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Dominion Strategy Forum
- May 19, 2013, 05:12:17 pm
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2
News and Announcements / The forums might go down for a little while today
« on: April 09, 2013, 02:52:03 pm »
I am taking the free Linode memory upgrade on the server that runs the forum. Linode says this should take about 20 minutes after it starts.
3
General Discussion / April 1st, the worst day of the year for the internet
« on: April 01, 2013, 11:10:48 am »
Maybe I have no sense of humor, but for the most part, april fool's day jokes suck.
4
Innovation General Discussion / Has anyone played team innovation?
« on: March 22, 2013, 12:29:40 pm »
I've played maybe 10 games of 2v2 innovation. Perhaps I am too used to the pace of 1v1 innovation, but team games seem to advance through the ages way too fast.
Things like shared Pottery (edit: with teammate) are way too good, and Tools is just awful.
Things like shared Pottery (edit: with teammate) are way too good, and Tools is just awful.
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Dominion General Discussion / Provincial: Cool looking Dominion AI
« on: February 21, 2013, 10:07:00 pm »6
Innovation General Discussion / Periodic table of innovation cards?
« on: February 17, 2013, 02:25:39 am »
Wei Hwa made a 'periodic table' of RFTG cards, shown here.
http://files.boardgamegeek.com/file/download/2gp4315va8/periodic-table-1page-letter.pdf?
If you were going to design a similar infographic for innovation cards, how would you display it? Of course, you can't really hope to display everything, choosing what information to omit or compress is a very important part of making such a display effective.
I was thinking it might be useful to focus on card movements. Say there are 7 card locations, (hand/score/board) x (yours, opponents) + supply. Most cards move cards around, so you could list them on the appropriate edges. Maybe instead of card lists, you could put ages/colors/symbols involved in the various transitions.
http://files.boardgamegeek.com/file/download/2gp4315va8/periodic-table-1page-letter.pdf?
If you were going to design a similar infographic for innovation cards, how would you display it? Of course, you can't really hope to display everything, choosing what information to omit or compress is a very important part of making such a display effective.
I was thinking it might be useful to focus on card movements. Say there are 7 card locations, (hand/score/board) x (yours, opponents) + supply. Most cards move cards around, so you could list them on the appropriate edges. Maybe instead of card lists, you could put ages/colors/symbols involved in the various transitions.
7
Council Room Feedback / Cards which like/dislike other cards in same set, some mostly failed CR hacking
« on: February 11, 2013, 08:53:09 pm »
I tried to come up with a measure of how much a card likes its own set, from the councilroom supply win API.
Basically this is the average delta quality for cards when conditioned on cards in their own set. So for example, Hoard doesn't like being with Prosperity (no mixed VP, Platinum makes Golds kind of the new Silver), but the Potion cost cards love other Potion cost cards.
But I don't really understand/trust the output. EG, why isn't Scout better? Do Chancellor and Woodcutter really dislike being with base?
