Pokémon Trading Cad Game - Planning

[Bambuzz]

Well, in the run-request-thread, I stumbled over Pokémon TGC and I started to think about how you could build a run for this game.
Now, a little discussion about segmenting this game started.
I came with the fact, that you could segement this run into as many parts as you want to, because when you're in a duell, you can just turn the power off and on again and then you're back at your last turn, no matter, when you turned the Game Boy off, as long as this power-offhappend before starting a new turn (quite logical ^^)

Now, I want to figure out, what the community thinks about this.

Shall you segment only before every fight once? Also before opening a booster package? Or are you allowed to segment even the duells?
And when "yes" to the last point:
When you got to a coin-flip descision? For all who don't now: if you flip a coin in-game e.g. to dertermit, if your Pokémon wakes up or not, it's NOT random! No matter how often you restart this round, the result will still be the same, even when doing other things; An example: You want your Pokémon to wake up, you flip the coin and the result is negativ; if you restart now and you do not decide to wake up your Pokémon but trying to search your library for a Pokémon card by using "Pokéball", the result will still be negative and you are not allowed to search your library.
NOW THE IMPORTANT THING ABOUT THIS: If you used the "Pokéball"-card to trigger the negative descision away, you can try now to wake up your Pokémon and the result could be positive because the negative result was used with the "Pokéball".
So, here there is MUCH room to discuss about before starting this run!

Are you allowed to segment before defeating an enemy-Pokémon to watch all the (2 - 6) price-cards you are able to draw?

Are you allowed to restart, if a turn the enemy made is against the strategy you planned for your next turn? (e.g. if your opponent uses a Defender...sorry, I don't know the English word; it's the card which gives your Pokémon a 20HP defense.)


OK, that's just the first few thing to talk about and so, I'll wait for the first reactions  

[Bambuzz]

Uhhhh shit, sorry....I posted this in the wrong part of this Forum.

Would be nice, if an admin could put this to the correct place = )

[gia]

PTCG is an older console game and it is the planning forum so this is correct I believe, unless it was moved already

Anyway, if you can segment anytime then just do it. But I read the game autosaves after every turn so you will have to use a gameboy save manager provided it works with the game, it most likely does and if so it would help you a whole lot. About RNG, check tasvideos.org I recall a thread of this game and the runner seemed to have learned a lot about it.

[hyp32]

You could segment every turn and put it into one video like the Diablo II 100% run.

[DoubleThink]

I've thought about how a run of this game might be done and all I think it'll really come down to is "reset until you can win in the first couple of turns", packing your deck with a couple of fast hitters and an assload of energy cards (and PlusPower cards eventually). Nidoran M came to mind as a really good card for this since it can hit for 30 damage first turn on the basis of a coin flip.

Reloading during a battle might count as autosave abuse, which carries a 0.5 second penalty per use I think, unless the game starts counting time as soon as you pick a file, in which case it's like an 8 second penalty from having to sit trough the text scroll. Either way it's certainly allowed, so I wouldn't worry about it in that regard.

[SD2]

The major problems with the saving during a battle are:
A) You don't save.  There is no save button, you normally just turn the game off.
B) Once you resume, there is no going back if you do something else.

As DoubleThink said, the strategy will be to hit hard and fast.  Nidoran M is a beautiful choice, but other pokemon like Hitmonchan, Machop, and Staryu can all deal 20 damage with a single energy card.  As you can see from the choices, rarely will you have an option to explot a weakness.  I'll take a quick look through the game and give you a quick list of the best "Heavy hitters" for each type.
Best for each type:
Grass: Either Nidoran, but Male is preffered (3 heads needed for 30 damage with female as opposed to one with male)
Fire: Ponyta can do 20 damage with a double colourless, but Charmander is probably a better option if you have fire energy to spare.
Water: Staryu
Lightning: Nothing can hit hard with only 1 energy, so stick with Electabuzz lv 35 (the one with thunderpunch)
Fighting: Machop or Hitmonchan
Psychic: Jynx can use doubleslap to deal 20 damage, but you need 2 heads.

