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126

GokoDom / GokoDom II: Alternate elimination discussion

« on: July 23, 2013, 06:01:53 am »

suggestion - Once you get to 8 players for a top 8, I'd prefer it if #1 is allowed to select an opponent from the other 7 players. Then the highest unselected player (probably #2) chooses someone, and then once more. This system prevents players to ever want to lose/draw a round to positively affect their schedule in the playoffs.
(without this suggestion - suppose you know that #2 is much stronger then #1, then you'd rather end up #8 then #7, or something weird like that. You could also rather be #2 then #1)

I'm not sure what you mean here; you're suggesting that this would happen after the top 8 were determined?

Yes. Quite exactly that.

127

Game Reports / my worst game

« on: July 09, 2013, 04:17:09 am »

I don't know why, I just felt like posting my worst game of last month.
In case you're wondering: no, I don't have any plan here. No chance of winning either.

128

Game Reports / Hermit gains hermit

« on: July 05, 2013, 09:17:59 am »

Just 2 games with some nice hermit tricks... and madmans are way too obvious

In this game my goal was to deplete the hermits pile, while using the trashing to destroy hunting grounds and buy out the rest of the estates for a 3-pile.

And here the point was to get my Cities powered up so I could buy multiple components. In the meanwhile hermits could trash hermits so they wouldn't flood my deck.
Funny thing about the last game is that my opponent opened with hermit/hermit, but turned out to play mostly BigMoney-X. I gained lots and lots of cards during the game, but I opened Monument/Silver.

129

Game Reports / When to start greening against KC rabble?

« on: June 25, 2013, 10:57:47 am »

Yesterday I went for a KC Rabble engine with only a few minor problems:
There was no +buy, and my opponent got rid of all his estates using islands.

I must admit he got an impressive lead that really scared me, but hey, no worries.
You just can't green against KC rabble. No, really.

130

Game Reports / Herald: village idiot 2.0 ?

« on: June 15, 2013, 07:48:52 am »

The kingdom:

$5: Tribute, Festival, Explorer
$4: Bridge, Herald, Horse Traders, Navigator, Remodel
$3: Village, Oasis

I just have to try out every new Guilds card I see, so I played the Herald stack vs Navigator-BM with late Explorer match here.
Strategic question to answer before you look at the log: does the engine overcome the lack of draw and end with a megaturn or will BM just have a good laugh at the Village Idiot?

log

131

Rules Questions / bad (Dutch) translations & rules

« on: May 10, 2013, 06:58:22 am »

I played some games IRL yesterday and we played two games which included our Dutch version of Dark Ages.
My friend tried to make an engine going around certain cards which failed miserably and I won one with a Silk Roads slog and one with a Gardens slog.
Not playing on Goko, I still don't really know these cards by heart, but I started wondering about them anyway.
They didn't make too much sense and were really hard to get going.

Checking the English version on DS.com, it turned out they made some horrible mistakes translating.
Urchin in Dutch is called "Straatjongen". It gives you +1 kaart, +1 aanschaf. (+1 card, +1 buy). The english version gives you +1 card, +1 action.
The Dutch version is really hard to activate.

Rogue in Dutch is called "Schurk". It's not that impressive in English already, but the Dutch version is a lot worse. The "other" is missing: "If there are any cards in the trash costing from $3 to $6, gain one of them. Otherwise, each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes one of them costing from $3 to $6, and discards the rest."
That was really strange, his Rogue destroyed his own silver, the next turn he could get it back, and I was saved for two turns without doing anything.

I tried to find anything on this on the web but came up empty. So I have some questions:

• Did they correct this in later prints? Anybody else who owns "Donkere Middeleeuwen"? Did you notice the same mistakes?
• I'm not sure if Donald ever made a ruling about bad translations, but how should we execute these cards in the future?
• Back at home I'll probably just take a pen and correct them, but what in a tournament setting? (Dutch National Championship is coming up, and we'll play with Dutch cards)

132

General Discussion / a fascinating puzzle game

« on: April 06, 2013, 06:12:11 am »

Hi everyone,


One of my friends designed a 'puzzle game'. I don't really know what to call it. It has to do with directing balls around a grid, starting out with some simple puzzle levels and slowly turning into more and more complex state-machine computer science problems. At first it was just an idea in his head but now he made a client where you can actually play, and I've really enjoyed play(test)ing it. It also has a nice competitive element, because solving the problem with less components is considered better. Basically I'm now looking for some competition on the highscore-board

I could talk a lot longer about it but there's not much point compared to having a look at http://xorballs.dskl.net.
If you try it out, please let me know what you think...

