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[Empathy]

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111030-115646-30834484.html

Highway-farmland makes for a very green deck that trashes coppers into provinces for 8point turns. 40 points by turn 15 sounded good.

The plan was then to switch into a bishop strategy once I saturated in farmlands (because bishop on farmland sounds sweeeet)

I trashed my bishop to get a province lead, hoping to simply farmland-remodel anything into a bishop again.

And this is where I failed, given that farmland is not like remodel. I basically fizzled for 2-3 turns, having no money in the deck and only being able to get stuff that costs 6 or more with the highway/farmland combo...

chwhite played a much more conservative and well played bishopping strategy which overtook me during the fizzling period, niftly finishing the game with one more point.


I'm sure I misplayed a fair bit, and the strategy could have been much faster, more impressive and so on in more able hands.

I still have the impression that highway always finds *some* combo on half the boards it's present on. You just have to look hard enough.

Farmland is really inflexible, however.
 

[DG]

I still have the impression that highway always finds *some* combo on half the boards it's present on. You just have to look hard enough.

I have the impression that people see a highway combo even when it is not there (or never going to draw).

[WanderingWinder]

I think that highway is a massive, massive trap card. Actually, I plan on writing a series of articles on trap cards soon, and it's probably going to get its own full article.
Anyway, a combo is very often there, it's just that you usually need really really good luck to make it worth it, so usually it's a $5 peddler. Actually, that's basically what it is in general, though it has some nice cost synergies, similar to how peddler is great with trash-for-benefit.

[chwhite]

Hey, I remember that game!  I play Menagerie and Bishop strategies all the time, what struck me as weird and notable is that I actually found a use for Mandarin.  (The on-gain didn't do me that much good, what was nice is that I was able to pick up Gold power with a Border Village, and it let me top-deck Menageries for the next turn a couple times, though I'm pretty sure I misplayed that bit once or twice as well.)

Your mega-Highway approach was solid; I'm always impressed when someone finds a way to use Highway well in the absence of +Buy (the one Highway in my deck did very little good; it was basically just a Peddler that cheated me out of a couple Bishop points).

[Empathy]

I think that highway is a massive, massive trap card. Actually, I plan on writing a series of articles on trap cards soon, and it's probably going to get its own full article.
Anyway, a combo is very often there, it's just that you usually need really really good luck to make it worth it, so usually it's a $5 peddler. Actually, that's basically what it is in general, though it has some nice cost synergies, similar to how peddler is great with trash-for-benefit.

Agreed, you absolutely need a synergy for this to be worth it, just like peddlers without either a source of +buy or trash for benefit is basically just an occasionally under priced market, but certainly not a strategy. Also, most synergies are not winning strategies, just nice little tricks to be aware of (talisman+highway).

But I can list a fair number of cards that make it worthwhile, at least if you are the only one going for them. And with a trasher (like in this game, bishop), the luck aspect gets removed somewhat.

[olneyce]

I think that highway is a massive, massive trap card. Actually, I plan on writing a series of articles on trap cards soon, and it's probably going to get its own full article.

That would be very interesting to read.  I think there are actually a lot of different types of traps.  The obvious ones, of course.  But for me, some of the biggest traps are solid cards that I treat like they're great.

I often base my whole strategy on winning the race to the Laboratories, even when there's a better combo available.  I often buy mediocre trashers early, regardless of whether it is actually crucial to my long-term strategies.  In that vein, Moneylender is a huge trap card for me.  It's rarely *wrong* in a definitive sense, but it often is a poor crutch.  At the extreme level, even great cards can be traps.  Chapel, for example, which I pretty much open with instinctively.  It's good enough that it can still work, but being a little more risky would often be worth it.

[rinkworks]

I really don't see Highway as that massive a trap card.  Even if all you can do with it is to use it as a $5 Peddler, that's not THAT much more than what an actual Peddler is really worth.  No, it's not a great buy, but on boards with no better $5's, or non-spammable $5's that you've already maxxed out on, it's not a terrible idea.

It's kind of like Market, which people see as a weak $5 card but which, I'm convinced, is only weak if you don't have a use for its +Buy.  But sometimes you don't need its +Buy and Market is still worth picking up.  Under those circumstances, Highway is just as good and often better.

The difference, I guess, is picking a Highway up when you don't have anything better to do, vs. aggressively pursuing a Highway chaining strategy.  Certainly I agree that the latter only works when a real combo is available.

[ChaosRed]

Highway ruins me. It's just one of those noob traps. It looks so strong, but like the thread determines it really isn't all that unless it has a partner. On its own, it doesn't get you too far. I once bought all Highways on the board (got a badge for it on Isotropic) and got RUINED in the final score.

Farmland requires some skill, knowing when to reach for it, so that the remodel effect is worth it. It has also ruined me, because it's a subtler card than it appears. The simple use is to get a Province for 6 by trashing a gold or a Farmland, late in the game. But it's a card that I still haven't really usurped for victory yet. Instead, like Highway, when I reached for Farmland, I lost the game badly.

[guided]

Iunno, I think Highway can really only be considered a trap if there's an obvious source of buys that just can't be deployed fast enough to keep up with mundane non-Highway strategies. If there's no good source of buys, Highway isn't so much a "trap" as "an obviously bad card". (with the caveat that it could serve as one of those "shrug, might as well" $5 midgame buys when you're playing a deck that mainly wants $6 for Gold or whatever)