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1

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Level 6s pulling 4 provinces in 13 turns

« on: January 18, 2012, 07:38:45 pm »

I'm $1 from winning that game on turn 13. I think "man, it was close" is a more accurate description of the game.

If you bought the province on your turn 13, WW would've won on his turn 13 by buying the last province (4 provinces each, WW up by 3 fairgrounds). WW led by at least a province for the whole game.

2

2011 / Re: Schedule and Results: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships

« on: December 10, 2011, 07:27:31 pm »

In Witch division, Elyv (4) outplays danshep (29) 4-0.

A lot of fairly mirror'd matches, where I mainly lost by not paying attention while Elyv played them properly. I think my game 3 loss was probably unlucky, but the rest were just Elyv playing a better game.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/10/game-20111210-153637-6c2e4ff9.html - elyv 48-47
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/10/game-20111210-154704-d1fb726e.html - elyv 37-21
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/10/game-20111210-160156-0543cd2b.html - elyv 49-32
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/10/game-20111210-161648-5e384c87.html - elyv 60-57

3

2011 / Re: Schedule and Results: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships

« on: December 01, 2011, 08:57:07 pm »

In the Witch league, danshep (29) defeated BestKenEver (36) in a very closely fought 4-1 match - that final score doesn't reflect how hard I had to scramble to get each of those victories. Well played.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111128-180113-dd895d78.html danshep wins 43-37
  - My use of native village won the game here. Letting his ghost ships put crap on my deck which I could village away meant my deck was half the size of his by game's end, and the endgame was fairly safe because I could alway summon back my village mat for a province buy if needed.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111129-173845-7b1d9ee6.html danshep wins 11-10
 - Ken had better shuffle luck here to start and managed to swamp me in IGG curses, but i managed a slight points lead in the midgame and started trying to empty the nobles. Ken probably could've won, but didn't pay attention to points and accidentally bought out the last nobles (if he had've bought a duchy, I probably wouldn't have been able to catch him).

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111129-175018-40564a72.html danshep wins 11-9
- Another IGG match, where I again lost the curse battle, but picking up a workshop to grab two potions in the midgame let me pick up a couple of vineyards to eek out a win, but only because Ken drew some unlucky final hands.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111129-180433-496d1c8c.html BestKenEver wins 33-27
- A match with familiar and ambassador where I drew my potion with $2 and constantly drew my ambassador with single estates... wasn't going to go my way. Got closer than I expected as I managed to ambassador back most of the curses, but in the end I had to put myself out of my misery.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111201-173832-9952be93.html danshep wins 43-28
 (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/01/game-20111201-173832-9952be93.html)
- Thought Ken had me when he got the early vault and the first grand market, but then his luck seemed to turn when his vault drew both his hag and GM dead. I then went hard into caravans, hoping to cycle to my vault and GM as often as possible, while also picking up victory points much sooner than Ken, ultimately giving me a fairly unassailable lead.

4

Simulation / Re: Dominiate: a Dominion simulator that runs on the Web

« on: November 29, 2011, 06:02:59 pm »

I'll try and find time to turn my mangled explanation into working code. It's not as complicated as I make it sound.

5

Simulation / Re: Dominiate: a Dominion simulator that runs on the Web

« on: November 28, 2011, 07:05:07 pm »

I think what you want to be doing there is creating a method that returns action priorities only for cards in the supply.

{{{
  defaultActionPriority: (state) -> [
    ((state, my) -> "Menagerie" if my.menagerieDraws() == 3 ) if state.countInSupply("Managerie") > 0
    ((state, my) -> "Shanty Town" if my.shantyTownDraws(true) == 2 ) if state.countInSupply("Shanty Town") > 0
    ... etc ...
  ]
}}}

And then, you compile that once into an array of functions that only includes the actions available (I'm guessing countInSupply is wrong there). Then you'll have a much shorter array to call.

Actually, all the choice functions would work better if they were functions, so that you could short-circuit the function as soon as it hits a valid choice, rather than compiling it all into a 100 element array that may never get the last 99 elements read.

