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Dominion => Dominion Articles => Topic started by: jotheonah on April 28, 2012, 07:44:47 pm

Title: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: jotheonah on April 28, 2012, 07:44:47 pm
Here is a card I just can't figure out: It seems to be a paradox.

In order for the card to be an exceptional treasure (sufficient to make up for it's opportunity cost) you have to have a large (probably bloated) deck.  But if you have that giant deck, then you'll rarely see your Philosopher's Stones. It seems like in the cases where the card is good, your deck is not optimized to take advantage of it.

It seems fundamentally different from Gardens, where your only objectives are to get the lion's share of the Gardens and to then end the game in a hurry with the biggest deck you can manage. So the fact that, by the end, that deck isn't that great is not too important.  But with P-stones there's another step, one where you actually have to buy some Provinces or something.

So, anybody think they have P-Stones figured out?
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: ehunt on April 28, 2012, 07:49:53 pm
I don't. Here I get murdered by quasi's p-stones:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111213-103600-d7fef5f6.html

One card that combos well with p-stones is jester. It also defends well against Jester. Of course, you're very angry if your opponent steals your p-stone, but life lends itself to rage. I think in general you're safe to ignore p-stone. Except in that game above.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: ehunt on April 28, 2012, 07:51:43 pm
Also, as a wise man once said:

fool's golds spread out and p-stones clump

if you're going for p-stones, you'd better expect some hands with 3 p-stones, a billion money, and only one buy.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: DG on April 28, 2012, 08:24:36 pm
Quote
In order for the card to be an exceptional treasure (sufficient to make up for it's opportunity cost) you have to have a large (probably bloated) deck.  But if you have that giant deck, then you'll rarely see your Philosopher's Stones. It seems like in the cases where the card is good, your deck is not optimized to take advantage of it.

This is true. However given that you have a large bloated deck then buying a platinum or bank instead isn't going to be any better since you'll not draw that any more often. Increasing deck size is a factor though in buying the philosopher's stones. Big decks do not usually cycle fast enough to let you buy that many stones from each potion, making the opportunity cost of buying the potion comparatively high. This makes the timing of potion purchases very important.

On the other hand, if you already have the potion in your deck then there is a great opportunity to gain a high value treasure without building up a treasure base. This would be particularly true in familiar games where it can be very difficult to build a conventional economy, potions are already in the deck, and the deck size is increased through cursing.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: dondon151 on April 28, 2012, 08:27:01 pm
Herbalist is also a good complement for Philosopher's Stone.

I'd also say it's an adequate counter to Ambassador, but you'd need to count on your opponent not to have a roaring engine.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: ednever on April 28, 2012, 10:13:55 pm
Good facilitators:
Other potion cards (since then it only costs $3 and is quickly worth a gold)
Herbalist (so you can play it twice)
Sifters (get to it faster)
"put buy on top of deck" (royal seal, watchtower)
Discard for... (vault, etc - to get your hand back into discard)

I've only used it really successfully once, so I would love to learn better techniques

Ed
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: WanderingWinder on April 28, 2012, 10:22:13 pm
Basically, it's not very good.
Herbalist is quite a strong combo with it, always use the buys, get lots of them quickly by returning the potion, make them strong late by returning them.
It's good with familiar too - your deck is bloated, the game is long, your deck is weak, and you already have the potion.
But to make it worth it, you need the opportunity cost of the potion to be worth it, which means you need some way that makes the game really long and affords you the time to buy the potions and the stones.
In fact, it's not that great with most of the other alchemy cards, because they tend to work best when you're drawing a lot of stuff!
Um, what else? Sifters are good, but usually you don't have time for them.
I guess it's halfway decent against mountebank? But when do you have time to buy it in a mountebank game?
The ambassador issue... well, if you're doing this as a counter, you want to buy duchies a lot sooner than you otherwise would. Actually this is probably true in general for p-stone. But it's not a very good counter, just because, well, you don't get to play it very much. Usually, if it works as a counter, silvers would also have worked.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: dondon151 on April 28, 2012, 10:37:49 pm
I can also imagine that a couple of Philosopher's Stones would be excellent in a multiplayer game with cursing or other attacks that give you junk.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: jotheonah on April 28, 2012, 11:01:11 pm
What about Hunting Party? Get lots of Hunting Parties, your starting cards, Potions, and P-Stones. And then you can buy Estates and Coppers like crazy ...

