How to Buy Farmland From a Family Member

This is an article by Brando Commando, originally posted on the forum, incorporating analysis from many other forum members.

Dominion: Hinterlands

Farmland is the kind of bill of fare that is unusual plenty that it'south hard to imagine what other menu would take its place. This means it can also be hard to strategize around.

Is There a Bigger Strategy with Farmland?

In that location's some disagreement whether Farmland is worth thinking about in your overall strategy. Information technology certainly can't injure, though. Here are some reasons (2-4 courtesy of HiveMindEmulator):

1. Buying a Farmland at $vi on lets you buy what amounts to a $6 Province later on if you trash the first Farmland to remodel information technology into a Province. More on this later.

two. There are more full VPs on the board to buy, so "you need more than than 44 VPs to assure a win. And so it may make Big Money rushes less effective."

three. If there's no other way to trash an Estate or a juicy Nighttime Ages trash-benefit carte, this might be pretty skilful, relatively.

4. Information technology enables a lot of stop game tactics where you can do stuff like getting 5 VP without draining a Province, or become eight VP with one purchase. (Discussed further below.)

You'll find, these are not game-busting issues, and I'm non sure they fifty-fifty authorize equally "strategy." To my listen, Farmland works strategically if information technology happens to do something worthwhile both with its on-buy trash benefit and afterward, when information technology's in your deck fix to exist trashed for do good or remodeled into a Province. So the thesis of this article is that if you are considering a Farmland purchase, you probably desire to become advantage from it both coming and going. This, in effect, is strategy, since it asks how your Farmland fits into the larger game and not merely the manus you lot happen to have.

Question one: What are you going to trash by buying Farmland?

Keep in mind, you're probably forgoing a Aureate when you lot buy a Farmland, which is a large hurdle.

a) You lot're not trashing anything, simply you can gain a Golden with Farmland through Hoard or Market Square.

This is probably superior to anything that follows.

b) Y'all're trashing zilch.

Surely you can do better than this with your $half dozen.

c) You lot're remodeling a Gold into a Province.

This could well be a stiff movement, simply it really only invites the question: can you get that many Golds to brainstorm with? This specially might exist a skillful move if you aren't going to accept +buys to convert them into anything else afterwards or in late game when you won't encounter the Gold again anyway.

d) You're remodeling a previously bought Farmland into a Province.

Sounds great: a net 6 VP for $6. The existent trick is merely that you need to have bought Farmland in the first place, dorsum when you didn't have one. This, indeed, is a bit of strategy. If Harem isn't out, then you might recollect of it as a Harem that can only buy a Province. (Think about it: You only need to get to $six in hand and yous tin can Farmland your Farmland into a Province for half-dozen VP. Special cheers to WheresMyElephant for these observations.)

The other reason to do this, of course, is if y'all're not planning to purchase whatsoever more Provinces and merely program to remodel the rest of your deck into whatever you can get information technology to — that is, you've given up on improving economy and are, most likely, in the home stretch trying to get equally many points equally possible.

Just recall, using Farmland like this might be more trouble than it'due south worth. As ecq put it: "Ownership a Farmland and trashing a Farmland for a Province only nets half dozen VP.  Any time you do that, you could accept just bought a Province if you had whatever other source of $2 instead of a Farmland.  Further, other sources of $two aren't nearly as bad to accept in your paw as Farmland when you only accept $5."

So that Farmland you have in hand? Maybe information technology should only take been a Gold, unless you're then total up with Gold you can pull off both a Farmland and Province in a unmarried buy (by remodeling a Aureate into a Province when you lot buy a Farmland).

Also, another important warning: If you're cycling Farmlands like this, and specially if your opponent is likewise, y'all have to lookout the Farmland pile carefully, since (absent Remodel, etc.) you're merely going to be able to pull off this trick with hereafter Farmlands if in that location are still Farmlands to buy.

e) You're remodeling Silver for a Duchy.

This might be a good idea. Every bit ftl notes, "The Farmland and the Duchy together are 5 VP — a province is 6 VP. Information technology's one dead carte du jour more and one VP less, only it seems like a pretty solid PPR play. Especially if the $3 card y'all're trashing isn't a silver but something that wouldn't have given you the +$2 that would take let you buy a province."

So, in sum, this might piece of work late game when yous're hitting the wall. Think on it.

f) Yous're remodeling a <$5 card into something improve.

One more chip of strategy: If Farmland is in the kingdom, make up one's mind early if you're going to make utilise of it later, because a agglomeration of $5 cards in your deck are not going to be very useful with it.