133

Puzzles and Challenges / Something is missing

« on: March 23, 2013, 08:46:00 am »

Hint: it's a dominion implementation.

OK, this isn't a particularly hard one to solve, but it does really hurt.

134

Game Reports / and with my first $6 I buy... a Spy

« on: January 19, 2013, 06:07:20 pm »

I just played a game with this set:

Baron, Counting House, Fool's Gold, Grand Market, Haven, Jester, Loan, Noble Brigand, Spy, and Trading Post.

I opened 5/2 and my opponent 4/3, which is really really unfair here. The game was sort of immediately over, so that's not what this post is about.
I can play Trading Post into Grand Market, and WW just can not. Dominion isn't always fair, especially if you look at a single game. But oh well, I was on the short end of a 5/2 opening a game later and losing to that.

However, in this game, the play I'm proud of is on turn 6, where I get to $6 for the first time (unfortunately with coppers).
In my opinion, the best buy is now a Spy. Second best buy would be nothing.

I don't want to buy a Jester, because if I flip a fool's gold (not unlikely) I have no clue who to give it to. But I guess it would be an option after a few spies, because inserting a few curses/extra coppers into his deck is also quite good.
I don't want to buy a gold, because all that I'm interested in is increasing the frequency of my Trading Post. And once I start drawing Grand Markets, I want to draw them all, not some silly gold that's in the way.
I don't want a second Trading Post, because they would only clash and annoy each other by taking the spot of a copper/estate that wants to be trashed.

135

Dominion Articles / Dominion Academy, game #1

« on: January 07, 2013, 12:06:27 pm »

Welcome to the Dominion Academy, something new I'm trying out. The idea is that you look at the kingdom for a while and try to come up with an answer to the first question. Then compare to my answer and go on with the next question. How extensive your own answer is, is all up to you. My hope is to bring this beyond the actual game and more about the set.

Without further ado, this is the kingdom for game#1:
$6:  Grand Market, Fairgrounds
$5:  Mine
$4:  Farming Village, Mining Village, Ironworks
$3:  Scheme, Woodcutter
$2:  Courtyard, Cellar
Looking at these cards, two possible strategies come to mind: engine or BigMoney.

Why would you play BigMoney and not engine?
1. Courtyard. Courtyard-BM is a very strong BM variant.
2. The engine player may have some fancy cards, but nothing that hurts you, no attacks or even pseudo-attacks.
3. No possibility to get rid of the initial 10 cards.
4. Courtyard is the only card increasing handsize, netting only +1 card.

Why would you play engine and not BigMoney?
1. Mine into Grand Market. It will take a while, but eventually this will have incredible power. This time is provided by:
2. Fairgrounds. Fairgrounds implies you have time until they pick up province #8 in stead of #5, which should be about 7 extra turns. Really huge.
3. Ironworks allows you to pick up components easily
4. Scheme. Scheme is very helpful in 'village/smithy' variant draw decks (cheaper), opposed to 'lab/lab' variants (more expensive but reliable all by itself).
5. Farming Village. Courtyard is lousy for draw in engines, but farming village compensates a little bit (put back your estate and continue with the village)
6. Two piles of villages. You'll need lots of villages, but because you have two piles you won't have to get a pile dangerously low.
7. Cellar. Handle with care, because this card can easily destroy you if you overbuy it. A single Cellar can be strong though.

Which strategy do you expect to be better on this board?
Courtyard-BM. It hurts a bit to say this, but the engine is probably too weak. No destruction and no attacks is really bad.

When playing Courtyard-BigMoney, are any other cards in the kingdom of interest? How does this depend on your opponents strategy?
Yes. A single Ironworks is at the very least interesting. In the mirror it's doubtful because the game will be very fast and getting early golds is important. The game against the engine will be longer and unless your start is very lucky it will be worth it for sure. If you draw it together with a Courtyard you can either gain another Courtyard or place the Ironworks back. Gaining a Silver still nets you $1. By the time you need to buy out the last (or two) provinces, maybe even a mining village is worth it for the sacrificing option.