Actually I don't see this working at all.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: Razzishi on April 28, 2012, 11:18:59 pm
I won't say Philosopher's Stone is a great all-around card, but there are some instances where it can be practically the only way to buy Provinces.  I ignore it on most boards and probably buy it too much, but I tend to jump on it if there's cursing with no trashing and no way to end the game quickly.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: O on April 29, 2012, 01:09:38 am
Is there:

A) Familiar
or
B) Herbalist?

If Yes: Pstones may be for you!!!
If No: Pstones are almost certainly not for you!!!
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: qmech on April 29, 2012, 07:55:55 am
Here's a game featuring Ambassador, Herbalist and Philosopher's Stone (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120308-144804-f262389c.html).  There isn't anything exciting to do with a small deck, so "ignoring" Ambassador is a reasonable move.  That said, I do open Ambassador/Silver, with my opponent opting for double Ambassador.  I never return anything to the supply, but liked Ambassador as a feint so that my opponent was reasonably committed once I started picking up Potions (it was also the Bane, but an early Young Witch would be a strange move in the presence of Ambassador regardless).  I'm not sure there are any other cards you can do this with (not wishing to exclude the possibility that you can't sensibly do it with Ambassador!).

Philosopher's Stone can also be quite good in long multi-player games, although looking through my logs it seems I've generally done better by ignoring it.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: shark_bait on April 29, 2012, 08:56:16 am
You can also consider purchasing Philosopher's Stone in ugly colony games.  Colony games in general are longer giving you more time to increase the value of the Stone.  With an ugly card present like Witch or Mountebank, getting up to Colony can be downright challenging.  While in most cases, a province rush will win those types of games, the Philosopher's Stone is the card to have in order to go for Colonies.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: AJD on April 29, 2012, 09:06:45 am
I've found Philosopher's Stone can be good in combination with Goons (and no villages), for the <a href="http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1141.0">same reason Apothecary is</a>: you're rewarded twice for using up your extra buys, since each buy both grants you a VP pellet and boosts the value of your Philosopher's Stones.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: elephantdog on April 29, 2012, 10:54:36 am
Because of the expense of Philosopher's stone it's important to assess whether each philosopher's stone will be worth 6, 7 or 8 by the end of the game, and whether it can beat out a potential +cards/actions/buys engine, if there is one on the board. Most attacks actually help the philosopher's stone:

-Attacks that make you discard will help, since they might bump the total cards in your deck/discard pile and make the P-stones worth 1 more.

-Attacks that give cards are great. Every time torturer comes up, take a curse. Mountebank will give you cards even after the curses run out. Even the sea hag isn't such a big deal, if you've got enough silvers and potions.

-Deck inspection attacks don't usually make much of a difference, since by late game your deck will be filled with a lot of junk.

The best times to go for a philosopher's stone (in my opinion, of course) is when there's no engine that can help you draw your whole deck or even one that can give you a lot of extra buys, but there are cards out there that will help inflate your deck. If I see a lot of curse giving, heavy attack cards on the board with Philosopher's stone, it just makes me all the happier because my opponents almost always go for the attacks and by the end of the game it doesn't matter if I have 4 curses and a philosopher's stone in my hand. That stone is worth $8 and I can buy the province.

That being said, I don't know how well a philosopher's stone would work in Colony games. I'm not sure I've ever tried it and I've never gotten a single philosopher's stone up to $11. But I suspect that a game in which philosopher's stone works best is more of a 3 pile ending game than a last colony/province ending game.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: Robz888 on April 29, 2012, 01:01:46 pm
Philosopher's Stone is decent with Ill-Gotten Gains. You are gaining so many Copper that having a sufficiently large deck for PS isn't a problem. Sure, you won't get to play your PS very often but it basically just becomes an automatic Province buy whenever you do have it--and buying Provinces can be tough with IGGs, as you usually end up just aiming for Duchies.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: Davio on April 29, 2012, 01:55:01 pm
Would some combination of Golem and PS be viable?

Golem costs a Potion too, so you have a little more use out of it than just for the PS.
Then you can use the old trick of just having Golem and maybe one other action card (an attack possibly) to cycle your deck and have everything in discard.

