Edward Montgomery
United States
Moraga
California
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Cellar
Spy
Thief
Cutpurse
Militia
Saboteur
Witch
Torturer
Treasury
Council Room
4 player. What are the reasonable strategy choices?
Three young men came over because I own the expansions and they are bored with the basic game. They are all nascent Fighting Banana Slugs (that is, they leave for the University of California, Santa Cruz in a week.) They had Slug tee shirts and everything. Friends of my youngest, who was out of town.
This was the second game of the night. Random from the first three sets. After staring at it for a bit, they decided to "veto the entire deal". I was still trying to decide if this was an example of my quest for a first player disadvantage kingdom.
Anyone who can get to 5 and grab a Witch can spew Curses.
This would tempt me to get a Cutpurse or Militia to make it harder for my opponents to get a Witch, plus a Cellar to cycle desperately to attack as much as possible.
If my opponents buy Silver, do I get a Thief instead and hope to get lucky?
Can an early Saboteur do better than a Witch if there are Thieves stealing all the Silver?
I really have no idea how I'd play this one. I'd love to hear some ideas. I don't think I've ever seen 7 attack cards in a kingdom before.
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If only this set had something that gave +2 actions then it would be absolutely crazy. But anyways this is what I would do with the set.
4/3 split
Militia or Cutpurse
Silver
5/2 split
Treasury
Cellar
Then for later turns I would either buy a silver with 3-4 coins or one Witch and then Treasuries if I had 5. If my opponents bought thieves then I wouldn't buy gold I would buy a Treasury with 6. If my opponents bought gold then I would buy one thief. If my opponents also buy witches then I'd buy some cellars. Once you have about 3 Treasuries you can start thinking about buying provinces whenever you get 8 or a Treasury/Duchy with 7-5. This game would probably be pretty long and incredibly frustrating if someone dips into the saboteurs.
Edited for grammar/clarity
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Paul W
United States
Eugene
Oregon
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My first impression is to go Cellar/Militia, then work on acquiring treasuries. I'd probably pick up a Witch if another player goes for curses, but I don't think I'd go for that approach otherwise with this set.
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Edward Montgomery
United States
Moraga
California
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fizzmore wrote: My first impression is to go Cellar/Militia, then work on acquiring treasuries. I'd probably pick up a Witch if another player goes for curses, but I don't think I'd go for that approach otherwise with this set.
Fair enough. I do think Cellars are very helpful in a Curse deck, although Militias played against you make them very much less useful.
Why Militia instead of Cutpurse? Both add two coin. The Cutpurse is guaranteed to hurt early, when you most want to keep your opponents away from 5, and multiple Cutpurses hurt more than multiple Militias. If the decks fill with Curses, Militias might do very little damage in the mid game, let alone the late game. Are you anticipating hurting your opponents Cellars?
And why eschew Curses (that is, the Witch) if you get the first shot at a 5?
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Hans Scundal
United States
Pennsylvania
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Will the Treasury be somewhat immune to the Saboteur as long as you don't buy victory points? If so, then I would go Silver/Militia with 4/3 or Saboteur/Cellar with 5/2. I would try to get Treasuries until I have enough to buy Saboteurs.
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Paul W
United States
Eugene
Oregon
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RE: militia vs. cutpurse, in my opinion militia is just as effective in the early game, and in the late game I think it's often going to be more effective. A lot depends on the eventual curse density of your opponents' deck, of course, but I would prefer a smaller chance of forcing valuable discards rather than a larger chance of discarding a copper in the mid-late game.
You're right that I would probably go for a Witch with a 5-2 split...as I said, that was just a first impression, and I typically assume 4/3 on a first pass at a set.
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Edward Montgomery
United States
Moraga
California
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timchen wrote: Nobody likes torturers?
Torturer drawing 3 cards is nice, but not amazing in a game where you are probably pulling a lot of bad cards and there are no extra actions. Cellar is better (unless you've been hit by a Militia) because you can dump the bad cards and hunt for an action to play.
