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[theory]

In the words of Donald X., Highway is the way to do all those cute tricks you imagined with Bridge but were never able to actually pull off.

Let's try to imagine some of them:

1) Highways can help you Swindle your opponent's high-value cards into Curses.
2) Highways can help you Upgrade your Coppers into something valuable, but if played before your Governor, can hurt you by letting your opponent upgrade his Coppers into high-value cards.

[jonts26]

Highways ensure your saboteur hits better cards. I did try this in a game once and it didn't work out so well. I would imagine you need some sort of support, like trashing or card draw, for this to be effective.

[timchen]

One useful combo I see is with gaining abilities.

Ironworks, talisman, university comes to mind.

[mischiefmaker]

Salvager before Highway, party like it's Friday. Highway before Salvager, sad like a dowager. (I'll be here all week. Tip your waitresses.)

Although Highway is obviously the easier of the two to start chains with, so...yeah, this isn't exactly a combo I'd be trying to build a deck around.

[play2draw]

Well... Highway before Salvager isn't so bad. Salvager gives you a +buy, and Highway or Bridge give you the equivalent of +1 coin per buy.

Highway before Bishop, on the other hand...

[Empathy]

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201111/03/game-20111103-113926-f3b3d91f.html

For an example of how to make a 9 point turn every turn from turn 14 onwards.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201111/03/game-20111103-113117-8d1a28e4.html

ironworks goodness

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201111/03/game-20111103-113433-764b3dab.html

The usual +buy goodness

I have tried talisman+highway, but it is definitely not easy to pull off. You really need a high value card like platinum or KC to make it worth it. Even workshop works a lot better than talisman.

I had not thought of swindler+highway. That is definitely a big one.

And I have the farmland/highway thread to show how you could pull off 8 point turns with a seemingly poor highway board.

That being said, the crucial element each time seems to be the presence of trashers.

[def]

You know, 8 provinces by turn 26 without opponents' attacks is not that impressive. Not at all.
Couldn't you just buy a feast every turn and trash it for a Province beginning with turn 9, more or less like you did in the other two posted solitaire games? And why 9-point-turn?

[olneyce]

Pure Big Money, with absolutely no other cards at all, can get you 8 provinces by turn 26. 

[Empathy]

I think you miss the fact that each turn, starting turn 14, this deck buys a province *and sabotages an opponent's province*. That is at least a 9 point swing. And there are no +buys or virtual +buys on this board (or else they would combo with highway), so I'm pretty sure that's a lock unless the other player has a significant lead by turn 14.

Every time, I played 5 highways to make sure only provinces are hit by the saboteur. This can obviously be modulated to hit gold/duchies depending on the other player's deck composition.

It's not a killer deck. The two other logs are much faster. But it's a proof of principle, and does ok. It might fare well against platinum.

[Jack Rudd]

The game gets a bit silly if both players are going for this.

[AJD]

In <a href="http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201111/04/game-20111104-231828-e0c76032.html">this game</a>, Trade Route made a good combo with Highway, since it gives both trashing and +buy. The presence of a couple of Victory cards in the Kingdom didn't hurt, of course, to boost the value of the Trade Routes; nor did the presence of Spice Merchant, which jump-started the trashing a little more effectively than Trade Route alone could have.

[def]

@Empathy: I see your point now, and saboteuring only provinces is indeed nice. But still, when your opponent does exactly the same until turn 9 and then starts doing what I said, when you'll start saboteuring he will already have 4 or 5 provinces. In a slower game without feast, this could be a valid strategy, though.

[Kirian]

Let's try to imagine some of them:

1) Highways can help you Swindle your opponent's high-value cards into Curses.
2) Highways can help you Upgrade your Coppers into something valuable, but if played before your Governor, can hurt you by letting your opponent upgrade his Coppers into high-value cards.

Even better, Highways can help you upgrade Curses into something more useful.  I played a game the other day with Highway/Governor where my opponent converted a Curse to Gold. I got a Governor for my Copper, but I think he got the better deal by far.

[blackb]

o.O
With villages and bridges you get the same as with highway...