When playing the engine, how many Ironworks do you want? How many Mines? Does it depend on the opponents strategy?
At the very least you want one of both, and you want them asap. In the mirror match I think I want a second Ironworks and stick with the single Mine. This game will be much shorter, piles will run out anyway, and I'd better make sure I have the majority share. In the matchup against BigMoney, I think I prefer only one Ironworks and a second Mine. My objective is quite the opposite: I need to prevent a 3-pile at all costs, and as long as I'm not too greedy myself I can do that. Instead I need to prepare for taking a lot of points in the endgame. If I can get to Grand Markets a little sooner this way, they will be at least as effective in picking up components as multiple Ironworks.

So... the game starts and your opponent just bought a Silver for $3. You expect him to go BigMoney. What strategy do you choose? And what do you open with?
No. No No No. You don't have to choose now at all. I'd open Silver/Courtyard both in BigMoney and the engine. In BigMoney this should be obvious, getting $6 is your first priority and an early Ironworks doesn't help that at all. But even in the engine I want the extra Silver. Because draw is so bad here, and I can't destroy any cards, it will take a long time before I start drawing my deck anyway. Until then I'll just have to do with some power cards. So getting a Mine quick is super important. Praying for $5 without buying any silvers is really asking for trouble. Plus delaying the choice on the strategy is very helpful. I may really want to play an engine, but secretly I also know courtyard-BM is probably better. If my turn 3 draws are much better then my opponents, I can still switch back to grabbing the gold and play Courtyard-BigMoney mirror. A year ago I would have opened Ironworks/Courtyard on boards like this for sure, and I can still respect that, but now I'm more into the metagame.

You went first, opened Silver/Courtyard planning to go BigMoney, and get the perfect draw: $6 on turn 3 without even using the Courtyard. That's a gold for sure. On turn 4 you play the Courtyard and draw all 3 Estates, 3 Coppers and your Silver. What do you put back? What do you buy?
You put the silver back and buy another Courtyard. Don't buy Silver or Ironworks now. If you get $6 for a Gold on turn 5 again you're on fire, and in retrospect you made the right choice on t4. If you don't get to $6, you will get to $4 for sure so still have your options open.

You started out playing Courtyard-BigMoney, and notices your opponent going engine. How do you respond? If you hit $6 or $7 without coppers, do you get a Grand Market? Do you contest Fairgrounds?
If your opponent goes engine, you should realize you need to buy 8 provinces in stead of the usual 4 (5). So you continue getting golds quite a bit longer then usual. Maybe pick up 5-6 golds first, and I guess a Grand Market won't hurt in this stage. Buying Fairgrounds or Duchies is pointless (in every but the literal meaning). The only thing you need to worry about is ending the game before the engine kicks into fifth gear, and your only hope to do so is depleting the Provinces. If you're in time you win, if you're not you lose.

In the actual game... my opponent got the perfect draw I described above. That also robbed (pun intended) me of all plans of playing Courtyard-BM myself. By turn 5 it was clear I went engine but "unfortunately" he didn't adapt properly. He bought a Province on turn 5 in stead of a second Gold, an Ironworks on turn 6 in stead of a third Gold, and a Mining Village on turn 8 in stead of a fifth Gold. After that he didn't focus on the Provinces, and by the time I decided it was time to green I was only 0-3 provinces behind. That didn't take long to overcome. It requires a bit of discipline to follow the much simpler 'lots of Golds into lots of Provinces' plan, ignoring all the shiny engine parts. But that's the kind of discipline that can make a great BigMoney player, and on these early draws I'm convinced it would have been winning.


Questions for you:

• Is it fun to answer the questions yourself first? Or do you just skip that and should I drop the spoiler tags? Should I post the kingdom first, more like an annotated game?
• Did you learn anything?
• Do you agree with my analysis of the game? I know I'm pretty high on the leaderboard, but don't let that scare you. I'm convinced I still make many many mistakes and have a lot to learn.