Of course, you can even use Golem+Chancellor or a single Chancellor, but having the Potion for just the PS seems like a waste to me.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: qmech on April 29, 2012, 02:50:55 pm
Philosopher's Stone counts cards in deck and discard pile, so Golem is a slight anti-synergy.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: ecq on April 29, 2012, 08:41:48 pm
Philosopher's Stone is decent with Ill-Gotten Gains. You are gaining so many Copper that having a sufficiently large deck for PS isn't a problem. Sure, you won't get to play your PS very often but it basically just becomes an automatic Province buy whenever you do have it--and buying Provinces can be tough with IGGs, as you usually end up just aiming for Duchies.

The problem is that any time you see $3p, you could have bought an IGG or Duchy instead (if you bought a Silver instead of a Potion).  My gut says this would lose the split pretty badly and that the Potion would start feeling more like an additional Curse by the end of the game.  I'm not sure how much the possibility of buying Provinces makes up for that.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: Robz888 on April 29, 2012, 08:54:27 pm
Philosopher's Stone is decent with Ill-Gotten Gains. You are gaining so many Copper that having a sufficiently large deck for PS isn't a problem. Sure, you won't get to play your PS very often but it basically just becomes an automatic Province buy whenever you do have it--and buying Provinces can be tough with IGGs, as you usually end up just aiming for Duchies.

The problem is that any time you see $3p, you could have bought an IGG or Duchy instead (if you bought a Silver instead of a Potion).  My gut says this would lose the split pretty badly and that the Potion would start feeling more like an additional Curse by the end of the game.  I'm not sure how much the possibility of buying Provinces makes up for that.

Yeah, well, I don't think PStone with IGGs are by any means dominating. But anyway, I don't mind losing the IGG split if I have a better way to get points than my opponent. Well, if you get horribly crushed by Cursing, than its impossible to do that, but it's worth falling behind in the IGG rush to pick up cards that will help you eek out badly needed Provinces--like Expand, Salvager... and I suspect, PStone. But maybe not.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: ecq on April 30, 2012, 11:03:08 am
Yeah, well, I don't think PStone with IGGs are by any means dominating. But anyway, I don't mind losing the IGG split if I have a better way to get points than my opponent. Well, if you get horribly crushed by Cursing, than its impossible to do that, but it's worth falling behind in the IGG rush to pick up cards that will help you eek out badly needed Provinces--like Expand, Salvager... and I suspect, PStone. But maybe not.

The problem is that in an IGG rush, you usually have no reliable +buy, so every card you acquire costs 1 turn.  Buying the Potion costs a turn.  Every PStone costs a turn.  If somehow you're unlucky and end up with $2p, that costs a turn, too.  If you don't want to spend a turn buying a PStone at the moment, you're stuck with a dead card in-hand, which hurts when your average money per hand is low to begin with.  The last thing you want to see is $4p when you're racing for Duchies.

The cards that are good to pick up in an IGG rush tend to be ones that let you get more than one card out of a turn.  Salvager and Expand both let you gain an additional card when they're played and make use of relatively weak IGGs in-hand.  PStone is the opposite.  It costs more than one turn to acquire and still only affords you one card per hand.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: jomini on April 30, 2012, 11:39:57 am
The single biggest factors I've seen make worth it are, in order:
1. Some other reason to get the potion. Familiar and Golem are the two biggest ones here; Apothecary, University, and transmute can also enter into calculations (or even apprentice), but are rarely enough on their own. Potions mean you get to play your PStones a shuffle later AND that you don't get whatever benefit comes from the 5 coin cards for a while. You really need the potion route to be very strong to go it. Also, having the ability remodel, governor, etc. an apothecary to a PStone or the like makes it easier to acquire late game P.Stones or to swap them to more useful cards.
2. Herbalist. This combo just works. Herbalists are cheap and P.stones get strong. Playing them 2 or 3x as often and having a +buy makes for strong VP gain.
3. Colonies. Colony games reward you more for playing the long game. Being able to buy colonies off a single P.Stone late game is very strong.
4. Smoothers. Haven, courtyard, and mandarin all let you save P.stones (or other treasure) for a turn where you really need it. Mandarin works both to double play P.Stones when buying (have P.stone worth 5, buy mandarin, top deck P.Stone) and to send back coins that aren't needed in the late game. Breaking up the clumping can be pretty big.
5. Junk hands/decks. P.stones can work out well as defenses against a wide variety of attacks. Say you are getting hit with curses (from a young witch), swindles, and a ghost ship in a four player game. Pstones are mostly invulnerable to the swindler, they make some use of the curses (and like YW's sifting), and are powerful enough to hit province with just 3 card hands. The more types of attacks being thrown around (minus thief type attacks), the better P.Stone becomes. However, in 2er the opportunity cost of not getting in on the attacks yourself is very high.
6. Adventurer/venture. These conflict a good bit as you need to clear out the copper to really make it viable, but for some limited setups it can be viable. Something like remodel/decent 2 coin card/P stone/venture can hit a province every turn even if you are getting hit with curses from followers (or another late game curse giver like something out of the BM deck or IW/masq); any source of +buy can also allow you to tuck away a few tie breaking estates as well.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: Davio on April 30, 2012, 11:54:25 am
Philosopher's Stone counts cards in deck and discard pile, so Golem is a slight anti-synergy.
Hmm, I guess my understanding of the sentence "per 5 cards between them" was off. I thought it would be worth more when there is a greater spread.  ???
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: ecq on April 30, 2012, 12:11:18 pm
6. Adventurer/venture. These conflict a good bit as you need to clear out the copper to really make it viable, but for some limited setups it can be viable. Something like remodel/decent 2 coin card/P stone/venture can hit a province every turn even if you are getting hit with curses from followers (or another late game curse giver like something out of the BM deck or IW/masq); any source of +buy can also allow you to tuck away a few tie breaking estates as well.

