What to play when you are poor

[ArchDevious]

Last thread people were saying how AI Central is great when you are rich. It seems like most cards are good when you are rich, but what about when you have no early game economy cards and nothing else to do? What cards are good early on when you are poor?

We all have those bad start games occasionally, say you don't find the any of those cards, what should your game plan be?

[jaymc1130]

Last thread people were saying how AI Central is great when you are rich. It seems like most cards are good when you are rich, but what about when you have no early game economy cards and nothing else to do? What cards are good early on when you are poor?

We all have those bad start games occasionally, say you don't find the any of those cards, what should your game plan be?

Plants and events. Most bang for the buck, same reason events are so highly prized in 4p and 5p games. These cards score at a great rate usually and pushing the pace of the game before opponent can spend all that cash they keep stockpiling on efficient points can go a long way. But really any of the super efficient point scorers when playing cash light set ups is how to proceed. This is part of why the bio combo is so strong in B+P 2p format, it's relatively cheap and scores a ton at that low investment cost. Tiles, events, plants, and rebate engines like Media, Optimal, Meat Industries do a lot to even the playing field when playing a "poor" set up. Sometimes global discounts can be helpful too, but they are still a volume scoring type of thing and the card draw part of the equation tends to be the expensive part.

[rambling_coherently]

I think it also becomes extremely important to be particular about what you're buying. I struggle a lot playing poor if there are premium cards in the drafts - being disciplined enough to not buy cards you can't reasonably play/costs too much to develop can be a very valuable skill.

[ArchDevious]

Overbuying when you don't have much purchasing power can be crippling for sure.

You say plants can be good. What about designed microorganisms? It isn't considered a top tier card, but would you play it early if you have nothing else, or wait for something better? I feel so broke if I play that card in the 1st couple of generations (obviously it is map and situation dependent, I'm asking for general ideas).

[Yahyra]

Thanks for posting this, very cool discussion.

To add to these thoughts on building up economy, I here share:

On the youtube comments, I asked one of the players and content creators on here 'hey, why AI central over Noctis City that gen?'. He shared that the card draw / selection of AI at that point of that game was worth more than the extra MC that Noctis would provide.

My general strategy (which I should trademark, ha) - 'play as greedy as possible, i.e. as many production cards, as you can without losing the game'. Thus in that game at that point, I would have played Noctis over AI just to have more MC to spend on the cards AI central would start drawing me next turn.

Interestingly, I followed up the discussion with a 'what about space hotels, would you play that over AI central that turn that game?" The player agreed he would. I would love to chat and find out where we all think the inflection point (i.e. sweet spot) is where we all would rather play an MC or other resource producing card over AI central... doubly so I would love to see what the data we have says 'is the best play' (i.e. highest average elo gain? play?).

[jaymc1130]

Overbuying when you don't have much purchasing power can be crippling for sure.

You say plants can be good. What about designed microorganisms? It isn't considered a top tier card, but would you play it early if you have nothing else, or wait for something better? I feel so broke if I play that card in the 1st couple of generations (obviously it is map and situation dependent, I'm asking for general ideas).

I'm usually not a big fan of it in general, but with an empty handed set up and nothing much else to do... Yeah. I might just. I'd prefer to make better plays, but sometimes you have to spin straw into gold. If I have the kind of set up where it makes sense to stockpile the cash (like say I have stech and a chance to steal gardner or something) I might prefer to play to that over playing Designed, but in either case I'm not really thrilled because you won't win these games very often no matter what. The trick to keeping your elo intact is to win as many of them as you can with some clever play at some point (typically by getting the opponent to commit some sum of cash resources on something inefficient, like an award you can flip with a cheap trump card or something).