If you want to use colourless for the psychic resistance, use Rattata.

[Ascetic Swordsman]

Pokemon Trading Cad Game?  Also, there's been a couple topics for this game before.  Some info could be obtained from them.

http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/index.php/topic,4384.0.html  This one has a spookily similar start to this one.
http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/index.php/topic,5911.0.html Not much to this one.

[Axel Ryman]

The main problem with coin flipping is that no matter how many times you redo the turn, you're gonna get the same result unless you do something different.

I forgot which deck I chose but I managed to beat the game in less than an hour(I think, I remember 0:56 on the timer once and I either already beat the game or was close to). Obviously you're gonna wanna manipulate the opponent so they choose less Pokemon to put on the bench and also get a powerful monster early on. I would say Exeggutor but he's not useful compared to say Hitmonchan, Machop, or Staryu.

[Arrow]

Would definitely be interested in seeing a run for this. It's a game I was considering running for a while (I think I replied in one of those previous topics). Saving after every single turn is a bit excessive, especially since the fastest way to win is to KO all of your opponent's active pokemon. The ideal match should be over after one or two turns, simply retrying until your opponent has a bad opening hand. Saving right before every match, or immediately after if you want to try to manipulate specific cards from the boosters that are mailed to you, should be sufficient, imo.

There's plenty of strategy discussion in the other threads, so I don't have much to add. I still think a single-segment run would be much more entertaining, but I'd love to see any run of this game, at this point

[neskamikaze]

Would definitely be interested in seeing a run for this. It's a game I was considering running for a while (I think I replied in one of those previous topics). Saving after every single turn is a bit excessive, especially since the fastest way to win is to KO all of your opponent's active pokemon. The ideal match should be over after one or two turns, simply retrying until your opponent has a bad opening hand. Saving right before every match, or immediately after if you want to try to manipulate specific cards from the boosters that are mailed to you, should be sufficient, imo.

There's plenty of strategy discussion in the other threads, so I don't have much to add. I still think a single-segment run would be much more entertaining, but I'd love to see any run of this game, at this point

SS for a game like this would be crazy hard to get the luck necessary to win quickly and get the cards you need. Over time, fill the deck with some drawing power like Oaks and Bills, definitely put 4 Pluspowers, to help take out Pokemon quicker, and probably some searching cards like Computer Search. Route planning is going to be important to map out your booster draws to build your ending deck, as well as who you can beat first with limited editing to your deck.
You can either start with Squirtle and friends, for Staryu and Rattata, or Bulbasaur and friends, for Nidoran Male and better trainers. If you do Bulbasaur, you could probably go to the Rock Club immediately and take out the Leader in one turn.

There's lots more to be planned, but that's just my 2 cents.

[Arrow]

I really like Squirtle and friends for the Rattatas, Staryus, Magmar, and Electabuzz; Nidoran just adds more luck dependency to a run that's already going to be extremely luck dependent. Bulbasaur's trainers are a lot more attractive though, so it's certainly something to consider. But of course, either deck's shortcomings can be fixed with some properly manipulated boosters.

Incidentally, I remember there being some discussion in the previous thread about being energy starved for the first few duels and possibly playing some matches against Sam to win more energy (which I thought would be a colossal waste of time). As it turns out, there's an even easier solution to this problem that I just discovered on gamefaqs: if you talk to the guy in the upper right corner of Mason's lab while having no extra energy cards in your collection (cards in your decks don't count), he will give you 60 free energy cards (I believe it's 10 of each type). So, immediately after the tutorial duel, you can simply switch all of your energy cards into your deck and then talk to the guy for a ton of free energy. Heck, I suppose you could then build a second deck with all of those energy cards and talk to him again for even more. This should allow you to easily focus your deck on two colors for the first few duels until you have enough pokemon to focus on a single color.

Also, for the segmented run, if you do decide to save after every turn, you can check what all of your reward cards are the first time you KO one of your opponent's pokemon by simply picking one, resetting, repeating the turn, and picking a different one until you know what all of them are (thanks again to gamefaqs). Of course, the ideal match should end after KOing just one of your opponent's pokemon, but I know it's going to be extremely hard to manipulate all of them to be that quick.

