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[sudgy]

I don't know why I like thinking up of next-to-impossible puzzles, but this one seems fairly interesting.  Without Monument, Fortress, Trader, Rogue, or Graverobber (so you can't get infinite points), what is the maximum amount of points you can get in a solitaire game?

Alright, easier definition (suggested by SirPeebles): Among kingdoms with an upper bound on available VP, what is the highest attainable score?

[sudgy]

Just a few tips I've noticed:

1. You want Goons ASAP.  You probably should just open Silver/Nothing, get a $6 hand then play as many Goons as you can at a time to buy them all.  Villages are probably needed for this somewhat.  You probably want Shelters for that Necropolis.
2. In the end you will Bishop most or all your cards, then buy a copper or something to end the game.
3. you want to get as many cards as possible, so Colonies/Platinum, Ruins even, Potions, Black Market.
4. You want the kingdom to include really expensive cards, so the Bishops will give you as many points as possible.

2 and 4 are crossed out because I forgot that Bishop still gives you one VP...

[Kirian]

I assume you're also banning Goons/Trader/Watchtower?

[heron]

And bishop?

[sudgy]

I assume you're also banning Goons/Trader/Watchtower?

I forgot about Trader.  What's so bad about Watchtower?

And bishop?

Goons and Bishop, after a long time, finally get depleted.  That's the hardest part of this...

[eHalcyon]

You don't have to ban Goons/Watchtower because that still depletes piles.  You DO have to ban Goons/Trader because it does not deplete piles after Silvers are gone.

You have to ban Possession or else you can do solitaire self-Possession tricks.

You have to ban Bishop (and can thus un-ban Fortress) because Bishop can earn infinite points on its own, e.g. a hand with just 1 Bishop gets you 1VP without trashing anything.  It's better if you get down to KC-Bishop for 3VP per turn though.

[SirPeebles]

I think that the cleanest way to pose the challenge is:  Among kingdoms with an upper bound on available VP, what is the highest attainable score?

This formulation doesn't ban cards per se, but rather bans any kingdom or setup which permits arbitrarily high scores.

[ponnuki]

Also Ambassador/Goons has to go out, I guess?

[sudgy]

I think that the cleanest way to pose the challenge is:  Among kingdoms with an upper bound on available VP, what is the highest attainable score?

This formulation doesn't ban cards per se, but rather bans any kingdom or setup which permits arbitrarily high scores.

I'll change it to that, that is what I was looking for.

You have to ban Bishop (and can thus un-ban Fortress) because Bishop can earn infinite points on its own, e.g. a hand with just 1 Bishop gets you 1VP without trashing anything.  It's better if you get down to KC-Bishop for 3VP per turn though.

Yeah, I didn't think of that...

[heron]

Pretending that victory point tokens are worth 0 and hoping that there is some way to gain all of the cards on the last turn, I got 2439.

Gardens, Silk Road, Fairgrounds, Feodum, Island, Nobles, Black Market, Knights, Great Hall, Vineyard, Duke. (Colony, Shelters)
760 points from Fairgrounds.
80 points from Feodum.
424 points from Gardens.
-1 point from Curse.
216 points from Silk Road.
16 points from Island.
16 points from Nobles.
2 points from Dame Josephine.
8 points from Great Hall.
64 points from Duke.
688 points from Vineyards.
160 points from basic VPs.
2 points from Harem.
2 points from Tunnel.
2 points from Farmland.


There is probably some way to squeeze a few more points out, and making tokens count as points and killing ambassador and trader and bishop and monument allows you to get almost eleven times this score.

[eHalcyon]

Why omit VP tokens?  You can't use Monument or Bishop because they become unbounded but you can still use Goons (just not with Trader).

The question is how to maximize the various VP with a Goons megaturn.

[heron]

I omitted VP tokens because I was feeling lazy.
I might modify the solution later to use goons though. I would guess that the maximum is about 26650. (made a stupid errror)
It is not really that hard to figure out: Just swap out Knights or something from my kingdom and use goons instead. Use baker (in the BM) to buy the first goons, then just buy goons, BM, golem, goons, crossroads, goons, goons, etc.

[sudgy]

Why omit VP tokens?  You can't use Monument or Bishop because they become unbounded but you can still use Goons (just not with Trader).

The question is how to maximize the various VP with a Goons megaturn.

