and Caravans (42%)
NV/Bridge (43%) - Two Swindlers (55%) (Scout is in the Kingdom setup)

Saboteur is really really weak so they don't really stand a chance. Double Swindlers have the advantage when there's a garbage $4 card on the board, but not if the other $4s are useful cards like Caravan or Remodel
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rrenaud

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Re: Combo: Native Village & Bridge
« Reply #24 on: June 18, 2011, 01:06:00 pm »
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In general scouts are terrible, but if you strategically re-ordered your deck, you could suck the coppers out and keep the NV/bridges in, letting you use the NV early as a kind of targeted trasher.  Did you program in useful deck re-ordering with the scout?
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