Hoard -1.323
Chancellor -0.908
Woodcutter -0.788
Counting House -0.677
Pirate Ship -0.677
Coppersmith -0.565
Workshop -0.534
Bank -0.491
Secret Chamber -0.473
Saboteur -0.416
Smugglers -0.381
Baron -0.361
Navigator -0.361
Courtyard -0.358
Mine -0.351
Lookout -0.346
Monument -0.335
Bishop -0.331
Steward -0.330
Highway -0.324
Wishing Well -0.302
Swindler -0.302
Moneylender -0.296
Council Room -0.278
Talisman -0.269
Trading Post -0.268
Masquerade -0.263
Library -0.252
Develop -0.234
Vault -0.231
Scheme -0.223
Expand -0.209
Native Village -0.209
Royal Seal -0.205
Embargo -0.201
Duke -0.192
Noble Brigand -0.189
Smithy -0.185
Pearl Diver -0.173
Spy -0.167
Moat -0.166
Chapel -0.163
Fool's Gold -0.162
Bridge -0.156
Remodel -0.156
Horse Traders -0.151
Feast -0.135
Venture -0.123
Crossroads -0.122
Oracle -0.120
Platinum -0.119
Inn -0.111
Trader -0.109
Cutpurse -0.107
Pawn -0.107
Throne Room -0.100
Oasis -0.094
Salvager -0.087
Mandarin -0.076
Stables -0.074
Market -0.068
Haggler -0.054
Cache -0.046
Conspirator -0.033
Ambassador -0.024
Upgrade -0.020
Caravan -0.007
Ironworks -0.006
Shanty Town -0.003
Warehouse 0.006
Thief 0.006
Young Witch 0.008
Spice Merchant 0.011
Haven 0.015
Great Hall 0.019
Jack of All Trades 0.029
Militia 0.030
Cartographer 0.030
Ill-Gotten Gains 0.040
Treasury 0.047
Duchess 0.049
Island 0.053
Gardens 0.056
Village 0.059
Trade Route 0.071
Festival 0.095
Nobles 0.096
Minion 0.102
Border Village 0.106
Fishing Village 0.114
Tactician 0.115
Tribute 0.116
Cellar 0.116
Torturer 0.130
Silk Road 0.131
Sea Hag 0.132
Harem 0.132
Lighthouse 0.133
Bazaar 0.140
Nomad Camp 0.147
Contraband 0.151
Treasure Map 0.152
Farming Village 0.163
Jester 0.165
Colony 0.177
Laboratory 0.185
Margrave 0.188
Embassy 0.188
Bureaucrat 0.206
Hamlet 0.213
Adventurer 0.214
Merchant Ship 0.215
Remake 0.234
Hunting Party 0.244
Wharf 0.272
Tournament 0.273
Apprentice 0.273
Farmland 0.284
Mining Village 0.285
Goons 0.315
Explorer 0.329
Outpost 0.333
Ghost Ship 0.335
Tunnel 0.383
King's Court 0.428
Rabble 0.435
Grand Market 0.455
Mountebank 0.457
Witch 0.474
Scout 0.478
Forge 0.496
Menagerie 0.583
Worker's Village 0.587
Peddler 0.589
Fortune Teller 0.593
Mint 0.609
Watchtower 0.613
Potion 0.671
Loan 0.704
Harvest 0.712
City 0.712
Quarry 0.811
Scrying Pool 0.880
Horn of Plenty 0.999
Fairgrounds 1.021
Alchemist 1.168
Familiar 1.259
Herbalist 1.261
Vineyard 1.495
University 1.829
Golem 1.998
Philosopher's Stone 2.440
Apothecary 2.553
Possession 2.742
Transmute 4.435
Basically this is the average delta quality for cards when conditioned on cards in their own set. So for example, Hoard doesn't like being with Prosperity (no mixed VP, Platinum makes Golds kind of the new Silver), but the Potion cost cards love other Potion cost cards.
But I don't really understand/trust the output. EG, why isn't Scout better? Do Chancellor and Woodcutter really dislike being with base?