+1 for the rest of the list, but I'm not sure I understand this last one.  I would think Venture conflicts pretty badly with PStone.   With Venture, you like lean decks, and you really like it when a good percentage of your treasures are Ventures.  The ideal is to play a Venture, causing other Ventures to be played.  PStone likes bloated decks and doesn't like having lots of cards in play, since those cards reduce the deck + discard count.  Also, it seems like the Potion would end up getting in the way of Venture a little.

The up-side is that Venture will play the Potion more often, so you get the chance to acquire more PStones.  I'm not sure whether or not that makes up for the conflict.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: pauley_walnuts on April 30, 2012, 02:58:33 pm
Can Oasis be an enabler for P-Stone?

I feel that you don't necessarily have to have a bloated deck to get benefits from the P-Stone since it is supplemented by the +$1 from the Oasis.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: dondon151 on April 30, 2012, 03:15:45 pm
Relying on discarding parts of you hand to get to the next cost level for Philosopher's Stone doesn't seem consistent enough as to warrant actually going for it.

Also note that Oasis doesn't actually put more cards into the deck/discard; it just gives +$1.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: Voltgloss on April 30, 2012, 06:27:01 pm
Relying on discarding parts of you hand to get to the next cost level for Philosopher's Stone doesn't seem consistent enough as to warrant actually going for it.

Vault springs to mind.  But Vault-PStone is probably too slow compared to Vault-Gold in a Province game.  Maybe Vault-PStone > Vault-Plat in a Colony game?

Secret Chamber-PStone sounds intriguing.  SC alone is guaranteed $4 = Potion.  SC+Potion is guaranteed $3P = Philosopher's Stone.  SC+PS = $3 + (deck size - 2) / 5.  If there's +buy or some gainer around to quickly fatten your deck to 22 cards - heck, even a curser/junker being played by your opponent could work - this sounds like it could start hitting Province money surprisingly quickly.   
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: jomini on April 30, 2012, 07:14:53 pm
6. Adventurer/venture. These conflict a good bit as you need to clear out the copper to really make it viable, but for some limited setups it can be viable. Something like remodel/decent 2 coin card/P stone/venture can hit a province every turn even if you are getting hit with curses from followers (or another late game curse giver like something out of the BM deck or IW/masq); any source of +buy can also allow you to tuck away a few tie breaking estates as well.

+1 for the rest of the list, but I'm not sure I understand this last one.  I would think Venture conflicts pretty badly with PStone.   With Venture, you like lean decks, and you really like it when a good percentage of your treasures are Ventures.  The ideal is to play a Venture, causing other Ventures to be played.  PStone likes bloated decks and doesn't like having lots of cards in play, since those cards reduce the deck + discard count.  Also, it seems like the Potion would end up getting in the way of Venture a little.