136

Game Reports / Develop Dream

« on: January 06, 2013, 09:23:39 am »

I start loving Develop more and more. In most games I use it as a very simple card. The following two make it well worth the investment in many engines, and are often the only plays I do with it:

• estate -> topdeck a Silver, or some other $3 card.
• copper-be-gone

Especially useful in decks that care about being thin or removing ugly starting cards for other reasons (Scrying Pool, Apothecary, Highway (although tricky with the copper-be-gone), Grand Market, any other unreliable but strong engines)
However, once in a while you meet a kingdom where develop can be used in other ways too. I tend to consider that pure bonus, and almost never buy Develop with such plans. But then I met this kingdom:

Cellar, Develop, Forge, King's Court, Mine, Mining Village, Moat, Noble Brigand, Rabble, and Trader

I opened 5/2 and started Mine/Cellar, against a Develop/Trader start. I must say I like my opponents start much better, and also his plays on the first couple of turns. He gets ahead, and his lead becomes almost significant enough to start copper flooding me with KC Brigand. On his last turn he plays both KC-Brigand and KC-Forge, forging into 3 more provinces for a 5-1 lead. So I was 24 points behind, with two provinces to go. In a kingdom without +buy that's quite a mission. One of my golds was just stolen (but got 2 coppers back) and I had only 1 develop. Fortunately I had a good hand (KC KC rabble) and two more KC in my deck. They ultimately enable me to play 9 develops that turn for the win

137

Game Reports / A surprising kingdom

« on: January 01, 2013, 09:44:05 am »

At the start of a game I just played, I felt pretty lost on what to do. And that already made it a good kingdom . I'll talk you through, using spoiler tags allowing you to come up with answers for yourself first if you feel like it.

This was the kingdom (no colonies):
$7: Expand
$6: Farmland
$5: City, Duke, Treasury, Vault
$4: Ironworks, Bureaucrat, Nomad Camp
$3: Masquerade

What initial thoughts come to mind when looking at this kingdom?
Duke is the first card that springs out to me. Even when I don't want to play Duke myself, with only Farmland and no chips, there is just no way I can completely ignore it. Besides, it has some good support in the silver-gainers Bureaucrat and Ironworks. Vault could be good because even when everything is green Vault will still get you up to $5.

Any viable alternatives?
I always at least look for an engine. At some point this engine will be very strong, but it looks like a ton of work to get there. Basically you need a lot of Cities and some Expands, and then it will only work after a pile runs out, and they both cost a lot. However - one bit of good news is that Masquerade and Treasury are the perfect cards for engines that require expensive cards soon. I will have to contest Duchies, which is both bad news (bad cards in my deck) and good news (a likely candidate for an empty pile). Besides, with both Expand and Farmland, those Duchies don't have to be in there forever.

Which plan do you like more? This game was played without identical starting hands - could 4/3 or 5/2 affect your decision in any way? P1 or P2?
My guts told me going for Duchies with some silver gainers would be dominating on any start. But my opponent bought a Bureaucrat for $4 and I looked at a $5 hand. I could off course try to fight his Bureaucrat/Silver start with Bureaucrat/-, but already being player 2 I really didn't like that. Vault looked bad too because it just comes too early. I need those Silver gainers first and maybe then a Vault. Besides Vault also helps him. So in the end... I felt somewhat lost and picked up a Treasury.

Then the game really started... Both my opponent and I had $5 without any actions on our turn 3. What would you get?
Already having a Bureaucrat, he got his first Duchy. Turn 3 may look early, but in a game that looks like it's going to be all about the Duchy split I can't really disagree. I picked up a City, which at the time looked a lot worse - investing $5 in a card that literally does nothing in my current deck. On turn 4 we both had $3 (as could be expected) and he got a Silver while I got a Masquerade

Then he continued his hunt for Duchies, while I had to choose between building up an engine and contesting them. At what point would you buy Duchies here in the engine?
I told myself I'd be lost on a 2-6 split, and expected to have a good chance on 3-5. Even thought he had already 3 Duchies in his deck by turn 6, that meant I still had quite some time to develop first. No way that he could just continue Duchies straight after buying so much early green. So I first picked up another Masquerade, another City, and a gold. On turn 8 I got my first Duchy, and with him missing $5 on turns 7 & 8 the Expand on turn 9 was easy choice. On his turn 11 he got the last Duchy, having only 5 as I hoped for.