Just changing the chooseByPriorityAndValue method would allow all the choices in choice arrays to be wrapped in functions to be lazily evaluated:

{{{
      for preference in priority
        if preference of function
          preference = preference.bind(this)(state, my)
        if preference is null and null in choices
          return null
        if choiceSet[preference]?
          return choiceSet[preference]
}}}

6

Dominion General Discussion / Re: iOS / Android Dominion close : Battle of Gundabad

« on: November 24, 2011, 07:56:52 pm »

There's not a lot that can be done to protect the mechanics of a game. Once you rename and reword all the cards, you're fairly free to do whatever you want. The visual design elements of a game can be protected, but dominion is not dependent on any of those.

This is why games like 'who is it?' (guess who) and '4 in a row' (connect four) can be made fairly easily. Scrabble has a protection on the board layout, but if you make a different board (see words with friends) and don't use the word scrabble, you're pretty much free to do whatever you want.

The dominion-shuffler apps would generally be violating the trademark, especially if they do not make it very very very clear that they do not allow you to play the game, and copyright if they actually include card images or rule text, but I don't think there's much reason for such apps to be pursued (unless an official app comes out and can't get to the top of the search results for 'dominion').

(Note: I am not a lawyer, so don't go crying if you do rip off somebody's game and get sued because I don't know what I'm talking about).

7

Dominion General Discussion / Re: iOS / Android Dominion close : Battle of Gundabad

« on: November 24, 2011, 07:54:36 am »

It's almost a direct clone of the base set, with a couple of other things thrown in (a mutated ghost ship and a 2/6/12 scoring instead of a 1/3/6 scoring from the victory cards).

If you've got any skill at dominion at all, you'll find it almost laughably easy to play a random game.

The 'campaign mode' does things like give each of the other players a witch to start the game without letting you purchase any. The AI is poor enough that you can normally win such a game fairly easily, and in the levels that are actually tough it's more likely to be luck rather than skill that will let you succeed.

Unless you're truly desperate, I wouldn't bother.

8

2011 / Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships Registration

« on: November 22, 2011, 01:43:42 am »

danshep
GMT+11 (Melbourne)

9

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Embargo versus potion

« on: November 20, 2011, 06:28:46 pm »

The IGGs were embargoed with six left.  Embargo was hard to buy, Spice Merchant was the only +buy.  Not sure that leaves the kingdom as flexible as you say.

Not much to say about the strategy, but Spice Merchant was NOT the only +buy. Pawn is sitting right there. I miss spotting pawn for +buy so damn often.

10

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Notes About Set Design

« on: November 17, 2011, 06:27:12 pm »

The other thing to note is that all of the official sets are balanced for a 3 player game. Ambassador is only as game warping as it is in a 2 player game. Once you add more players, the risk of being left behind in points as the game 3-piles increases dramatically.

11

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: more puzzles

« on: November 17, 2011, 12:00:19 am »

Well the acrostic spells Witch - is that it? Seems odd to call it what's missing, as when you add the witch, it spells nothing. This would be better if you had a couple of sets, each missing the same card to complete the acrostic.

12

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Province vs Colony

« on: November 16, 2011, 01:28:29 am »

Ran some sims with Vault, and Vault definitely goes better grabbing platinum/colony than trying for a province rush.

13

Feedback / Re: Article subforum usage

« on: November 14, 2011, 06:59:39 pm »

A subforum with one topic per card is a nice idea, but it really needs to be coupled with a canonical page somewhere with a general overview of each card - in other places this is done by having the original poster maintain the first post as a summary of discussion. As long as there is a mechanism in the forum software for re-assigning the authorship of the OP to another user so that the torch of maintenance can be passed, that's a good approach.

That sort of thing though really works best as a wiki, but just plonking a wiki down next to the forum would just create a fracture in the discussion. If we could have a wiki with a page per card that linked to a forum thread for discussion and had shared logins between wiki and forum, that would be the ideal situation, but I know that's a lot of work, especially since we're talking out of the box forum and wiki software. Since simplemachines uses a non-integrated mediawiki instance for their own doco, I'd doubt that that path would be viable.

14

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Variant card needs a cost

« on: November 03, 2011, 12:00:52 am »

Maybe make the Untitled a self-trasher? That probably lets it work as a $5.

15

News and Announcements / Re: Good post / Bad post mod installed

« on: November 02, 2011, 05:39:00 am »

So there is indeed a problem with this: at the end of each page of posts, there's a big ugly chunk of inexplicable gray.  Moreover, everyone's signature and "post last edit" text is weirdly offset from the left.