The thing is, you could get multiple Goons megaturns if you want.  Try to get as many Goons as you possibly can while playing as many as you can, then keep on playing all then every turn.  You can get a LOT.

[Kirian]

Why omit VP tokens?  You can't use Monument or Bishop because they become unbounded but you can still use Goons (just not with Trader).

The question is how to maximize the various VP with a Goons megaturn.

Bishop is not unbounded as long as there is no way to recover cards from the trash (Fortress, Rogue, Graverobber).

[sudgy]

Why omit VP tokens?  You can't use Monument or Bishop because they become unbounded but you can still use Goons (just not with Trader).

The question is how to maximize the various VP with a Goons megaturn.

Bishop is not unbounded as long as there is no way to recover cards from the trash (Fortress, Rogue, Graverobber).

I thought that too, but you still get one vp every time you play it even if you don't trash.

[eHalcyon]

Why omit VP tokens?  You can't use Monument or Bishop because they become unbounded but you can still use Goons (just not with Trader).

The question is how to maximize the various VP with a Goons megaturn.

The thing is, you could get multiple Goons megaturns if you want.  Try to get as many Goons as you possibly can while playing as many as you can, then keep on playing all then every turn.  You can get a LOT.

Well sure, but there's still a limit to how much you can do.  Goons itself only takes up one kingdom card slot.  Then you have to figure out how to put together a Goons engine in as few kingdom card slots as possible so that the rest can be alt VP.  Probably cobble something together out of the BM.  And you have to figure out which alt VP have the best returns.

There was an older thread about getting the most VP.  Might have been without Goons, and it was almost certainly before DA.

[SCSN]

Once you have 10 Goons and 8 Native Villages + Necropolis, you can always guarantee to eventually have all Goons in play (just put everything on the mat first). Only buy anything when you have 10 Goons in play, otherwise do nothing besides putting things on the mat. Keep buying stuff until all supplies have 1 card left, and then you can empty them all during your last turn (you have all Platinums on your mat, and you should include some other thing that gives +buy besides Goons).

Obv. use Black Market, Rats (never play them), Marauder, Vineyards, Fairgrounds, Gardens, Silk Roads, YW (prob CM as bane for +buy). And while acquiring the Goons and NVs, you should again only buy any of those when you have all your current Goons in play, and only buy a NV when you need it to play the Goons.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

Some thoughts on heron's solution, which may or may not be completely misguided:

1.) We could probably use Young Witch and have Great Hall be the bane...that would pump up a few of the cards.

2.) Probably Goons has to get in there somewhere, and that possibly means subbing out one of the green cards...possibly Island? Not sure about that one, but it seems like even with the reduction to the Vineyards that this might be the least overall point sacrifice.

3.) So yeah, we want to get all the goons really fast. Probably we would like to buy a silver, then get a Goons. Then we'd like to play one Goons and get our second Goons (and nothing else), play two Goons and get our third Goons (and nothing else), and so on until we have all 10 Goons, then just play them all and buy everything. Can we do this?

Of course we need actions. There are actions already in the Supply with Nobles, and we already have a Necropolis, plus we can take what we need from the Black Market deck. What's the fastest way to be able to play 10 Goons?

Here's the fastest thing I can think of:

Tactician hand starts us with 10 cards:
1 Crossroads, 8 Nobles, and 1 Goons.

All right, actually, I'm sure that is wrong, it could certainly be improved just by subbing in regular style villages from the Black Market I'm sure. Somebody optimize that for me.

That would be enough to play all 10. I'm not sure if there's a way to do it with fewer acquired cards, or if there's a most efficient progression to get to this point. Then you just buy everything else, making sure you play all 10 Goons before you buy anything. I'm not going to calculate this quantity but I'm sure it is a buttload.

[eHalcyon]

You don't need CM for +Buy.  If you are using your strategy, you don't really need any +Buy besides what the Goons give.

So you want Goons, NV(?) and BM in the kingdom for sure.  That leaves 8 more slots.  Can you put all 10 Knights in the BM?  Knights does have special rules with the BM because you aren't supposed to use the randomizer.  If you can't put them all in the BM, is it worth it to have them in the kingdom?  They are worth approximately 32 points for boosting Fairgrounds 2 stages, not to mention points for Vineyards...