The up-side is that Venture will play the Potion more often, so you get the chance to acquire more PStones.  I'm not sure whether or not that makes up for the conflict.
IFF, you can get rid of your starting coppers and still have a good source of bloat, then this can work. It's pretty rare, but I've seen it work a bit. I cannot recall if I ever managed it without having something else on the list also there. The most memorable game, and I think strongest time for adventurer was on a swindler board. Coppers -> curses, golds -> adventurers made Pstones not too bad (and I had gone remodel because golem/pawn/peddler was out), it worked out well enough.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: Toblakai on April 30, 2012, 08:22:14 pm
One situation I've found for Pstone that is very powerful is on IGG boards
open Potion Silver
buy 2 or 3 Pstones, and as many IGG as you can get, always take extra coppers every time you play IGG, and even if you loose the curse war, when ur both rushing the duchy's pretty much every time you get a hand with Pstone, boom Province.  which should more then make up for a possible extra curse or 2 if your opponent opens silver/silver.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: dondon151 on April 30, 2012, 08:31:00 pm
Secret Chamber-PStone sounds intriguing.  SC alone is guaranteed $4 = Potion.  SC+Potion is guaranteed $3P = Philosopher's Stone.  SC+PS = $3 + (deck size - 2) / 5.  If there's +buy or some gainer around to quickly fatten your deck to 22 cards - heck, even a curser/junker being played by your opponent could work - this sounds like it could start hitting Province money surprisingly quickly.

I tried this solitaire; you really do need a +buy card in order for Philosopher's Stone to work.

On the other hand, with a drop of luck, an Herbalist - Philosopher's Stone strategy can empty the Province pile in 20 turns, which is pretty decent. I'd imagine that it would be incredibly resilient to attacks to boot.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: ecq on April 30, 2012, 09:37:05 pm
One situation I've found for Pstone that is very powerful is on IGG boards
open Potion Silver
buy 2 or 3 Pstones, and as many IGG as you can get, always take extra coppers every time you play IGG, and even if you loose the curse war, when ur both rushing the duchy's pretty much every time you get a hand with Pstone, boom Province.  which should more then make up for a possible extra curse or 2 if your opponent opens silver/silver.

Someone mentioned this on the previous page, but I'm skeptical.  I threw together a quick-and-dirty IGG bot that options Potion / Silver and prefers PStone over IGG until it has at least two PStones.  It loses badly to straight IGG, roughly 2:1.  The simulator doesn't take Coppers unless it needs them, but my gut says taking extra Coppers doesn't help the situation much.  Taking unnecessary Copper is sub-optimal in IGG, so it may even make things worse for PStone.

That said, I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: WanderingWinder on April 30, 2012, 09:59:18 pm
One situation I've found for Pstone that is very powerful is on IGG boards
open Potion Silver
buy 2 or 3 Pstones, and as many IGG as you can get, always take extra coppers every time you play IGG, and even if you loose the curse war, when ur both rushing the duchy's pretty much every time you get a hand with Pstone, boom Province.  which should more then make up for a possible extra curse or 2 if your opponent opens silver/silver.

Someone mentioned this on the previous page, but I'm skeptical.  I threw together a quick-and-dirty IGG bot that options Potion / Silver and prefers PStone over IGG until it has at least two PStones.  It loses badly to straight IGG, roughly 2:1.  The simulator doesn't take Coppers unless it needs them, but my gut says taking extra Coppers doesn't help the situation much.  Taking unnecessary Copper is sub-optimal in IGG, so it may even make things worse for PStone.

That said, I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
Make the sim take copper by putting it in your buy rules. Also, while I agree with you that this is probably a losing strategy as is... throw in some alternate VP cards and maybe? Like farmland, fairgrounds, maaaaaybe gardens, tunnel? Point being that you don't help them buy duchies out so much, since the p-stone gives you some kind of long-termed advantage. Probably I'd see fairgrounds actually being worth it maybe, but little else.
Also, you can try waiting on potion til after a reshuffle, to try to make sure you get enough cash to not whiff on p-stone. Or maybe work it with something else that costs potions that could be useful. Transmute?!
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: ecq on April 30, 2012, 11:28:53 pm
Taking Coppers and opening Potion / Silver doesn't lose quite as bad - 53% / 43%.  Buying the Potion after the first shuffle is a little worse than that.

It's a gambit.  You're sacrificing the IGG split and hoping to make up for it with Provinces on the tail end.  One big problem, though, is that the straight IGG player can afford Provinces with the IGG economy.  His economy is relatively better, too, since you weren't Cursing him.