I've spent quite a while working on this and can't figure it out.  If someone here who knows anything about web design and SimpleMachines Forums could give me a hand, I would appreciate it so so so much.

Here's my current Display.template.php: http://pastebin.com/s9baDE1P


And here's what it should be: http://www.phpkode.com/source/p/simple-machines-forum/Themes/core/Display.template.php

The problem is that there's unclosed divs on each post, so the browser doesn't know what's what.

I think the problem might be around line 478 - there should be a close div before the gpbp_enabled if statement (or perhaps after it, but I'm pretty sure before).

16

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Keeping Score

« on: November 01, 2011, 09:52:29 pm »

What is your opinion on using computerized anagram generators in Scrabble?

I know this is really stretching the topic, but Scrabble is actually a fairly deep strategic game even after you equalize the vocubulary of the players (such as letting players use an anagram generator, or as is the case for most online scrabbles, guess at letter sequences that may or may not be words). It's not just about playing the biggest scoring word at any time. You've got to hold onto strong letters for bingos, protect and expand to score multipliers and recognise placement opportunities.

My opinion of anagram generators is that playing games using them will make you a better scrabble player. My opinion of the point trackers is that using them will make you a better dominion player.

Edit: Though just to be clear, if you play scrabble with an anagram generator, you're playing Scrabble++, not Scrabble. Same as with dominion. I LOVE playing Dominion++, but I don't expect to be able be able to count points if I haven't discussed it with everybody beforehand, so in person and non-point-counter games, I just play Dominion.

Really guys, you're arguing with LETTER of the law, when you get to talk to the guy that wrote the damn law. The SPIRIT is the important part.

17

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Blooki's Puzzle #6 - Nothing's Missing

« on: October 31, 2011, 12:15:46 am »

My solution was apparently not the one the o.p. had in mind.

These are the only three cards that can be used to turn a gardens(or any $4 vp) into a gold.

That solution doesn't work because remake, upgrade, develop and swindler also fit if you've played 5 (or 6 for swindler) bridges/highways.

18

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Keeping Score

« on: October 28, 2011, 01:35:24 am »

It all depends on your approach to the game.

If dominion is a fun game for you to play with friends around the table with the expectation that winning or losing is a fairly random event, putting the extra effort in to do score tracking detracts from the people having fun aspect, so it's rude.

If, however, you're approaching dominion as battle of strategies, which I'm sure a lot of the higher-level player do, you want the game to be determined by strategy as much as possible. I don't want to lose because I didn't notice when my opponent trashed two curses, but I don't want to win that way either. If all players are playing with this view of the game, a point tracker makes the game better for everybody.

Memorization of public information is NOT a strategic aspect of the game (taking into account the difference in players memory skills is a strategic decision, remembering whether you bought 3 duchies or 2 is not).

19

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Salvager CCCS Decision?

« on: October 26, 2011, 08:56:48 am »

Silly me - that's what I get for waiting a day before replying - I completely forget what I'd read.

Now that I've re-read the question, the answer is "it depends on what else is in your deck". If you've already trashed an estate and the rest of your purchases have been silvers, you will be better trashing the copper for a caravan (as the caravan will probably draw a silver+copper, or maybe silver+silver). If you haven't trashed any estates yet, then the gold will increase your deck value more. If the rest of the purchases have been caravans, I'd guess gold is the answer then too.

20

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Salvager CCCS Decision?

« on: October 26, 2011, 03:02:43 am »

CARAVAN? You peoples is crazy.

If this was turn 3, and you opened Silver/salvager your deck is:

CCCCC CCEEE Ss - original avg hand value = 5 * 9/12 = 3.75

trash an estate for a lab, then the chance of having the lab in hand is 5/12. avg treasure value of other cards is 9/11.

avg hand value (estate->lab) = 5/12 * ( 6 * 9 / 11) + (7/12) * ( 5 * 9 / 11 ) = 4.432

trash a silver, gain a gold, instead you've now got an average value of 10/12:

avg hand value (silver->gold) = 5 * 10 / 12 = 4.167

trash a copper, gain a caravan. Odds of a 6 card hand is the same as with lab, but delayed, so it's crappier. But so is your money density, making this the worst option:

avg hand value (copper->van) = 5/12 * ( 6 * 8 / 11) + (7/12) * (5 * 8 / 11) = 3.940

Lab looks like a much better buy, gold passable, caravan silly.