How do you think it will go from here?
Well with level 2 cities it was pretty easy sailing for the engine, and 5 Duchies were not even close to being a threat. In hindsight 6 wouldn't have been a problem either. The reason why it was so clear cut was still a bit surprising. I bought a Bureaucrat for myself, and a bit later a second. Playing those every single turn almost got his deck to a full stop. I even could have annoyed him more by downgrading the free silver into a curse and masquerade it over, but there was no need to. In the end it was a very clear-cut victory for a strategy I was somewhat forced into by my draws but would never have taken voluntarily. Now I'm sure I want to go engine on this board no matter how we start. At the end of this sentence you'll find the log.

138

Game Reports / crazy Goons game

« on: December 23, 2012, 09:04:26 am »

I just played a pretty weird Goons game, maybe the weirdest one I've played yet. The set was randomly generated by iso, but I would have easily believed someone claiming this was his kingdom design contest entry.

Colony, Goons, Inn, Jack of All Trades, Masquerade, Mint, Monument, Oracle, Platinum, Rabble, Remake, and Scheme.

With only Inn generating actions, rabble wasn't going to give you enough cards to play a really big goons turn. Schemes were gone instantly, so after the inns run out 3-pile ending is constantly luring; too early for setting up a real megaturn. But maybe just maybe Jack could handle that better? I decided to give it a try. So no real power-goons scoring a zillion points in a single turn, but with 1-3 goons in play every turn in a very long game it adds up. To clean up after Jacks silver trail, mint could get them all at once, or maybe masq & remake can help out? Masq after Goons is good almost always.

My opponent played a more money-centered strategy with goons for extra points and discard attacks, getting 5-0 colonies lead in the end. I scored almost all my points from goons.
Anyway... this game went really long. I bought coppers for points for the first time on turn 18. And the game would go on for 12 more turns after that, only ending due to jack running out the silvers (!).

here is the game log.

In hindsight I wasn't too happy with my start; I fell behind pretty quickly. The opening of scheme/jack could have worked here very well, but the I really shouldn't have added remake later on. Either get a remake turn 1, or don't get it at all, but what I did here was just refusing to choose and that in general is a bad plan in Dominion.

Still, it was a great game to play. I miscounted the score (why oh why do I have to play a game like this without the point counter? ) and we both were so dazzled at the end that neither of us noticed the silvers running low until my final jack put a big red cross on them.

139

Game Reports / One year

« on: December 19, 2012, 10:05:07 am »

Today it's exactly one year ago I found out someone implemented Dominion online.
Plus... today I found out Councilroom is back up again. Hurray!

A nice moment to look up the craziest last-turn-comeback I ever had.
It's a game dating from February, against Marin when he was still called marin.

This game features an early ambassador war, and reading through the log now I can only conclude that I just didn't get the point of these wars back then.
I neglect to return two coppers on my turn 3, and from there on it goes somewhat downhill.

On his turn 11 marin decides it's time to pick up a curse and start 'explaining' to me why it's bad to lose ambassador wars.
I somewhat manage to keep my deck thin, greatly helped by Spice Merchant. But I don't come even close to matching his buildup in power.

On his turn 21 he prepares to end it on the next turn, by bringing the Cities to level 2. Not a bad plan because he owns 4 Cities to my 1, 3 golds to my 1 and a lot less nonsense in his deck (1 Ambassador in stead of 2 Ambassadors, a Spice Merchant, 1 Estate and 2 Curses). 8 curses in the supply, 2 in my deck and no buying power for me... what could possibly go wrong?

And then... well... a very last turn

140

Game Reports / Almost

« on: December 16, 2012, 05:49:35 pm »

I played lots of game today and lost even more. Well, that's probably not exactly true but I sure lost a lot.
Most of the time due to playing "sub-optimal" (gotta love the euphemism), but one of them was funny: the well known village/potion opening.

The good thing about being lvl 50 is that my opponent doesn't immediately start laughing at me in the chat.
However, the bad news is that it still doesn't work.