[Kirian]

o.O
With villages and bridges you get the same as with highway...

Technically, Village/Bridge gets you "different".  For each Village + Bridge you get +$1, +1 Buy, -1 Card compared to Highway.

But doing that also requires twice as many buys, and requires drawing your cards in much luckier clumps.  Even if you get very, very lucky, you can only play a maximum of five Villages and five Bridges with that combo--and that requires you not to draw one Village and four Bridges to start.  Maximum Highways plays:   all of them, plus you still have five cards in hand.

[kn1tt3r]

Highway affects your possibilites with Forge, which can be benefitial but also very dangerous if you don't pay attention.

[mathguy]

Highway robbery: Highway+Highway+Smuggle a province.

[ehunt]

A little note on highway forge:

unless you're hogging all the highways, it's a bad idea:

if you trash n cards originally costing x_1, ..., x_n, and you've played m highways, then forge gives you a card originally costing

x_1 + x_2 + ... + x_n - nm + m. Since nm > m when n > 1 and m > 0, this is never as costly a card as you would get without having played any highways, and it's strictly a worse card if you're using forge well (i.e. trashing more than one card).

A particularly bad case of the formula is when m is 2. Then if you forge 3 estates and a copper, you gain an estate instead of a gold.

HOWEVER, there's an exception to this formula stemming from the fact that highway never reduces a cost below 0. If you play more highways than the minimum value of the x_i, it becomes possible that the highways improve your forging. It's annoying to write out the formula, but it's obvious that good stuff can happen here when you consider the extreme example where you've played 8 highways and can forge anything into a province.

[biopower]

With Forge, your goal with highway should always be to forge $0 cards into other $0 cards instead of, for example, three Golds at $1 into a Province at $3. Even playing only three highways can turn your coppers and estates into Silvers, which is pretty good.

[Fangz]

Given the amount of prep to set that up, turning estates into silvers is a ridiculously weak payoff.

[Captain_Frisk]

HOWEVER, there's an exception to this formula stemming from the fact that highway never reduces a cost below 0. If you play more highways than the minimum value of the x_i, it becomes possible that the highways improve your forging. It's annoying to write out the formula, but it's obvious that good stuff can happen here when you consider the extreme example where you've played 8 highways and can forge anything into a province.

IIRC - forge allows the trashing of any number of cards, where any number could be zero - so with 8 highways, forge can simply be "gain a province"

[Deadlock39]

Empathy already posted a similar game with Provinces, but I had a fun game with Highway the other day.

Playing against my RL friend who isn't a high level Dominion player + Scrying Pool + 7 Highways = Gaining Colonies with Ironworks. 

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111106-002312-0f0a8cb7.html

Also grabbing a few Nobles with Ironworks mid game was pretty satisfying too.

[jomini]

1. Highway/feast seems to be overlooked so far. Feast gets you highways, highways let you feast for better cards. I think a setup like KC/highway/feast would allow for some quick highways followed with some quick KC acquisitions to be topped off with a mega turn of KC/feast -> 3 provinces.

2. Highway/mine could also be useful. Mostly, I think being able to mine coppers to kingdom treasures would be quite useful. E.g. Mine/Highway/Talisman should allow opportunistic mining to acquire huge numbers of high value cards while highway/quarry/mine should allow for some really insane action buys (KC for $4 anyone?). Another good option is highway/mine so more hands can benefit from mining into or out of potions  - you can always gain value while adjusting your treasure to potion balance on an as needed basis (golem/highway/mine/other potion cards seems like it should be quite strong).  Also mining coppers to ill gotten gains is a lot less painful than mining silver down to IGG. To a lesser extent some of the other 5 coin kingdom treasures became a lot better with highway making them one shots from copper (royal seal, horn of plenty, etc.)

3. Goons. Being able to mass buy self-replacing cards (e.g. Pearl Diver) for nothing is great. Making it cheaper to chain multiple goons/villages together also is a win. With more highways/goons/+actions you can accelerate goons decks even more insanely than they already run.