Hoard -1.323
Chancellor -0.908
Woodcutter -0.788
Counting House -0.677
Pirate Ship -0.677
Coppersmith -0.565
Workshop -0.534
Bank -0.491
Secret Chamber -0.473
Saboteur -0.416
Smugglers -0.381
Baron -0.361
Navigator -0.361
Courtyard -0.358
Mine -0.351
Lookout -0.346
Monument -0.335
Bishop -0.331
Steward -0.330
Highway -0.324
Wishing Well -0.302
Swindler -0.302
Moneylender -0.296
Council Room -0.278
Talisman -0.269
Trading Post -0.268
Masquerade -0.263
Library -0.252
Develop -0.234
Vault -0.231
Scheme -0.223
Expand -0.209
Native Village -0.209
Royal Seal -0.205
Embargo -0.201
Duke -0.192
Noble Brigand -0.189
Smithy -0.185
Pearl Diver -0.173
Spy -0.167
Moat -0.166
Chapel -0.163
Fool's Gold -0.162
Bridge -0.156
Remodel -0.156
Horse Traders -0.151
Feast -0.135
Venture -0.123
Crossroads -0.122
Oracle -0.120
Platinum -0.119
Inn -0.111
Trader -0.109
Cutpurse -0.107
Pawn -0.107
Throne Room -0.100
Oasis -0.094
Salvager -0.087
Mandarin -0.076
Stables -0.074
Market -0.068
Haggler -0.054
Cache -0.046
Conspirator -0.033
Ambassador -0.024
Upgrade -0.020
Caravan -0.007
Ironworks -0.006
Shanty Town -0.003
Warehouse 0.006
Thief 0.006
Young Witch 0.008
Spice Merchant 0.011
Haven 0.015
Great Hall 0.019
Jack of All Trades 0.029
Militia 0.030
Cartographer 0.030
Ill-Gotten Gains 0.040
Treasury 0.047
Duchess 0.049
Island 0.053
Gardens 0.056
Village 0.059
Trade Route 0.071
Festival 0.095
Nobles 0.096
Minion 0.102
Border Village 0.106
Fishing Village 0.114
Tactician 0.115
Tribute 0.116
Cellar 0.116
Torturer 0.130
Silk Road 0.131
Sea Hag 0.132
Harem 0.132
Lighthouse 0.133
Bazaar 0.140
Nomad Camp 0.147
Contraband 0.151
Treasure Map 0.152
Farming Village 0.163
Jester 0.165
Colony 0.177
Laboratory 0.185
Margrave 0.188
Embassy 0.188
Bureaucrat 0.206
Hamlet 0.213
Adventurer 0.214
Merchant Ship 0.215
Remake 0.234
Hunting Party 0.244
Wharf 0.272
Tournament 0.273
Apprentice 0.273
Farmland 0.284
Mining Village 0.285
Goons 0.315
Explorer 0.329
Outpost 0.333
Ghost Ship 0.335
Tunnel 0.383
King's Court 0.428
Rabble 0.435
Grand Market 0.455
Mountebank 0.457
Witch 0.474
Scout 0.478
Forge 0.496
Menagerie 0.583
Worker's Village 0.587
Peddler 0.589
Fortune Teller 0.593
Mint 0.609
Watchtower 0.613
Potion 0.671
Loan 0.704
Harvest 0.712
City 0.712
Quarry 0.811
Scrying Pool 0.880
Horn of Plenty 0.999
Fairgrounds 1.021
Alchemist 1.168
Familiar 1.259
Herbalist 1.261
Vineyard 1.495
University 1.829
Golem 1.998
Philosopher's Stone 2.440
Apothecary 2.553
Possession 2.742
Transmute 4.435
8
Council Room Feedback / Why aren't there more posts that use supply_win to argue about balance?
« on: February 04, 2013, 06:48:06 pm »
Why aren't there more posts that use supply_win to make data based arguments about the quality of card combos?
This post is, IMHO, wonderful. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3619.msg71075#msg71075
Is it that supply_win interface is too confusing? Do people just value their own experience/intuition over data? Is the data ruined by noobs (eg, if you could get supply_win data only for players > level 35, would that be good?)? Is there something else going on?
This post is, IMHO, wonderful. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3619.msg71075#msg71075
Is it that supply_win interface is too confusing? Do people just value their own experience/intuition over data? Is the data ruined by noobs (eg, if you could get supply_win data only for players > level 35, would that be good?)? Is there something else going on?
9
Innovation General Discussion / Would innovation gameplay stats be cool/useful/interesting?
« on: January 23, 2013, 01:52:05 am »
I am not promising anything, but what kinds of game play stats would be interesting for innovation?
Distribution of game ending conditions.
Probability given scoring type is achieved (+what caused it).
Average number of turns per game.
Correlation with winning by given score advantage across ages.
Card build/tuck/usage/dogma shared stats and their winning correlations.
Symbol supremacy correlation with winning.
Tech advantage by age correlation with winning.
Distribution of game ending conditions.
Probability given scoring type is achieved (+what caused it).
Average number of turns per game.
Correlation with winning by given score advantage across ages.
Card build/tuck/usage/dogma shared stats and their winning correlations.