But, as the title says... almost

141

Dominion Articles / Playing engines - Take the long way home

« on: December 09, 2012, 05:19:09 pm »

When playing engine against engine, thinking about the end conditions of the game is very important. Piles will usually run low, and maybe I can sneak out a victory or need to be very careful my opponent doesn't. At some point I should have a firm idea whether I'm looking for a three-pile or plan to run out the provinces.

However, playing an engine against a BigMoney variant (or a significantly lesser developed engine), there is another possible answer to this question: I don't want the game to end at all. Off course at some point it's inevitable, but I know the longer it takes the better it is for me.

In general, when you build an engine, you invest some turns to get a more powerful deck. The last couple of turns will be your strongest ones. A BigMoney deck has its strongest turns midgame, and their final stage where the deck will slowly start choking on green cards is much longer. So the first and foremost notion is that the concept of choking was built-in into dominion by the legendary Donald X. If they start greening, their deck will get worse all by itself. All I have to help this effect grow.

This immediately brings us to the most effective strategy: If I don't have to buy any Provinces myself, and my opponent can't end it on piles. The effect will be exponential: the 3rd, 4th, 5th or even 6th Province is a lot easier to buy then number 7 or 8. Gaining huge amounts of VP chips is the perfect strategy here, but almost as nice are Fairgrounds and Vineyards. Anything that allows you not to buy Provinces and yet score points will do. Dukes, Silk Roads, Gardens or Colonies are not so hot in this context, because they are a very good option for the BigMoney player too. Harems and Great Halls just aren't worth enough to really make a difference. Nobles aren't so clear.

If your plan is to make them choke due to buying Provinces / greening, do not join them in the Province race. Very carefully calculate the minimum amount of provinces you need yourself, and plan for a big turn where you end the game while buying exactly those (preferably 1 Province).

A completely different plan can be to play a certain attack over and over again. Ghost ship is famous here, but just about anything can work (Militia, Rabble, but even Bureaucrat, Thief & Spy). Saboteur is not in this list, because that usually enables them to end the game on piles. Ghost ship can backfire if they only need one or two more provinces, but if you're a little bit earlier this is the best.

Cards that prevent choking come in different categories.

• Salvager, Remodel and Apprentice allow the BigMoney player to trade provinces for new ones (or just gold for provinces).
• Jack Of All Trades doesn't care much for any attacks you may sling at him. Due to the huge amount of silvers, the deck will never really choke on green either.
• Hoard and Haggler allow the BigMoney player to gain money while buying green.
• Embassy and to some extend Warehouse allow them to keep going on despite a lot of green cards
• Courtyard allows them to pair their golds/silvers to get up to $8

A special star for the engine player is Embargo. I feel this card is quite underplayed in this manner. If you get an early embargo on golds, you'll have a lot more time. After that it can be a pretty lousy engine and still win. Usually an embargoed pile is not that much a problem for the engine player, because he has other ways of acquiring cards then buying them, or ways to get rid of the curses later on.

Making them choke on green can be especially effective against an apothecary deck. More then any others, those decks are very good at buying the first few provinces, but then it stops rather dramatically.

I never mentioned cursers here, even though they have a very clear impact on the speed of the game. Not really at the end though, more at the start or midgame. Therefore I just declare it out-of-scope for this article.

Some sample games

• This is a very clear cut case. I don't need to buy any provinces to gain points, *and* I get to play the horrifying Ghost Ship over and over again.
• In this game my turn 8 buy took me quite a while. I'm faced $8 for the first time and I don't dare to dip into provinces just yet. With both Fairgrounds and Silk Roads on the board, Rabid can make sure this game doesn't end before I eat the entire provinces pile. A turn later, when he actually helps me start the dinner, I decide to go for it anyway. In the discussion after the game we both agree that both his Provinces should have been Fairgrounds, because Silk Roads were more viable for him then for me (still having the starting Estates) and with two hoards to my one he would benefit from the longer game
• Here I take a bit too long to set up my engine. But by staying out of the provinces (even though I really want points and have something like $15 and one buy) I manage to create just enough time to get there.
• Finally in this tournament game I make some mistakes early in the game, but I can use Fairgrounds to take the game really long. He needs to buy a 7th province to win, and that one comes too late.