[neskamikaze]

You cab only do the 60 free energy card trick once. But yes, that would be a very good idea to do first, so you can quickly trim the deck down from 3 types.

I wouldn't recommend saving every turn, since it's just a quick save. You can't load it more than once.

[Arrow]

You cab only do the 60 free energy card trick once. But yes, that would be a very good idea to do first, so you can quickly trim the deck down from 3 types.

I wouldn't recommend saving every turn, since it's just a quick save. You can't load it more than once.

Neither of these statements are true. I tested it, and you can do the free energy trick over and over, provided you create a new deck with all of those energy cards so you still have none in your collection when you talk to him again. Probably not necessary to do it more than once, but it can be done.

And you can retry the same turn as many times as you wish, provided you don't let the game advance to your next turn before resetting. But since you can't manipulate coin flips this way once the game has begun, I still don't think it's really worth it. The main luck manipulation (i.e. the points you should be saving before) should be centered around your opponent's (and to a lesser extent, your) opening hand, and the cards you receive in boosters. As I mentioned in the last topic, Colosseum boosters are by far the most beneficial for speed runs since they have a chance of containing nearly every card that would potentially be useful for our purposes (Nidoran, Scyther, Machop, Hitmonchan, Staryu, Rattata, Magnemite, Electabuzz, Pluspower, and a few other decent trainers). So when it comes down to route planning (something that was heavily discussed in the last topic), it might be wise to take into consideration what rewards the required fights give, and try to do as many duels that produce Colosseum packs as possible, early on.

[neskamikaze]

You cab only do the 60 free energy card trick once. But yes, that would be a very good idea to do first, so you can quickly trim the deck down from 3 types.

I wouldn't recommend saving every turn, since it's just a quick save. You can't load it more than once.

Neither of these statements are true. I tested it, and you can do the free energy trick over and over, provided you create a new deck with all of those energy cards so you still have none in your collection when you talk to him again. Probably not necessary to do it more than once, but it can be done.

And you can retry the same turn as many times as you wish, provided you don't let the game advance to your next turn before resetting. But since you can't manipulate coin flips this way once the game has begun, I still don't think it's really worth it. The main luck manipulation (i.e. the points you should be saving before) should be centered around your opponent's (and to a lesser extent, your) opening hand, and the cards you receive in boosters. As I mentioned in the last topic, Colosseum boosters are by far the most beneficial for speed runs since they have a chance of containing nearly every card that would potentially be useful for our purposes (Nidoran, Scyther, Machop, Hitmonchan, Staryu, Rattata, Magnemite, Electabuzz, Pluspower, and a few other decent trainers). So when it comes down to route planning (something that was heavily discussed in the last topic), it might be wise to take into consideration what rewards the required fights give, and try to do as many duels that produce Colosseum packs as possible, early on.

Really? I guess it's been a long time since I've played this, I shouldn't have said that having not tested it.

And for that second part, that's what I meant, I should have clarified. I meant you can't try something and go a few turns into the battle, then reload if it doesn't work. Without being able to change coin flips or draws, I think it would look a lot cleaner to not reload mid-battle.

[Arrow]

It seems like the thread-starter might have abandoned this, but I'm strongly considering doing a run now. Haven't decided whether I'd do it segmented or SS. If I go segmented, it's going to take a LOT of resets to get perfects matches. I really feel like no match (barring the legendary ones, since those decks are semi-stacked) should last longer than one or two turns. For that reason, I'm starting to lean towards the Bulbasaur starter as being more favorable, because the pluspowers would be extremely important for turn one KOs against many opponents, and I'm not sure that I have the patience to try to manipulate a bunch of them from boosters. But on the other hand, another good reason to go with Squirtle would be for the possibility of converting to a Raindance deck against the legendary opponents.

If I did SS, I wouldn't be nearly as concerned over quick duels. I think managing to beat the game without losing any matches is impressive enough, although I would certainly reset if any matches started really dragging.