Symbol supremacy correlation with winning.
Tech advantage by age correlation with winning.
10
Innovation General Discussion / Stages of development of innovation players
« on: January 22, 2013, 01:06:48 pm »
So, I am definitely still an innovation noob, so I can't really write this post, but I want to read it. Ergo, I'll take a first stab at it and then hope someone actually does a good job.
What does the skill curve look like for innovation?
Understanding the rules.
Knowing some of the important cards.
Learning some combos.
Paying attention to symbol counts.
A little understanding of game flow, having a feel for when to score vs when to tech.
Knowing all the win conditions.
Knowing how to counter important cards.
Knowing all the cards.
Ability to see plausible long term shots at a win.
Ability to see opponent's shots at at winning, and knowing how to prevent them.
What does the skill curve look like for innovation?
Understanding the rules.
Knowing some of the important cards.
Learning some combos.
Paying attention to symbol counts.
A little understanding of game flow, having a feel for when to score vs when to tech.
Knowing all the win conditions.
Knowing how to counter important cards.
Knowing all the cards.
Ability to see plausible long term shots at a win.
Ability to see opponent's shots at at winning, and knowing how to prevent them.
11
Innovation General Discussion / Feature Request: New symbol for attack that will outright fail
« on: January 20, 2013, 11:27:26 pm »
Right now, you get a ! when you hover over a card where your opponent has more symbols than you. Sometimes you want to share a dogma. But if it's an attack, it will just do nothing. I haven't played enough to know if there is a time when you want to just burn a turn by launching a futile attack, but it seems to me that there should be a difference between share a dogma (maybe a good idea), and totally waste an action with a impotent attack (probably not a good idea).
12
Dominion Strategy Wiki Feedback / Money and VP images distracting in inline text
« on: December 07, 2012, 12:43:14 pm »
The money/VP icons inline in the text substantially hurt the readability of the text for me. I guess my mind has a "text mode" and an "images" mode, and the icons trigger "images" mode. This causes a kind of context switch in my brain and it is generally distracting.
I know it's well-intentioned, but I think the icons might be overdesigned.
I know it's well-intentioned, but I think the icons might be overdesigned.
13
Dominion Strategy Wiki Feedback / Potential suboptimal feature of the wiki vs blog/forum
« on: November 10, 2012, 03:24:46 pm »
It used to be the case that when theory posted an article on the main page, noobs had a chance to ask rules questions or comments about basic strategic interactions via the comments. With the wiki, there doesn't seem to be like a good place for questions and comments like that.
Maybe it's fine, we still have the blog and the forum after all. Perhaps trying to squeeze discussion like features into wiki format is worse than simple refusing to do so. But it would be nice if there was one canonical source to rule them all. Maybe we should encourage noobs to post questions in the talk page? I don't know.
Maybe it's fine, we still have the blog and the forum after all. Perhaps trying to squeeze discussion like features into wiki format is worse than simple refusing to do so. But it would be nice if there was one canonical source to rule them all. Maybe we should encourage noobs to post questions in the talk page? I don't know.
14
Council Room Feedback / Anyone want to maintain councilroom?
« on: August 25, 2012, 12:00:21 am »
I am just not into Dominion anymore. Councilroom is going to be down permanently in one week if no one agrees to takes it over.
If you want to take over maintainance and adminship, send an email to councilroom-dev@googlegroups.com. I'll happily lend a hand in getting it running and answering questions about the code. Some competancy with Python and Unix is all that's really required.
If you want to take over maintainance and adminship, send an email to councilroom-dev@googlegroups.com. I'll happily lend a hand in getting it running and answering questions about the code. Some competancy with Python and Unix is all that's really required.
15
Mini-Set Design Contest / MOVED: Trash as much as you can
« on: August 22, 2012, 06:09:12 pm »
This topic has been moved to Puzzles and Challenges.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4293.0
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4293.0
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Advertisements / new Donald X game - Gauntlet of Fools - on Kickstarter
« on: August 15, 2012, 11:14:33 am »
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2012515236/gauntlet-of-fools
The game seems plausibly fun from the intro, but I am pretty skeptical about this part. What is the chance that a successful entrepreneur can't get access to $15k?