The attack isn't nasty here either. There are likely to be a lot of dead cards to throw away.
I think one very interesting dynamic is the order of selection of Cutpurse and Militia with the initial 4 buy. A Cutpurse who attacks after a Militia hurts even more. Multiple Cutpurse attacks early on can really cripple you. Group think might come in, or tactics. If the first player buys Militia and the next two buy Cutpurse, what does the fourth player buy? (Assuming everyone gets a 4/3).
Another consideration is, which three piles are going to end the game? Curse, Cellar, ... Spy?
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David Murray
England
Plymouth
Devon
I'm the mod, so I know EVERYTHING >:)
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The important things to note in this setup are:
1. No +2 Actions, so you don't want too many terminals
2. No way to trash curses
3. No way to block attacks
With 3/4 I'd Open Silver/Militia, with 2/5 Cellar/Witch. Either way my strategy would be to get a total of 2 Witches and 1 Militia as soon as possible, then I'd play something like this: (I don't think I'd want any more terminals after that)
2 Coins: Cellar
3 Coins: Silver or Cellar
4 Coins: Silver or Spy
5 Coins: Treasury
6 Coins: Gold or Treasury
8+ Coins: Province
How many Silvers/Golds I'd pick up depends on the number of Thiefs.
I'd keep an eye out for the 3 Pile Ending Curses and Cellars and very likely to run out and Spys,Treasuries and Duchies also have a good chance. Witch might run out if everyone buys lots.
Timing the Duchy rush correctly would be important.
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Edge wrote: timchen wrote: Nobody likes torturers? Torturer drawing 3 cards is nice, but not amazing in a game where you are probably pulling a lot of bad cards and there are no extra actions. Cellar is better (unless you've been hit by a Militia) because you can dump the bad cards and hunt for an action to play. The attack isn't nasty here either. There are likely to be a lot of dead cards to throw away.
hmm. While this all makes sense one should compare torturer to another curse giver, here the witch.
The down side of torturer is that one may choose to discard when discard harms him less. The good side, is that it draws one more card; also, the discard effect is accumulative, and chains well with others' militia. When the curses run out torturer is clearly the better card, but as you said the difference between +2 cards and +3 cards may not be so large with a bad deck.
In the end, I still don't see why witch is definitely better.
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Witch is better for 2 main reasons:
1. It guarantees 3 curses are distributed in 4P game: This is just as much a defensive move as an offensive one!
2. Good opponents will choose to take a curse if their hand is good and choose to discard if their hand is bad. You need collusion from multiple players to bring opponents to their knees by playing multiple torturers.
Of course if playing modified Big Money, Torturer is just a Smithy on steroids. The card art even supports this. But when taking a gamble on multiple terminal actions, which this set begs for, +Card actions can be a liability. So I view this as another strike against the Torturer.
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Chris Dieckmann
United States
New York
New York
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What if we swap a village for either cellar or council room?
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Edward Montgomery
United States
Moraga
California
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Chrisxny wrote: What if we swap a village for either cellar or council room?
Then we have a very different layout, and I probably wouldn't have posted it. Extreme cases are more interesting to me. But this was a random draw, not a designed one, and my question is, what is the best way to play it? Games with mostly terminal cards (no plus action at all) and no extra action cards (like Village) call for a different approach. They are also usually fun games, but they are quite different, and less forgiving if you wander into them without a firm plan in place.
No one else seems to feel that they would react to what the other players are purchasing in the first two turns. This surprises me. I think the combinations of 4 cost attack cards are intriguing and potential fluid.
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Paul W
United States
Eugene
Oregon
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Edge wrote: No one else seems to feel that they would react to what the other players are purchasing in the first two turns. This surprises me. I think the combinations of 4 cost attack cards are intriguing and potential fluid.
Well, there are so many possible combinations of buys that I can't imagine listing all possible approaches. It is the case though that the buys of other players during the first to turns rarely affect my own purchases, unless someone grabs a Witch or other curse giver.
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