142

Game Reports / Possession trickery

« on: November 18, 2012, 02:40:54 pm »

Obi Wan and I both claim not to understand Possession and not to like it either. The entire concept of "I want a bad deck" is so much against the nature of the game. I don't play veto a lot, but when I do this card always goes.

Often it just takes up space in the kingdom, because it's way too much trouble picking up. However, this being a colony game without +buy and with some pretty neat engine possibilities clearly meant it was going to be a long game, and possession had to be considered...

I was in denial for a while, building a conspirator engine with a clean deck as though it didn't exist. Cleaning the deck was another mistake btw, because +actions could only be generated by Tribute.

On turn 7 I buy a potion, followed by him on turn 8. We both start controlling each others turns and greening pretty short thereafter.

Still having a remodel in my deck by turn 12 is a mistake, as pointed out by Obi Wan getting two colonies and two provinces on "his" turn. I quickly get rid of it after that.
Another really bad card to have by now is Apprentice, because its so much better for the possessor then for yourself. Can't get rid of them both though. With another double-possession on his turn 15 he gets a very serious lead and I am without much hope.

But then, just in time, it strikes me. The most dangerous card here when possessed is not rebuild or apprentice, but in fact cartographer.

If I control his turn and apprentice the colonies, I draw his entire deck. Not good enough at that point. If I apprentice something worth a bit less, I still get to play cartographers to go through his deck twice. On the first round I discard all the junk and take the actions, and all that I need to do then is triggering a reshuffle. Leaving him with two completely dead turns and the game is mine after all...

Somehow, the next set also had possession and he rejected it


(PS we had some great games today and although I didn't count I think we split them about equal)

143

Game Reports / Jack into Engine

« on: October 22, 2012, 07:14:14 am »

I played this engine game yesterday. The game itself was fun (164 points in 14 turns) but not that special (sort of mirror won by P1), and by now I've had my fair share of goons engines.

So it's not the engine itself that surprised me here, but the effectiveness of starting it up with Jack.
When I opened with Jack here it felt ok but not much more then that. I was even in doubt for a while. Looking back it seems like an uber-must-buy.

It seems like the combination of awkward destruction (Mint & Watchtower), relatively expensive engine components (3, 4, 5, 6) and the explosiveness of the final engine (Goons just does that) combine into making this the perfect Jack board.

On rare occasions I've seen Jack shine in other engines with Spice Merchant and/or Remodel, but all quite pale compared to this.
Maybe he is off-all-trades after all.

144

Dominion General Discussion / Riddle I heard, and came up with a solution for

« on: September 12, 2012, 08:23:39 am »

Suppose you're in a group of 200 people in a room. Everyone is handed out a random unique dominion card (yes they just bought DA).
In the next room, someone put another copy of the same 200 dominion cards in 200 envelopes, one in each.
Now one by one, a person is selected to go to the next room. In that room, he's allowed to look in 100 enveloppes. His task is to find the enveloppe containing his own card.
After looking at cards in enveloppes, this person will always put the cards back, leave the room in exactly the same state as it was before he came in, and leave the scene through the back door. No communication back to the group is allowed whatsoever.

You win if everyone in the group finds his own card. Your goal is to make a plan that maximizes this chance.

You are allowed to make a plan for all of the 200 people before the first one starts, and everyone else will do whatever you suggest. In this plan, you can assume some order on the enveloppes, so your instructions could include something like "open up the first enveloppe", "open up enveloppe 32 - 132" or "open up the first enveloppe, and if it's a card that costs $4 or more continue with enveloppe 67".

The solution has a theoretical upper limit of 50% because the first person has a 50% chance of failing no matter what you come up with. If everyone has a chance of 50%, your total score would only be 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000062%, rather disappointing. How high can you go?

145

Puzzles and Challenges / perfect shuffle luck & first game kingdom

« on: June 09, 2012, 09:53:00 am »

You're playing a solitaire game on the "first game" kingdom. So that's Cellar, Market, Mine, Militia, Moat, Remodel, Smithy, Village, Woodcutter and Workshop. It's your lucky day, so whenever you need to shuffle anything you can just choose the outcome. At the end of which turn can you have 8 provinces in your deck? I get the same number for 5/2 and 4/3 openings.