The game seems plausibly fun from the intro, but I am pretty skeptical about this part. What is the chance that a successful entrepreneur can't get access to $15k?
Quote
If you are so excited about this game, why do you need kickstarter funding to get it made?
It is all about what we call cashflow. Making board games is a cash intensive proposition. The time between when I pay for games (now) and when I get paid for them is upwards of 7 months, and that is in the best of circumstances. That takes a lot of money sitting in inventory, and that isn’t something that we have a lot of right now.
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Council Room Feedback / Tentative time councilroom comes up, July 5th
« on: July 02, 2012, 02:26:01 pm »
If all goes well, it should be up Thursday evening.
If any enterprising individual wants to run the code and host a publically available web server (even on just the last week of logs), I'll happily point the councilroom.com DNS entry at their server in the interim. It really shouldn't be too hard to get running on a standard ubuntu machine.
If any enterprising individual wants to run the code and host a publically available web server (even on just the last week of logs), I'll happily point the councilroom.com DNS entry at their server in the interim. It really shouldn't be too hard to get running on a standard ubuntu machine.
21
Feedback / This working?
« on: June 26, 2012, 10:58:15 am »
I think I've successfully migrated the forum to a server not in my apartment, so this should be much more reliable for you folks with my coming move.
22
Dominion General Discussion / Trying to infer card similarities, some late night councilroom hacking
« on: June 18, 2012, 02:19:09 am »
First, two very big, fairly similar looking pictures.
http://mine.councilroom.com/~rrenaud/grouped_by_prob_wgag.png
http://mine.councilroom.com/~rrenaud/grouped_by_wgag.png
And then some code.
https://github.com/rrenaud/dominionstats/commit/0a97f05263bc709b1f410639cb6843b62e8c5288
Basic idea, form vectors out of the card conditional win stats. Feed these vectors to hierarchical clustering algorithm. Look at pictures. Decide if groupings are sane (sometimes, throne room, king's court) or crazy (throne room, king's court, colony?).
I could perhaps compare this against Empathy's method here:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=647.msg8951#msg8951
or even try combining them to get card features and play features.
Is this going to be useful for anything? I am not sure. It could perhaps help in defining useful encoding of game states for machine learning algorithms.
http://mine.councilroom.com/~rrenaud/grouped_by_prob_wgag.png
http://mine.councilroom.com/~rrenaud/grouped_by_wgag.png
And then some code.
https://github.com/rrenaud/dominionstats/commit/0a97f05263bc709b1f410639cb6843b62e8c5288
Basic idea, form vectors out of the card conditional win stats. Feed these vectors to hierarchical clustering algorithm. Look at pictures. Decide if groupings are sane (sometimes, throne room, king's court) or crazy (throne room, king's court, colony?).
I could perhaps compare this against Empathy's method here:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=647.msg8951#msg8951
or even try combining them to get card features and play features.
Is this going to be useful for anything? I am not sure. It could perhaps help in defining useful encoding of game states for machine learning algorithms.
23
Dominion General Discussion / A little running joke between me and theory
« on: May 25, 2012, 05:10:32 pm »
Every once in awhile, when he has a good idea related to X, I tell him he should run Xstrategy.com site. When he told me how he proposed, I told him he should run ProposalStrategy.com.
But he got one upped, this dude should run DominionProposalStrategy.com.
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/807953/how-i-proposed-using-dominion
But he got one upped, this dude should run DominionProposalStrategy.com.
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/807953/how-i-proposed-using-dominion
24
Feedback / Recommended web hosting for forum.dominionstrategy.com
« on: April 24, 2012, 11:47:10 pm »
I am going to move in a couple of months, and part of this move will involve me lacking internet access for awhile.
Since forum.dominionstrategy.com is served from my home machine, this is bad for you guys.