4. Farmland. I don't think this is viable even with highway, but getting down 6 highways makes these guys free and you can trash coppers for a duchy. This makes one late game mega turn (something like Highway X 6 with KC/CR/Pawn) allow you to get 40 VP and down two piles. Even better, if there are duchesses or haggler out you can 3 pile with as many points as 5 provinces with only 8 buys.

5. Talisman/Border village/highway might also be fun. Two highways and you can deplete the duchies and BVs using talismans, assuming talismans xor highways are already depleted you can end on three pile in a hurry.

[DStu]

1. Highway/feast seems to be overlooked so far. Feast gets you highways, highways let you feast for better cards. I think a setup like KC/highway/feast would allow for some quick highways followed with some quick KC acquisitions to be topped off with a mega turn of KC/feast -> 3 provinces.

2. Highway/mine could also be useful. Mostly, I think being able to mine coppers to kingdom treasures would be quite useful. E.g. Mine/Highway/Talisman should allow opportunistic mining to acquire huge numbers of high value cards while highway/quarry/mine should allow for some really insane action buys (KC for $4 anyone?). Another good option is highway/mine so more hands can benefit from mining into or out of potions  - you can always gain value while adjusting your treasure to potion balance on an as needed basis (golem/highway/mine/other potion cards seems like it should be quite strong).  Also mining coppers to ill gotten gains is a lot less painful than mining silver down to IGG. To a lesser extent some of the other 5 coin kingdom treasures became a lot better with highway making them one shots from copper (royal seal, horn of plenty, etc.)

3. Goons. Being able to mass buy self-replacing cards (e.g. Pearl Diver) for nothing is great. Making it cheaper to chain multiple goons/villages together also is a win. With more highways/goons/+actions you can accelerate goons decks even more insanely than they already run.

4. Farmland. I don't think this is viable even with highway, but getting down 6 highways makes these guys free and you can trash coppers for a duchy. This makes one late game mega turn (something like Highway X 6 with KC/CR/Pawn) allow you to get 40 VP and down two piles. Even better, if there are duchesses or haggler out you can 3 pile with as many points as 5 provinces with only 8 buys.

5. Talisman/Border village/highway might also be fun. Two highways and you can deplete the duchies and BVs using talismans, assuming talismans xor highways are already depleted you can end on three pile in a hurry.

I like the Highway/Mine-idea. Not sure if it's really a killer, but probably mining Copper->Talisman and get (unexpected) duplicated $5-buys is really a satisfactoring move. Esp. Talisman might behave somehow nicer here than with Bridge. Bridge already gives you the buy, so it's not so important to get the dublicates, and of course it's also 20% harder to collide Bridge and Talisman than Highway and Talisman.

[Rats like Cheese!]

Highway here allowed me to Smuggle and Workshop half the Provinces:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201111/08/game-20111108-095544-c9f51ed7.html

[mathguy]

1. Highway/feast seems to be overlooked so far. Feast gets you highways, highways let you feast for better cards. I think a setup like KC/highway/feast would allow for some quick highways followed with some quick KC acquisitions to be topped off with a mega turn of KC/feast -> 3 provinces.

Doesn't Feast read "Trash this. If you do gain ...". That would suggest to me that KC-Feast would get you only one card as you can't trash the extra Feasts. Granted, I have never wanted to play KC-Feast so I wouldn't know.

[Jimmmmm]

No, Feast doesn't say "If you do..." Check the Feast FAQ: it explicitly says if you Throne Room a Feast you gain two cards.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Feast's text is "Trash this card. Gain a card costing up to $5.".

It is also explained in the base set FAQ that TRing a Feast will net you two cards. This can be easily extended to KC (It might be in the KC FAQ too but I don't have Prosperity).

*Sigh*... Ninja'd again.

[Kirian]

1. Highway/feast seems to be overlooked so far. Feast gets you highways, highways let you feast for better cards. I think a setup like KC/highway/feast would allow for some quick highways followed with some quick KC acquisitions to be topped off with a mega turn of KC/feast -> 3 provinces.

Doesn't Feast read "Trash this. If you do gain ...". That would suggest to me that KC-Feast would get you only one card as you can't trash the extra Feasts. Granted, I have never wanted to play KC-Feast so I wouldn't know.