I don't see alternate VP cards mattering much.  IGG/Gardens is awesome in general.  I'd take Gardens rather than Duchy if I were the IGG player.  The $6 cards have an awkward price point for P. Stone.  Also, Fairgrounds + IGG + P. Stone + Kingdom Silver-Equivalent isn't much of a combo, even if it works.  Certainly not enough to say that P. Stone works well in an IGG rush.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: WanderingWinder on April 30, 2012, 11:34:31 pm
Taking Coppers and opening Potion / Silver doesn't lose quite as bad - 53% / 43%.  Buying the Potion after the first shuffle is a little worse than that.

It's a gambit.  You're sacrificing the IGG split and hoping to make up for it with Provinces on the tail end.  One big problem, though, is that the straight IGG player can afford Provinces with the IGG economy.  His economy is relatively better, too, since you weren't Cursing him.

I don't see alternate VP cards mattering much.  IGG/Gardens is awesome in general.  I'd take Gardens rather than Duchy if I were the IGG player.  The $6 cards have an awkward price point for P. Stone.  Also, Fairgrounds + IGG + P. Stone + Kingdom Silver-Equivalent isn't much of a combo, even if it works.  Certainly not enough to say that P. Stone works well in an IGG rush.
You're missing the point of the alternate VP. The point is they make the game longer. If you go for gardens, I go for duchies, and you have to buy all 8 to end it. If you go duchies, I go fairgrounds - you need all 8 to end it.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: qmech on May 01, 2012, 04:09:13 am
Hmm, I guess my understanding of the sentence "per 5 cards between them" was off. I thought it would be worth more when there is a greater spread.  ???

An interesting reading.  This would play more like a Counting House that is weakest in the middle of a shuffle than a Philosopher's Stone.  I guess you could tweak the 5 to increase its average value, but that would give you some extremely high-value turns.

(The card text says "total between", which I think is less ambiguous.)
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: ecq on May 01, 2012, 09:37:32 am
Taking Coppers and opening Potion / Silver doesn't lose quite as bad - 53% / 43%.  Buying the Potion after the first shuffle is a little worse than that.

It's a gambit.  You're sacrificing the IGG split and hoping to make up for it with Provinces on the tail end.  One big problem, though, is that the straight IGG player can afford Provinces with the IGG economy.  His economy is relatively better, too, since you weren't Cursing him.

I don't see alternate VP cards mattering much.  IGG/Gardens is awesome in general.  I'd take Gardens rather than Duchy if I were the IGG player.  The $6 cards have an awkward price point for P. Stone.  Also, Fairgrounds + IGG + P. Stone + Kingdom Silver-Equivalent isn't much of a combo, even if it works.  Certainly not enough to say that P. Stone works well in an IGG rush.
You're missing the point of the alternate VP. The point is they make the game longer. If you go for gardens, I go for duchies, and you have to buy all 8 to end it. If you go duchies, I go fairgrounds - you need all 8 to end it.

I understand the point; I just don't think it works.  Avoiding Gardens to drag out the game seems like a mistake.  $6 VP cards are tough because the P. Stone player shouldn't be seeing many hands at that price point ($6 or $7, but not $8).  Of the options, I think Tunnel is the most viable... time to head over to the sim forum.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: eHalcyon on May 01, 2012, 05:27:03 pm
Taking unnecessary Copper is sub-optimal in IGG, so it may even make things worse for PStone.

Wait, I thought I read before that it was optimal to always take the copper.  My intuition is all confuzzled now.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: ecq on May 02, 2012, 09:33:40 am
Taking unnecessary Copper is sub-optimal in IGG, so it may even make things worse for PStone.

Wait, I thought I read before that it was optimal to always take the copper.  My intuition is all confuzzled now.

In the late IGG game, you want to be buying Duchies and, with the rare $8 hand, Provinces.  Coppers don't do much to help you hit $5 and they hinder you from hitting $8.  If you have supporting Kingdom cards (e.g. Smithy), you'll play them less frequently.  Don't be shy about taking them when you need them, but don't take them if you're not using the coins in the current hand.  It may be wise to start taking unnecessary Copper in the very late game, at the point when you're struggling to hit $5 and preferring Estates to Silver, but certainly not from the start.