Big ticket VP cards are Feodum, Gardens, Silk Road, Duke, Fairgrounds.

Other VP cards are Great Hall, Tunnel, Island, Farmland, Harem, Nobles.  We can pick 3 of these to put in the kingdom itself.

Nobles and Island are easy choices because they also boost Vineyards.  Great Hall should take the last slot.  8 GH are worth 8VP alone, plus 21.33VP for Vineyards.  That easily beats out the max 16VP from the others.

I note now that these are approximations -- to get very technical, you'd have to consider various minor considerations, e.g. that not putting it in the kingdom still allows one to be in the BM deck.

We can also compare it to those Knights.  If we do that, we also have to count SR (which I had omitted because they would amount to the same between two VP cards).  8 VP cards will add 16 points to the SR total.  So GH contributes a total of 8+21.33+16 = 45.33 points.  Knights would make ~32 for Fairgrounds and 26.67 for Vineyards for nearly 60 points, so it actually beats out GH!

We should also consider Rats, which is a pile of 20.  That's worth 53.33 for Vineyards, plus an extra 10 cards towards Gardens for 8 points.

Hmm... Nobles and Islands are very similar to GH, contributing just an extra 8 points for a total of 53.33.  That means Knights and Rats beat them!

Now, you could probably replace NVs with something else anyway because it's likely possible to put all 10 Goons into play without the help of NV.  You just have to rely on perfect shuffle luck, or else have tremendous patient to get everything lined up.  But NV certainly makes it more plausible.

Without NV taking up space, you can pop in whatever is missing.  So the Kingdom looks to be:

Shelters game (thanks to Rats) with Colonies (thanks to Goons)
Goons, Black Market
Feodum, Gardens, Silk Road, Duke, Fairgrounds
Rats
Nobles, Island
Knights if they can't all go in the BM, Great Hall otherwise

and replace Island with NV if that is wanted, but it's probably not necessary.

Stack the BM deck with one of every card that is allowed in this challenge.  Notable cards include Tournament for Prizes, Marauder for Ruins and Spoils, Hermit for Madman, Urchin for Mercenary, and Graverobber to bring back Hermit and Urchin after they are trashed.

Note that the kingdom can contain 11 piles thanks to the BM-Young Witch trick.

Game plan is to buy one Silver and then wait until shuffle luck gets you Goons.  Then wait until you can buy the second Goons.  Then you need Necropolis to line up with 2 Goons to get Black Market, and you also only buy from the BM when you have Goons in play...

The specifics of this last part are pretty annoying to figure out, but you probably buy some Nobles to give more +actions so you can put more Goons in play... but is it more cost effective to go through the BM deck for pieces that are better than Nobles?  Meh.

[eHalcyon]

Trickier thing to work out:

If you put NV in the kingdom, it makes it way easier to maximize Goons plays for the entire game.  That is, you can open with a single NV and pile Copper onto the mat until you can afford Goons.  Then you can ensure playing Goons to buy the second Goons.  You can even ensure having 3 Goons in play when you buy the fourth because of Necropolis.  Then you can alternate buying NV and Goons so that you always buy the next piece with the maximum possible number of Goons in play.

The tough question is, does this optimized Goons play generate more points than leaving the kingdom space for another card?  Without NV in the kingdom itself, there will be many more buys where you DON'T have the most possible Goons in play.  Not quite sure how many sub-optimal buys there would be though.

I think having NV in the kingdom might actually work out better than having Nobles.  On the board, Nobles are worth ~27 points more than NV (accounting for Silk Road and Vineyards, where NV means 2 more action cards over Nobles).  I expect that the optimal Goons plays would make up for those 27 points.  Even if they did not, it just makes it so much easier and actually makes the solution free of shuffle luck (replacing it with turns spent doing nothing but NV-ing your whole deck).

[sudgy]

I think NV is better too, for the reasons eHalcyon said.  You don't even need the starting silver, then you can play three goons by the time when you need more.