(note: the goal is 8 provinces in your deck, not depleting provinces)

Nowhere near as fun as an actual game, but hey...
If you have another puzzle waiting, this would be a great day to post it.

146

Dominion Articles / Taking risks & driving the P2 seat

« on: May 27, 2012, 12:26:26 pm »

Suppose we're playing Borinion, a much more boring game then Dominion. Two players, P1 and P2, take consecutive turns. P1 gets to start, and due to the unfair nature of this game it ends after 9 turns. So P1 always gets to make one extra turn. Both players start at 100 points, and every turn they choose...

option A: 60% chance at +3 points, 40% at -3 points
option B: 50% chance at +5 points, 50% at -5 points
option C: 40% chance at +10 points, 60% at -10 points

If you play this game in isolation, it's easy: always option A is best. In fact, it's the only option with a positive mathematical expectation. Simulation over one million games shows that if both players follow this simple minded strategy, P1 will win approximately 555000 vs 445000 (55.5 win% for P1).

However, this game is not about scoring as many points as you can. It's about scoring more points than your opponent. And thus, plans that might look bad at first glance end up being better after all.

Suppose we leave the game plan of P1 what it was ('always go A'), but experiment a bit with P2. If we change it to 'option A when ahead, option B when behind' the win% for P1 drops to 51%. 'option A when ahead, option C when behind' works even better; now P1 only wins 46% of the games. We can improve P2 further by delaying the risky things, and enforcing option A on his first turn (42.5% for P1) or his first two turns (42.1% for P1).

I'm starting to get convinced the optimal strategy is actually quite complex. I think it uses all 3 options, and also includes the 'turns to go' and 'actual point difference' (not just 'am I behind or ahead'). But I won't go into that - I didn't name it Borinion for nothing.

So what does this game teach us about Dominion? Most of all that the optimal strategy always involves your opponent. Even on kingdoms without any attacks, it matters a lot what he's doing and how well he's doing. If you both start out the same, but he has some shuffle luck and you don’t, it's time for crazy things. I he stumbles where you thrive, try to buy safe cards.

It also suggests it’s good to have options. If you create an option B, C or D for yourself to use later on, that choice itself is already good. Engines give you much more options than BigMoney. So in playing engines right, it's not just about 'how can I effectively build this engine in solo play'. It also requires a good feeling/understanding for taking risks. Simulators we use today don't understand it at all, and that may very well be the reason variants of BigMoney strategies do so well in simulation and so poorly in reality.

Opening two terminals isn't all that bad just because they might collide. P1 has no real reason to take this risk, but P2 is already behind at the start. It of course depends on the questions 'how good is it if they don't collide' and 'how bad is it if they do'.

One of my favorites is double Steward, because if they collide I can still get rid of 2 cards. I wasn't going to do much more on a turn with steward without collision anyway. Don't get me wrong - I'm not happy with the collision at all - but it's not a game losing disaster either. And depending on the kingdom, being able to get rid of 4 cards in the first round may very well be winning. As a rule of thumb, opening with two terminals is too soon to take risks though.

It’s not easy to define risky or safe things in general. A safe choice that happens often midgame is adding a little more +actions to your deck than the bare minimum. Another safe choice is to stop playing your engine where you could draw some more cards, just to prevent a reshuffle. Maybe you can put a good card on top for next turn?

Risky things could include adding more cards that require other cards (Baron, Remodel, Forge) or buying slightly too many terminals in general. Village + smithy is more risky than laboratory + laboratory. Swindler has the risk build-in all by himself. So do treasure map and tournament, but they’re not really an addition to a deck - they require building your entire deck around them.

In the endgame it can get quite complex because of the ending conditions of a Dominion game. The most common risky thing is buying the next-to-last province. There is a rule for not doing it, but even if it made you lose, that doesn't automatically say it was a bad thing to buy it. If your deck is not so good, and you're losing the long run for sure, try to sneak out a victory now.

To summarize: constantly figure out whether you’re ahead or behind. If you’re ahead consolidate, if you’re behind make a plan to get back. As player 2, you’re behind when you start - do something with it.