So I'd like to get some reasonable web hosting for the forum and transfer the forum there so you don't have to suffer downtime (councilroom will go down, just cause I really like having total control of the machine serving it, unless someone wants to set up a temporary mirror). I think all we need is a conventional PHP/mysql/email hosting setup, and we don't really use that much bandwidth, since the site performance is mostly fine and it's served off a cable modem. I have a strong personal preference towards Linux, or at least Unix based hosting. Anyone have any good and reasonable hosting providers?
Since forum.dominionstrategy.com is served from my home machine, this is bad for you guys.
So I'd like to get some reasonable web hosting for the forum and transfer the forum there so you don't have to suffer downtime (councilroom will go down, just cause I really like having total control of the machine serving it, unless someone wants to set up a temporary mirror). I think all we need is a conventional PHP/mysql/email hosting setup, and we don't really use that much bandwidth, since the site performance is mostly fine and it's served off a cable modem. I have a strong personal preference towards Linux, or at least Unix based hosting. Anyone have any good and reasonable hosting providers?
25
Dominion General Discussion / Help a stats loving brother out, list combos, counters, nombos
« on: April 20, 2012, 03:35:41 pm »
So this is inspired by wanting to make councilroom better for this purpose:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2301.0
If I had some training data, I could try to optimize the card (combo) ranking function. The existing ranking is based on QVist's single card data.
This is sort of in the spirit of the QVist community rankings, except without anyone doing the hard work of aggregating and building a uniform ranking and providing commentary. Of course, if someone wanted to take something akin to his role, I'd happily let this morph into that if someone wants to take the job.
Basically, list a card, followed by : +followed by cards that you think make it better, ?followed by cards that you think are mostly independent/non-interactive, - followed by cards that you think make it worse.
For example,
Mountebank: +King's Court, Scheme, Throne Room, Chapel, Village ? Caravan, Apprentice, -Counting House, Gardens, Ambassador, Trader
So I like Mountebank more in games with KC, Scheme, Throne Room, and Chapel, Village, I am mostly indifferent to the presence of Caravan or Apprentice, and I like it less in Counting House, Gardens, Ambassador, and Trader games.
This is just overall, in aggregate. Don't try to stretch to hard to find some conceivable reason for the indifferent cards to matter. For example, KC/Caravan/Mountebank might work better than just KC/Mountebank by itself, but mostly Caravan won't influence my decision for Mountebank, so I list it as indifferent.
Broad coverage is more useful than different people telling me 50x that KC and Bridge are awesome together. It's also important to know about the more generic and less interesting combinations. Eg, University/Bazaar is a fine and good combo, even if it's not exciting.
It's also useful for you to be unbiased. Try to come up with your own thing without looking at others feedback or councilroom.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2301.0
If I had some training data, I could try to optimize the card (combo) ranking function. The existing ranking is based on QVist's single card data.
This is sort of in the spirit of the QVist community rankings, except without anyone doing the hard work of aggregating and building a uniform ranking and providing commentary. Of course, if someone wanted to take something akin to his role, I'd happily let this morph into that if someone wants to take the job.
Basically, list a card, followed by : +followed by cards that you think make it better, ?followed by cards that you think are mostly independent/non-interactive, - followed by cards that you think make it worse.
For example,
Mountebank: +King's Court, Scheme, Throne Room, Chapel, Village ? Caravan, Apprentice, -Counting House, Gardens, Ambassador, Trader
So I like Mountebank more in games with KC, Scheme, Throne Room, and Chapel, Village, I am mostly indifferent to the presence of Caravan or Apprentice, and I like it less in Counting House, Gardens, Ambassador, and Trader games.
This is just overall, in aggregate. Don't try to stretch to hard to find some conceivable reason for the indifferent cards to matter. For example, KC/Caravan/Mountebank might work better than just KC/Mountebank by itself, but mostly Caravan won't influence my decision for Mountebank, so I list it as indifferent.
Broad coverage is more useful than different people telling me 50x that KC and Bridge are awesome together. It's also important to know about the more generic and less interesting combinations. Eg, University/Bazaar is a fine and good combo, even if it's not exciting.
It's also useful for you to be unbiased. Try to come up with your own thing without looking at others feedback or councilroom.