Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Puzzles and Challenges => Topic started by: ChocophileBenj on February 24, 2014, 07:32:55 pm

Title: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: ChocophileBenj on February 24, 2014, 07:32:55 pm
Squire
Expand
Young witch
Farming village
Bazaar
Junk dealer
-----------------
What is the property of the Kingdom cards list just above, and do you think you can have a better list than this ? (I don't know the answer to the 2nd question)
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: KingZog3 on February 24, 2014, 08:39:09 pm
I don't understand. Do you mean what property do they have in common? Or as a whole they have a property?
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: AHoppy on February 24, 2014, 09:04:53 pm
They are all cards that are slightly modified versions of cards released in previous sets

Squire -> Steward
Exapnd -> Remodel
Young Witch -> Witch
Farming Village -> Village
Bazaar -> Festival
Junk Dealer -> Upgrade
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: heron on February 24, 2014, 09:40:39 pm
They are all cards that are slightly modified versions of cards released in previous sets

Squire -> Steward
Exapnd -> Remodel
Young Witch -> Witch
Farming Village -> Village
Bazaar -> Festival
Junk Dealer -> Upgrade


Eh, those are some pretty weak connections for Festival and Squire especially.

Oh, I got it: Together, they contain every letter of the alphabet.
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: liopoil on February 24, 2014, 09:47:10 pm
I guess the question is if it can be done with 5 cards. I doubt it.
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: Awaclus on February 24, 2014, 09:52:16 pm
Together, they contain every letter of the alphabet.
Not fair, I won't notice stuff like this unless it has å, ä and ö too!
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: scott_pilgrim on February 24, 2014, 10:48:13 pm
Nice puzzle!

I can get five cards to cover every letter but 'v': Market Square, Bazaar, Jack of All Trades, Young Witch, Explorer.  So you could insert your favorite village as a sixth card to get an equally good list.  I believe a five card list is not possible:

'z' has to be either Bazaar or Plaza.
'x' has to be Expand, Explorer, or Taxman.
'q' has to be Masquerade, Quarry, Squire, or Market Square
'j' has to be Junk Dealer, Jester, Jack of All Trades, or Journeyman (interestingly they all start with J).

None of those cards have any of the other three letters in them (i.e., none have z and x, or z and q, etc.), so we need one from each list, and none of them have 'g', 'h', 'v', or 'w' either.  So the fifth card must have all four of these letters (in addition to whatever else is not covered by the particular choice of four cards).  A quick search through all the cards reveals no card has all four of these letters, so at least six are required to cover every letter of the alphabet.
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: ChocophileBenj on February 25, 2014, 09:56:09 am
Yes, Heron's answer is good : all together they contain the 26 letters of the alphabet.

Now that scott_pilgrim revealed it was impossible to have 5 cards, you could try using fewer letters to build the whole list (currently 6 + 6 + 10 + 14 + 6 + 10 = 52, so 26 extra letters). Good luck !
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: AHoppy on February 25, 2014, 12:31:36 pm
Yes, Heron's answer is good : all together they contain the 26 letters of the alphabet.

Now that scott_pilgrim revealed it was impossible to have 5 cards, you could try using fewer letters to build the whole list (currently 6 + 6 + 10 + 14 + 6 + 10 = 52, so 26 extra letters). Good luck !
I'm tempted to just write a program to do it...
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: Kirian on February 25, 2014, 01:11:24 pm
I can get fewer letters by using more cards (but no more words):

Remove Farming Village and replace with Feodum and Vault.  Three letters saved.

Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: ChocophileBenj on March 04, 2014, 07:59:42 am
I managed to go down to 45 with :

Jack of all trades ---- (15)
Margrave ----------- (7)
Witch -------------- (5)
Quarry -------------- (6)
Bazaar -------------- (6)
Expand --------------- (6)

I wish I could change 'Jack of all trades' by 'Junk dealer', but then I'd be lacking 'f' 'o' and 's' , I also tried to change 'Witch' to 'Wharf' with some 'King\'s court'... but I failed. Here, 'c' is the only more-than-2-to-scrabble letter that is redundant. 

(list of Scrabble letters here for reference ; http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettres_du_Scrabble ; the english list is pretty close to the french list : all 1-point letters are the same, the only letters that change value are M W Y K Q X, and the repartition is pretty the same. But how do you manage to deal with only four U to go after Q ?
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: Kirian on March 04, 2014, 10:52:07 am
I managed to go down to 45 with :

Jack of all trades ---- (15)
Margrave ----------- (7)
Witch -------------- (5)
Quarry -------------- (6)
Bazaar -------------- (6)
Expand --------------- (6)

I wish I could change 'Jack of all trades' by 'Junk dealer', but then I'd be lacking 'f' 'o' and 's' , I also tried to change 'Witch' to 'Wharf' with some 'King\'s court'... but I failed. Here, 'c' is the only more-than-2-to-scrabble letter that is redundant. 

(list of Scrabble letters here for reference ; http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettres_du_Scrabble ; the english list is pretty close to the french list : all 1-point letters are the same, the only letters that change value are M W Y K Q X, and the repartition is pretty the same. But how do you manage to deal with only four U to go after Q ?