[faust]

Using the suggestions above, I did some calculations, and this is what I got:

Kingdom: Native Village (Bane), Goons, Black Market, Rats, Nobles, Gardens, Silk Road, Feodum, Duke, Fairgrounds, Vineyard (include Shelters, Colony, Platinum, Potion, Ruins due to Looters in the Black Market deck)

Black Market deck: every kingdom card except Bishop, Monument, Trader, Ambassador. There are 205 different kingdom cards and 9 extra knights (this is assuming you can put all knight in the Black Market deck), so subtracting the kingdom cards already used this makes 199 kingdom cards in the Black Market deck

Non-Supply cards: Spoils, Madman, Mercenary, Prices

How to play: Use first hand of five coppers to buy Goons (using coin token from Baker). Then proceed to get as many Goons as your deck can supply, then a single Native Village, then another Goons, only buying stuff when all Goons are in play. Go on this way until you have 10 Goons and 8 Native Villages. This should net 89 victory tokens. From then on, buy out Ruins before buying Death Cart, buy all cards possible without ending the game, gain all prices, Spoils and Mercenaries (using Rogue or Graverobber), gain a single Madman. Trash all except one Curse. For your last turn, set your whole deck aside with Native Villages, putting it all into hand. This should give you enough buys and money to empty all remaining cards in the supply.

Final victory points:

89 victory tokens from the early game
752 points from Fairgrounds
712 points from Vineyards
408 points from Gardens
168 points from Silk Roads
104 points from Feoda
64 points from Dukes
80 points from Colonies
48 points from Provinces
24 points from Duchies
8 points from Estates
16 points from Nobles
11 points from victory cards in the Black Market (Dame Josephine, Island, Farmland, Harem, Tunnel, Great Hall)
4880 points from buying cards with 10 Goons in play
-1 point from Curse

If my calculations are correct (I just used pen and paper), this sums up to 8355 victory points.

(side note: I tried not using Native Village and just grabbing one from the Black Market. Then you could include Great Hall or Tunnel as Banes, using Nobles for the actions. Turns out though it's not worth the loss of having to buy one Black Market with a sub-optimal number of Goons in play, as it also powers down Gardens and Vineyards.)

All of which of course leads to the next question: Assuming perfect shuffle luck, what is the minimum number of turns to get to 8355 victory points on this board?

[SCSN]

Well done. One minor error: you don't want to gain any Madman since playing Hermit forces you to gain a card from the supply, which costs you 10VP as it's one card less you can buy with all Goons in play. For the same reason I don't think you want to gain Border Village from the BM, unless it's really necessary to up Fairgrounds.

[eHalcyon]

@faust -- Forgot about that Baker coin token -- good call!

@SCSN -- Interesting point about Hermit gaining Madman.  It may also apply to BV, as you point out.  There may be other cards where it matters as well -- Cache and Death Cart come to mind.  Some of this can be played around by gaining certain things first.  For example, if all the Copper have already been purchased, Cache can be safely gained.  Likewise for Ruins and Death Cart. 

Actually, this is probably better dealt with using Trader.  Then your 2 empty piles can be Goons and Silver and you don't have to worry about emptying Copper or Ruins.  The same goes for Border Village!  Buy BV, choose to gain X, reveal Trader to gain Silver instead, but all Silver are gone.  And I think this trick works with Hermit too!

Any other cards where this matters?  Any cards that can't be solved with Trader?




Earlier I said that Possession should be banned, but I guess it doesn't.  Self-possessing would allow you to trash things with Bishop without acually trashing them, but Bishop itself needs to be banned so Possession can be allowed back in.

[sudgy]

@faust -- Forgot about that Baker coin token -- good call!

@SCSN -- Interesting point about Hermit gaining Madman.  It may also apply to BV, as you point out.  There may be other cards where it matters as well -- Cache and Death Cart come to mind.  Some of this can be played around by gaining certain things first.  For example, if all the Copper have already been purchased, Cache can be safely gained.  Likewise for Ruins and Death Cart. 

Actually, this is probably better dealt with using Trader.  Then your 2 empty piles can be Goons and Silver and you don't have to worry about emptying Copper or Ruins.  The same goes for Border Village!  Buy BV, choose to gain X, reveal Trader to gain Silver instead, but all Silver are gone.  And I think this trick works with Hermit too!

Any other cards where this matters?  Any cards that can't be solved with Trader?




Earlier I said that Possession should be banned, but I guess it doesn't.  Self-possessing would allow you to trash things with Bishop without acually trashing them, but Bishop itself needs to be banned so Possession can be allowed back in.

Trader + Goons is banned, you can keep on buying cards and use trader.