Trashing Coppers and Shelters into $two or $3 cards:

Stop. Practice non laissez passer Become. Exercise not collect a $2 menu. A full general rule of pollex is that remodeling or expanding Coppers or Shelters into cards to meliorate your economy is too boring in nearly kingdoms. Fifty-fifty if you use an Aggrandize, the differential between a Copper and Silver is just too little to justify the economic system and time that goes into swapping the Copper for a Silver. So this isn't a strong reason on-purchase utilise of Farmland.

Trashing an Estate into a $four:

This is more likely, peculiarly if you program to get to a point where you lot're just using Farmland on itself and can generate $half dozen in gild to plough a Farmland into a Province.

"Trashing a Curse into a $2 card, particularly a belatedly-game Manor."

…as ecq put it. "Buying a Duchy gives y'all 3VP, +1 dead carte.  Trashing a Curse to, say, a Lighthouse is 3VP, +0 dead cards.
Trashing a Curse to an Estate is 4VP, +ane dead card."

Trashing $3 or $4 cards into ameliorate $five or $half dozen cards.

This tin exist a way to set yourself upwardly for the endgame when you aren't all the same hitting $8 but have already developed infrastructure/economy and want to starting time cashing in by getting VP.

In that location are any number of cards that piece of work well in the early game but non so well afterward, and these are your ripest targets for trashing.

• $4 cards that want Coppers or Estates in your hand/deck:
  Baron, Moneylender, Remake, Spice Merchant, Rats. (This might include more Dark Ages cards when we figure out which ones are weakest  in late game.)
• $3 cards that desire Coppers or Estates in your hand/deck:
  Masquerade, Lookout, Loan.
• Attacks that are less relevant mid to tardily game:
  Sea Hag, Immature Witch, Cutpurse, Ambassador.
• Low-grade gainers (better for building mid-game economy than buying Provinces):
  Trader, Jack of All Trades, Bureaucrat, Ironworks, Workshop, Talisman.
• Miscellaneous cards that are ameliorate in early or mid-game:
  Smugglers, Potion, Quarry, Tunnel.
• Cards you shouldn't have bought in the kickoff place:
  Sometimes y'all accept a dud carte du jour in your deck that'southward not synergizing the way you lot thought it would, or maybe information technology's just not doing much in this hand, maybe a dead Throne Room, dead Conspirator, or dead Nobles.

Question ii: What are yous going to do with that Farmland now that you've trashed something with it?

Hither's the rub: Now you've got this lame green card that isn't going to practice much and is merely worth ii VP. If it's non interesting to you now that you lot've gotten the trashing do good out of it…then you probably shouldn't have bought it. Similar Border Hamlet, you probably shouldn't purchase Farmland just because information technology gives you a fun on-buy effect. Then which of these are y'all going to use it for?

a) Remodel the Farmland itself into a Province

This is more or less covered above. With regards to trashing Farmland itself, even so, the big note is that this use of Farmland merely gets better when y'all have deportment that tin practice that so you don't even accept to spend the $half dozen to get the benefit, like Remodel, Expand, Governor, or Rebuild.

b) Use the Farmland for its greenness.

An unlikely case. Y'all might be using some combination of Crossroads and Sentinel, which sounds pretty bad to begin with, but Farmland would wearisome your deck down a little less this fashion. More plausibly, you're doing Silk Road, in which example it actually comes downward to the math.

c) Only use it for the ii VP, absent any other advantage listed here.

This might be fine if your on-buy advantage was large and you're actually going for the green. Consider its furnishings on your game position, especially relative to the PPR.

d) Remodel/expand information technology into a nice fatty $7 or Platinum

Look for this combo mid-game, specially with a Remake, Upgrade, or Develop. First, use the Farmland for 1 of the answers to Question 1 above, so plough it into a expert $7.

e) Trash it for benefit.

Ane of its all-time uses. Asklepios puts it this fashion: "When a card has some of its benefit on buy/gain (or just on buy in Farmland's case), and so one time it'due south in your deck it's less valuable to y'all than a card of its price ought to be. This makes it a good target for trash-for-benefit like Apprentice or Bishop." Or Salvager, for that affair.

Sounds neat, right? Merely you demand to be able to depict that Farmland and your trasher together, so you'll be wanting a deck that draws a lot of itself on a given turn to get your Farmland together with something that can trash it.

Cheers to everyone quoted, simply also to everybody who participated in my original thread post on Farmland and other threads, which I've taken a lot of these ideas from.

stephensseaut1949.blogspot.com

Source: https://dominionstrategy.com/2012/10/31/hinterlands-farmland/

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