-
Hi all,
Forge is a card that seems overcosted to me (yes, another one of these threads) but I wanted to see if I'm missing something strategy-wise. It seems to me that (a) it's hard to have exactly the cost to get a high-cost card, and (b) the fact that you're forced to gain a card makes it difficult to use as a Chapel (and even if you could, 7 cost for a Chapel isn't worth it). I've tried to buy it a couple of times but it's never worked well.
It seems to me that either changing "exactly" to "up to" or adding "You may gain..." would make it more worthwhile.
Am I missing something?
-
David Goldfarb
United States
Houston
Texas
-
Forge really shines in cases where you can draw all or a large part of your deck. If you have a large hand size, it gives you tremendous flexibility. It's mediocre in sets where you can't do that, and it's weak against hand size reduction attacks. In the late game, it lets you turn two 4-costers, or a 5-coster plus a Silver, into a Province. Basically, as with many cards, its value is somewhat situational -- and I have to admit that it's probably the worst of the 7-cost cards -- but I don't think that 7 is too high.
-
Jeff Chamberlain
United States
Tracy
California
-
I suspect that the cost of many cards, in particular the ones that are less than 3 or more than 5 in cost, is chosen more based on when the strategies that the card opens up are intended to be used. chapel is dirt cheap not because it is weak, but because it is an opening game card and pricing it at 2 means it is accessible to anyone who wants it as their opener regardless of their split.
Forge, I assume, cost 7, not because it is extremely powerful, but so it won't be a viable opening play strategy. if it was just a little cheaper someone could get a lucky draw that lets them get a forge out so early that they could effectively use it the way people usually use chapel to thin the opening deck out quickly. the fact that you have to build your deck up a little before you can afford it prevents that. or so I assume anyway.
-
David Goldfarb
United States
Houston
Texas
-
Well, if you look at Donald X.'s "Secret History" article, you can see that his first guess at Forge's cost was 5, and it got bumped up from there to 6 and then 7. So it was basically just a matter of playtesting showing the card to be undercosted at 5 or even 6.
-
-
I would venture that Forge has many distinct uses in different situations, which is why it's not an easy card to appreciate.
-
matt feldman
United States
Maple Valley
Washington
-
Imagine it with a tactician or village/smithy engine (I forge 7 coppers and 3 estates into a gold), and then consider what that's worth.
-
Kevin Cachia
United States
Springfield
Pennsylvania
-
Forge is usually an excellent card, if you are looking for a terminal action that you might get a half-decent use out of once, and will be a dead card in your hand almost every time you draw it, at which point if calls into the "I'd rather have it my hand than a Curse" category.
Sure there are times when it's lovely, if you're in a game when you can Upgrade it to Province once it's outlived its usefullness, or in games where you'll often draw it with cards costing a sum of 8, and so on, but if its sole function for you is Charlie Chapellin', buy the Gold instead.
-
Jeff Wolfe
United States
Columbus
Ohio
Zendo fan, Columbus Blue Jackets fan, Dominion Fan. These are 'permanent microbadges' to free up space on my microbadge row
-
A few strategy notes:
- Forge isn't as effective as a direct Chapel because of the forced gain, but it works well with things like:
Forge Silver+Estate+Copper+Copper -> 5-coster
- While it works in a standard supply, Forge is more powerful with Colony and Platinum because you can do things like:
Forge Estate+Forge -> Platinum
Forge Gold+5-coster -> Colony
- If you're playing a Forge strategy, look at the cost of the cards you are putting in your deck. If you're buying several Forges, you'll need 4-costers to make Colonies. If you're buying Gold, you'll need 2-costers to make Provinces (in a non-Colony game). Look at what's available and how you can Forge those cards into high-value Victory cards late in the game. If you're buying lots of Forges and 5-costers, for example, you're just asking for frustration at the end-game.
- If you do it right, your deck will eat itself at the end-game. Timing is very important to get the most value out of Forge.
-
Jeff Chamberlain
United States
Tracy
California
-
i agree with that. If i do use forge, i do intentionally buy cards in such a way that the cost of the cards in my future hands has a high probability of containing subsets that add up to 9 or 11 cost.
As for it being less effective then chapel. I agree. But it would suck if Forge was say, cost 5, and there was no chapel in play, and one player got a 5-2 split and the other got a 4-3 split. While it does have a forced gain, it would still be almost as fast as chapel at thinning out the deck if you could get one in your first two buys, and a game in which one player had that choice and the other one didn't due to the split could be frustrating.
-
Dave Goldthorpe
United Kingdom
-
One reason why you might see good value from your forges is that you don't have enough cards in hand. If you start with just 5 cards, one of them is a forge, perhaps there's another you don't want to trash, then there are just 3 cards left and you become lucky if they do forge into something good.
-
Jeff Chamberlain
United States
Tracy
California
-
DaveGold wrote: One reason why you might see good value from your forges is that you don't have enough cards in hand. If you start with just 5 cards, one of them is a forge, perhaps there's another you don't want to trash, then there are just 3 cards left and you become lucky if they do forge into something good.
As I think someone else already mentioned it really shines if you have a lot of draw power. If your deck is constructed in such a way that you are ending most turns with a lot of cards in your hand then you've vastly increased the probability that combinations of cards worth using forge on will be in your hand at the same time. If you are relying on the 5 cards draw per turn to accomplish that, forge probably will suck pretty badly.
-
L H
United States
New York
-
Don't forget that you can trash a card to gain itself -- you can easily trash a province and some coppers and curses for a new province. That can be used to speed up the game, while clearing your deck of dead cards while you're at it.
-
Thomas Brendel
United States
Dunwoody
Georgia
-
Yeah, but that sort of thing might cheese some people off. (Which doesn't mean you shouldn't do it when it makes sense.)
-
Jeff Chamberlain
United States
Tracy
California
-
Squidd wrote: Yeah, but that sort of thing might cheese some people off. (Which doesn't mean you shouldn't do it when it makes sense.)
oh i've done it. draw a chunk of my deck into my hand, get too many colonies and not enough platinum, so king's court a forge, trash three colonies for three colonies to end a game I knew I was already winning. 
-
|
|