That advice goes out the window, of course, if you have some other reason to want Coppers.  They're great for IGG/Gardens, for instance, and you'd probably want them for IGG/P. Stone.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: DStu on May 02, 2012, 09:46:22 am
From the sims I remember, IGG-rush wants "always Copper" if mirrored and "only Copper if needed" if not.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: ecq on May 02, 2012, 10:02:33 am
Modifying the Optimized IGG into two separate bots, one that always takes Copper and one that takes it only when necessary, the only-necessary bot wins slightly 48/46.  The optimized bot does slightly better than that.  It takes unnecessary Copper at the point it would prefer buying an Estate to buying a Silver (<= 4 Duchies left)
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: DStu on May 02, 2012, 10:19:16 am
Ah yes, I looked up the old thread, and it was the one where we discovered some problems with (not occuring) recursion in Dominiate, so any information taken from there is probably not very stable...
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: blueblimp on May 02, 2012, 12:36:15 pm
Modifying the Optimized IGG into two separate bots, one that always takes Copper and one that takes it only when necessary, the only-necessary bot wins slightly 48/46.  The optimized bot does slightly better than that.  It takes unnecessary Copper at the point it would prefer buying an Estate to buying a Silver (<= 4 Duchies left)

Last I tested, taking no unnecessary copper vs taking unnecessary copper only near the end does not make a statistically significant difference: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=625.msg28178#msg28178 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=625.msg28178#msg28178). So if you're finding otherwise then I think it'd be interesting to see the bots you're using (in the simulation forum of course).
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: ecq on May 02, 2012, 03:08:27 pm
Modifying the Optimized IGG into two separate bots, one that always takes Copper and one that takes it only when necessary, the only-necessary bot wins slightly 48/46.  The optimized bot does slightly better than that.  It takes unnecessary Copper at the point it would prefer buying an Estate to buying a Silver (<= 4 Duchies left)

Last I tested, taking no unnecessary copper vs taking unnecessary copper only near the end does not make a statistically significant difference: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=625.msg28178#msg28178 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=625.msg28178#msg28178). So if you're finding otherwise then I think it'd be interesting to see the bots you're using (in the simulation forum of course).

Using that bot, you're right.  Using WanderingWinder's bot gave different answers, but your bot beats his.  I hadn't seen yours before.  It's a little surprising that the slight change in bots can change the decision on whether or not to take Copper.

Sorry for the excursion.  Back on topic... Philosopher's Stone

Using blueblimp's IGG bot, buying Philosopher's Stone, and always taking Copper wins ever so slightly against straight IGG - 49/48.  The conclusion I'd draw from that is that there's not much benefit from buying P. Stone in an IGG game.  Consider that IGG + Single Moat beats both options by a slightly wider margin.  That reasoning may change depending on what else is in the kingdom, of course.  Herbalist and Apothecary have both been raised as good reasons to get P. Stone.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: aldaryn on May 30, 2012, 11:46:17 pm
Everyone on isotropic tells me I should be involved over here, so look! A comment!

A lot of what I've read so far is discussing a few cards in a vacuum, but we all know you have to consider all 10 kingdom cards together.

Philosopher's stone isn't a card I buy a potion for - to me it's a card you end up adjusting your strategy to along the way, usually because you've already bought a potion, whether because you're reaching for Possession but didn't hit 6, or you've already bought Familiar or University (but obviously it doesn't mesh with Scrying Pool that much). In a Familiar or University game, both of those cards lead to fat decks, which means that P. Stone compliments them well.

Point being: I don't think P. Stone is a card you look at and say from game start "Should I focus around this card?", but a card you stop and ask yourself about during the mid/end game: "Should I be picking those up now?"
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: O on May 30, 2012, 11:58:48 pm
Everyone on isotropic tells me I should be involved over here, so look! A comment!

A lot of what I've read so far is discussing a few cards in a vacuum, but we all know you have to consider all 10 kingdom cards together.

Philosopher's stone isn't a card I buy a potion for - to me it's a card you end up adjusting your strategy to along the way, usually because you've already bought a potion, whether because you're reaching for Possession but didn't hit 6, or you've already bought Familiar or University (but obviously it doesn't mesh with Scrying Pool that much). In a Familiar or University game, both of those cards lead to fat decks, which means that P. Stone compliments them well.

Point being: I don't think P. Stone is a card you look at and say from game start "Should I focus around this card?", but a card you stop and ask yourself about during the mid/end game: "Should I be picking those up now?"

Woo! I'm glad I was part of that group telling you to join  8).