I don't think we have as many words with -que as you do.  Lots of loanwords.  But yeah, it's quite frustrating to draw a Q with no Us.
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: pitythefool on March 04, 2014, 02:18:02 pm
An interesting puzzle indeed.
Kirian, I count your solution as 46 (15+8+5+6+6+6).
A five card solution is not possible.
Kirian has the minimum six card solution.
All I can add is an eight cards solution using the minimum number of characters, 44.
Plaza
Taxman
Quarry
Jester
Witch
Forge
Bank
and either Advisor or Develop

Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: pitythefool on March 04, 2014, 02:25:31 pm
D'oh sorry.
Attributed a solution to Kirian, but it was ChocophileBenj.
Good job ChocophileBenj !!
and sorry for my mistake.
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: Grujah on March 04, 2014, 02:34:43 pm
pity, did you write some code to find that out? Cuz if you didn't, I will, but not too keen on just doing it to find the same result as you.
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: pitythefool on March 04, 2014, 02:45:49 pm
Yes, I wrote a program.

Here's some interesting stats that fall out as a byproduct.
The number of dominion cards that contain a given letter.

a: 197
b: 38
c: 63
d: 70
e: 203
f: 22
g: 65
h: 62
i: 118
j: 5
k: 22
l: 101
m: 76
n: 122
o: 135
p: 44
q: 4
r: 194
s: 125
t: 127
u: 62
v: 36
w: 21
x: 3
y: 32
z: 2


See corrections in next post.
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: pitythefool on March 04, 2014, 03:55:11 pm
This is a correction to my last post.  My last post was counting duplicate character's in a card's name.
I thought those numbers were large.  Which brings me to a question.  Is there a plaintext list of Dominion card names somewhere?
I cobbled my list of 232 uniquely named cards from my Dominion .NET custom image directory.

(Table below updated again with the 240 card list)

a: 150
b: 35
c: 60
d: 69
e: 159
f: 21
g: 56
h: 57
i: 99
j: 5
k: 19
l: 82
m: 73
n: 99
o: 104
p: 44
q: 4
r: 149
s: 101
t: 109
u: 61
v: 36
w: 19
x: 3
y: 34
z: 2
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: sudgy on March 04, 2014, 03:58:55 pm
I cobbled my list of 232 uniquely named cards from my Dominion .NET custom image directory.

Uh, there's 205 cards...  I was thinking kingdom cards :P
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: Grujah on March 04, 2014, 04:12:10 pm
I thought those numbers were large.  Which brings me to a question.  Is there a plaintext list of Dominion card names somewhere?

I made one for personal use (writing some scripts) by parsing it from f.ds wiki.
Here it is (first one is full names, second one is no caps and no non-letters):

http://pastebin.com/mEfbis3j
http://pastebin.com/gFjwpj95

(there is no card named "Knights" (randomizer one) in, so add if needed).
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: pitythefool on March 04, 2014, 04:14:54 pm
Knights and Ruins add a lot.  Then there's some additional ones not in the supply, like Madman and Mercenary.

I just realized that I was counting alternate victory cards and treasure, but not the base set.
So let's revise the total.

Base = 25 action + 3 victory + 3 treasure + curse = 32
Intrigue = 25
Seaside = 26
Alchemy = 12 + potion = 13
Prosperity = 25 + colony + platinum = 27
Cornucopia = 13 + 5 prizes = 18
Hinterlands = 26
Dark Ages = 34 + 10 knights + 5 ruins + 3 shelters + spoils + madman + mercenary = 55
Guilds = 13
Promos = 5

Total = 240
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: pitythefool on March 04, 2014, 04:19:29 pm
Great lists Grujah !!
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: pitythefool on March 04, 2014, 04:50:42 pm
I've updated my program with Grujah's 240 card list and the solutions can not be bettered.
There were two more 44 character solutions though.  One of them included both Province and Gold.
That sure made for a fun programming exercise.
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: ChocophileBenj on March 16, 2014, 08:55:23 am
Thank you for the lists.
And thank you pitythefool for the 44-list. And you say not below ?
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: SirPeebles on March 16, 2014, 10:09:02 am
I posted a similar puzzle way back, but no one solved it.

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7937.0
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: Grujah on March 16, 2014, 10:28:17 am
I posted it too, and heron solved it, I think.
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: Ozle on March 16, 2014, 02:25:04 pm
I posted a similar puzzle way back, but no one solved it.

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7937.0


Moat?     
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: pitythefool on April 21, 2015, 07:19:02 pm
The Adventures expansion has allowed a new "least characters" solution with 43 characters.  The "least cards" solution is still unbeatable (till the next expansion at least).

plaza
expand
journeyman
quest
bank
witch
fugitive

Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: pitythefool on June 06, 2016, 10:43:09 pm
Now that Empires is out, the solutions can be improved.
The minimum number of cards that contain all letters of the alphabet stays at 6, but it can now be done with just 43 characters.
The solution is unique.

------- 6 cards, 43 chars ------
bazaar
jack of all trades
tax
squire
swamphag
envoy
---------------------------------

For the fewest number of characters, there are a whole lot of 8 or 9 card solutions using just 43 characters.
Here is just one example.

-------- 8 cards, 42 chars ------
plaza
jester
taxman
quarry
bank
witch
forge
delve
Title: Re: Property of this list - can you improve this ?
Post by: ThetaSigma12 on June 07, 2016, 07:52:46 am
Now that Empires is out, the solutions can be improved.
The minimum number of cards that contain all letters of the alphabet stays at 6, but it can now be done with just 43 characters.
The solution is unique.

------- 6 cards, 43 chars ------
bazaar
jack of all trades
tax
squire
swamphag
envoy
---------------------------------

For the fewest number of characters, there are a whole lot of 8 or 9 card solutions using just 43 characters.
Here is just one example.

-------- 8 cards, 42 chars ------
plaza
jester
taxman
quarry
bank
witch
forge
delve

Events aren't cards.