As others noted, no, BUT:  Highway can't be Throned/KC'd like Bridge can.  Highway has the "while in play" clause, like Goons and Princess.  KC/Highway gets you 3 actions and 3 cards, but only $1 discount on buys.

[jomini]

1. Highway/feast seems to be overlooked so far. Feast gets you highways, highways let you feast for better cards. I think a setup like KC/highway/feast would allow for some quick highways followed with some quick KC acquisitions to be topped off with a mega turn of KC/feast -> 3 provinces.

2. Highway/mine could also be useful. Mostly, I think being able to mine coppers to kingdom treasures would be quite useful. E.g. Mine/Highway/Talisman should allow opportunistic mining to acquire huge numbers of high value cards while highway/quarry/mine should allow for some really insane action buys (KC for $4 anyone?). Another good option is highway/mine so more hands can benefit from mining into or out of potions  - you can always gain value while adjusting your treasure to potion balance on an as needed basis (golem/highway/mine/other potion cards seems like it should be quite strong).  Also mining coppers to ill gotten gains is a lot less painful than mining silver down to IGG. To a lesser extent some of the other 5 coin kingdom treasures became a lot better with highway making them one shots from copper (royal seal, horn of plenty, etc.)

3. Goons. Being able to mass buy self-replacing cards (e.g. Pearl Diver) for nothing is great. Making it cheaper to chain multiple goons/villages together also is a win. With more highways/goons/+actions you can accelerate goons decks even more insanely than they already run.

4. Farmland. I don't think this is viable even with highway, but getting down 6 highways makes these guys free and you can trash coppers for a duchy. This makes one late game mega turn (something like Highway X 6 with KC/CR/Pawn) allow you to get 40 VP and down two piles. Even better, if there are duchesses or haggler out you can 3 pile with as many points as 5 provinces with only 8 buys.

5. Talisman/Border village/highway might also be fun. Two highways and you can deplete the duchies and BVs using talismans, assuming talismans xor highways are already depleted you can end on three pile in a hurry.

I like the Highway/Mine-idea. Not sure if it's really a killer, but probably mining Copper->Talisman and get (unexpected) duplicated $5-buys is really a satisfactoring move. Esp. Talisman might behave somehow nicer here than with Bridge. Bridge already gives you the buy, so it's not so important to get the dublicates, and of course it's also 20% harder to collide Bridge and Talisman than Highway and Talisman.

Highway/Mine isn't a killer, but it is a fine trick. Mining to a quarry is normally a loss - unless you are buying multiple actions a turn you may as well forget it - silver to gold has the same net affect as silver to quarry. Highway/mine lets you jump from copper to gold - as much improvement to your hand as gold -> plat. Pretty much, mining all the kingdom treasures becomes more powerful with mine - and 3 highways + mine lets you go copper to gold.

KCing a highway is still a strong move. Yeah it doesn't stack the discount, but it gives you more treasure in hand (virtually assuring another highway or perhaps getting a second KC) and gives you plenty of surplus actions.

[jomini]

Also another surprising combo is Bridge. One of the problem for the mega highway turn is that it takes so long to get enough highways without native + buy. Bridge makes double highway buys and double province buys much more achievable. Loan/Bridge was insanely good. It doesn't conflict terminals, odds of hitting a bridge on the first go round are pretty good, and the deck things - without action collision potential - making an easy turn of Highway/Highway/Bridge -> buy two highways much quicker in coming.

[cherdano]

Sorry for necro'ing this thread, but I can't resist posting this neat little game where I got my 5th province at turn 12, based on remake + highways:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201204/15/game-20120415-163135-42ce1212.html

Obviously I had a bit of shuffle luck, and my opponent didn't play optimally, but it was still fun.

Short version: I opened remake/ambassador, then rushed to get highways, in order to remake
1. copper->wishing wells, then later
2. anything -> more highways, until i had 7, and finally
3. anything -> provinces.

(I also did buy a province with a silver at turn 11, my only treasure left at that point. Expand helped finish off the game, otherwise i would have rebuilt my economy via wishing wells/treasuries to finish of the remaining provinces.)