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[drbobjack]

Hey everyone, new-ish to the forum (although I've been reading for a while).

So I've heard that no treasure map-based strategy beats BMU -see, for example, http://dominionstrategy.com/2012/02/03/seaside-treasure-map/, which states that very thing.

But messing about with Dominiate I came up with this:
# Treasure Map Big Money
{
  name: 'Treasure Map BM'
  author: 'drbobjackr'
  requires: ['Treasure Map']
  gainPriority: (state, my) ->
      [
        "Province" if my.getTotalMoney() > 18
        "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 4
        "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
        "Gold"
        "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 6
        "Treasure Map" if my.countInDeck("Treasure Map") <  3 \
                        and my.countInDeck("Gold") < 4
        "Silver"
      ]
}

Which beats the built in big money by a couple percentage points. (Or so it seems with a couple tests). Am I doing something wrong, or is it just that the benefit is so slight it usually isn't worth it? If the latter, one might still go TMBM in a weak kingdom (all scouts and whatever). Could somebody give me a hint?

[shark_bait]

The problem with TM/BM is that your first two maps could have been Silver.  After that, those Silver will lead to being able to purchase Gold.  If you only buy 2 TM's, the chance of hitting is quite low (see graph on TM article) where you will most often have dead maps in your hand.  This will result in less spending power and a lower quality deck.  Anytime you buy another map is a buy that could have been a Silver.  So what essentially happens with TM-BM is that you're rolling the dice to get lucky but you could essentially get the same purchasing power in your deck by just buying the money in the first place.

The only thing that you're inherently doing wrong is comparing your TM strategy to a strategy that no competent dominion player would do.  Consider testing your strategy to something like Smithy-BM and see how it fairs then.  I would guess the win rate would drop significantly.  You could then add Smithy buy rules to your TM strategy and see if it still competes well against a more general BM strategy.

Also, welcome to the forum 

[drbobjack]

Nice to meet you!

Oh, I agree. It's a pretty bad card that rarely works out. I think I've gotten it in only one or two games, either in a slimmed-down-with-Spice Merchant Torturer deck where I had basically won the war and in one warehouse-TM game.

My point was more of a quibble (an edge-case if you will) -if the other cards in play are great hall, scout, fairgrounds, farmlands, vineyards, coppersmith, contraband, tunnel, feodum, you might want to grab treasure maps over straight BM. It gives you only a tiny edge, but it is an edge, so the article is a bit off. That's all.

[DG]

Geronimoo's simulator does not trash any remaining treasure maps after one set has been cashed in. If this can be done in Dominiate then treasure maps will presumably beat a pure money strategy (but not much else).

[eHalcyon]

My point was more of a quibble (an edge-case if you will) -if the other cards in play are great hall, scout, fairgrounds, farmlands, vineyards, coppersmith, contraband, tunnel, feodum, you might want to grab treasure maps over straight BM. It gives you only a tiny edge, but it is an edge, so the article is a bit off. That's all.

Clearly in that Kingdom you want to go for Scout+Great Hall.