Since this is turn 6, I'll assume instead you've just been pumping silver into your deck, so your starting deck is:

CCCCC CCEEE SSSSs - avg hand value = 5 * 15/15 = 5

avg hand value (estate->lab) = 5/15 * ( 6 * 15/14) + (10/15) * ( 5 * 15/14) = 5.7142
avg hand value (silver->gold) = 5 * 16/15 = 5.3333
avg hand value (copper->van) = 5/15 * ( 6 * 14/14) + (10/15) * ( 5 * 14/14) = 5.3333

or maybe, you've trashed an estate, but still only got silver:

CCCCC CCEE SSSSs - avg hand value = 5 * 15/14 = 5.357

avg hand value (estate->lab) = 5/14 * ( 6 * 15/13) + (10/14) * ( 5 * 15/13) = 6.593
avg hand value (silver->gold) = 5 * 16/14 = 5.714
avg hand value (copper->van) = 5/14 * ( 6 * 14/13) + (10/14) * ( 5 * 14/13) = 6.153


This all assumes for simplicity that salvager doesn't help your hand value. That's not true, so the figures won't be exact. But doing the math of estate collisions is too much for right now, and each of the salvager turns involves the same cascading math problem, but salvager's value is going to be increased by having a wider variety (bigger hand) of things to trash.

In short: trash estate, get a lab. There's corner cases, but you won't go wrong with lab.

21

Dominion General Discussion / Re: [spoiler] Full Hinterlands card list

« on: October 25, 2011, 09:06:44 pm »

I've always been a fan of the ironworks + great hall/island trick, but getting highways to let you pull it with nobles is pretty sweet, especially once you start drawing nobles with it to play even more highways and ironworks your way through the provinces (well... only two before the game three-piled on nobles/highways/ironworks, but that'll do).

22

Game Reports / Re: Dear My Opponent: I am Sorry

« on: October 21, 2011, 02:06:10 am »

I'm sorry that I bought the first possession... and then proceeded to buy 5 further possessions, mainly with your hands. Thankyou for sticking through that as long as you did.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/20/game-20111020-230303-2a0f42d4.html

23

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Turn 2 Gold

« on: October 20, 2011, 02:16:44 am »

Fine, if you're going to put other players into the mix, how about a turn 2 colony in a 4 player game (same technique gives platinum in 3p)? (And nobody has to have an aneurysm).

Player 1 -> Noble Brigand
  -> Player 4 discards 2 estates, gains copper, now has deck/discard is CCC/EEC
Player 2 -> Council Room
  -> Draws councilroom
Player 3 -> Council Room
  -> Draws councilroom
Player 4 -> Coppersmith
  -> Draws CCC, reshuffle, C + Coppersmith

Player 1 -> Does nothing
Player 2 -> Plays council room
  -> Player 4 draws Copper
Player 3 -> Plays council room
  -> Player 4 draws Copper
Player 4 -> Plays Coppersmith + 6 copper, Buys Colony

24

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Turn 2 Gold

« on: October 20, 2011, 12:56:38 am »

Turn 3 Platinum:
ECCCC -> Nomad Camp
nc + EECC -> Fools Gold x 2
nc + fg + fg + c + c -> Platinum

25

Dominion General Discussion / Re: [spoiler] Full Hinterlands card list

« on: October 18, 2011, 02:27:25 am »

Just played a game with throne room + scheme on the board, which is pretty nice - the doubled scheme lets you put both the scheme and throne room back so you can do that forever for +2 actions and a full hand at the start of every turn until you hit another action worth throning instead.

Double Kings Court + Scheme would be pretty awesome too - the scheme would let you put both kings courts and the scheme back on deck, so you can be king's courting something else every turn and that something else will be chosen from 5 non scheme/KC cards in hand. So you'd be able to put a double kings-court deck together without trashing.

Edit: Kings Court + Scheme + Masq leads to a fairly fast pin - you don't even necessarily need a discarder. The extra actions from the KC'd scheme let you keep some money actions in your deck so you can have an intact economy after you've finished trashing his deck. So even if he manages to struggle along towards a 3-pile ending with a two-card hand, you'll have the cash in hand to ramp back up your VP's.