This person somehow got to level 42 without knowing about the tiny tricks like Black Market-Tactician or (well, this ones uncommon regardless..) TR-TR-Outpost-Masquerade, or Masquerade pins in general, which I find impressive. I would never have broken 40 without learning all these tiny tricks from F.DS  :P

Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: toaster on June 04, 2012, 06:20:50 pm
Philosopher's stone isn't a card I buy a potion for - to me it's a card you end up adjusting your strategy to along the way, usually because you've already bought a potion, whether because you're reaching for Possession but didn't hit 6, or you've already bought Familiar or University (but obviously it doesn't mesh with Scrying Pool that much). In a Familiar or University game, both of those cards lead to fat decks, which means that P. Stone compliments them well.

Point being: I don't think P. Stone is a card you look at and say from game start "Should I focus around this card?", but a card you stop and ask yourself about during the mid/end game: "Should I be picking those up now?"

I think that is often the case, but not always.  The problem with going for P.Stones later in the game is that if you've got a fat deck, you're not going to be able to acquire/use those P.Stones very much. If, on the other hand, you can anticipate that a game will be long with fat decks, going for it early can give you a decisive advantage.  That's exactly what happened in the game of mine against WanderingWinder:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120529-153420-066c6c11.html

Despite the lack of any other potions in this set, there are several factors here in P.Stone's favor:

1) Game length - With Goons, Colony, and no great engine options, this game is going to be a long slog.  The means large decks, which P.Stone likes.
2) +buy - in addition to the game lengthening effects, the +buy provided by Goons is a little extra deck-bloat for the PS.
3) Discard attacks - Although the effect is small, P.Stones are a (very) soft counter to discard attacks...as a discard attack has a 40% chance of increasing the value of each P.Stone by 1 the next turn.  On turn 33, for example, this guaranteed me a double Colony turn whether or not WW had played his Goons.

Now, often it is the case that P.Stone is a late one-off pick up in a bloated deck (Familiar being one of the best examples), but on boards where such bloat and game length are predictable, grabbing them early instead of late can be well worth the slower start.
Title: Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
Post by: Davio on July 05, 2012, 03:03:54 am
I just played a Colony game that had these contenders: Mountebank, City, Hunting Party, Golem, Philosopher's Stone and Transmute. Ghost Ship, Vault, Tribute and Fool's Gold were also available, but were ignored by both players.

Now if Philosopher's Stone is the only Potion card, there's more of an incentive to skip it, because of its opportunity cost, but this was like a perfect storm: Mountebank in a Colony game slows the game down to a crawl. PS likes this. And then there are other Potion cards which you can buy. I didn't buy a Golem, because PStones were more important to me and I didn't want to Golem into a Transmute, but the option was there.

I started Potion/Silver to my opponent's 5/2 Mountebank/-, so I was immediately behind and had some catching up to do.
My first Potion buy was a Transmute on T4 where I could have bought a PS to help deal with some Curses possibly or to trash some of my starting Estates for a Gold or two. After the Transmute I just bought a PS every time I had the Potion.

By the end of the game my PStones were roughly $7 each and I ended up with 6 Colonies to his 2.

Final decks:
Him:  [38 cards] 8 Cities, 3 Hunting Parties, 2 Golems, 2 Mountebanks, 9 Coppers, 5 Silvers, 1 Potion, 4 Estates, 2 Colonies, 2 Curses
Me: [55 cards] 7 Hunting Parties, 3 Philosopher's Stones, 1 City, 1 Mountebank, 1 Transmute, 16 Coppers, 7 Silvers, 1 Potion, 3 Golds, 1 Province, 6 Colonies, 8 Curses

That's right, I lost the Cursing war 8-2, I only bought 1 City late in the game to his 8 and yet I prevailed due to PS playing an incredible role here (and him not buying any actual money).

My PS was played for $5.8 on average, with the most valuable PS giving me $9. PS sort of anti-synergizes with big hand sizes because it makes your PS less valuable (less cards in deck and discard, more in hand or on the table), but it was more important to me to draw it and play it anyway. Hence, the Hunting Parties.


To summarize I will stress that PS loves slow games where you can steadily build up the value of your PStones. Now, this means that you will also see your PStones less throughout the game, but this is made up for by having an almost guaranteed Colony every single time you can play one of them. Of course, the article on the front page illustrates a combo with Herbalist in which you can both buy more Philosopher's Stones and play them more often, but if that ability is lacking, a slow game is what you want.