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476
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards essential to infinite loops
« on: April 24, 2020, 01:02:25 pm »
34.   Stockpile

On second thought, I think Stockpile doesn't work, since there's no way to play it again when all of them are in the exile. You can have a total of 55 plays from 10 Stockpiles, but not infinite.

477
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards essential to infinite loops
« on: April 24, 2020, 12:30:45 pm »
Consolidating alphabetically, these are the 42 cards that we can’t do an infinite loop without one of them:

1.   Acting Troupe
2.   Band of Misfits
3.   Bonfire
4.   Captain
5.   Citadel
6.   Counterfeit
7.   Crown
8.   Death Cart
9.   Delve
10.   Disciple
11.   Engineer
12.   Experiment
13.   Forum
14.   Gamble
15.   Horn of Plenty
16.   Horse
17.   Inheritance
18.   King’s Court
19.   Madman
20.   Magic Lamp
21.   Mandarin
22.   Mining Village
23.   Mint
24.   Overlord
25.   Pillage
26.   Pixie
27.   Procession
28.   Pursue
29.   Raze
30.   Scepter
31.   Scouting Party
32.   Small Castle
33.   Spoils
34.   Stockpile
35.   Throne Room
36.   Toil
37.   Travelling Fair
38.   Urchin
39.   Way of the Butterfly
40.   Way of the Horse
41.   Way of the Mouse
42.   Wish

Of course, if someone find a single infinite loop without these cards this theory would be ruinned, but at first I think it’s impossible.

478
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards essential to infinite loops
« on: April 24, 2020, 11:52:38 am »

Therefore I also think that infinite loops "that accomplish something" are only possible with infinite plays or infinite buys. So you need either one of the "Cards that remove cards from play" (together with a way to get the removed cards back to play again) or one of the "Cards that can be bought repeatedly" (together with a cost decrease to $0 or a way to also get the infinite money required) for any infinite loop.

I Think you’re right about not all the features I’ve listed make possible infinite plays or buys . Return phases, play actions in buy phase, remove cards from trash or return to pile can’t do the trick by itself, you still need to remove cards from play when played.

However, make an action play or a treasure play that doesn’t put a card in play area is similar to play a card and remove it from play, so I think it works.

Considering this, the list of features of infinite-loop enablers and respective cards (including Mining Village that I forgot in the first list) would be:

Cards that remove cards from play
Mining Village
Mint
Horn of Plenty
Mandarin
Urchin
Pillage
Procession
Death Cart
Counterfeit
Madman
Spoils
Raze
Bonfire
Engineer
Small Castle
Pixie
Wish
Acting Troupe
Magic Lamp
Experiment
Stockpile
Horse
Way of the Butterfly
Way of the Horse

Cards that make at least one action play that doesn’t put a card in play area
Throne Room
King’s Court
Procession
Band of Misfits
Disciple
Inheritance (Inherited Estates do it)
Overlord
Crown
Scepter
Citadel
Captain
Way of the Mouse

Cards that make at least one treasure play that doesn’t put a card in play area
Counterfeit
Crown

Cards that can be bought repeatedly
Forum
Scouting Party
Travelling Fair
Delve
Gamble
Pursue
Toil

479
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards essential to infinite loops
« on: April 24, 2020, 03:22:21 am »
For a lot of loops, the key is being able to remove things from play, such as with Mandarin or Bonfire, so that they can be played again.

Yeah! Unless I’m mistaken, the only two voluntary acts a player can do for herself, without specific command from cards or situation, are “play” and “buy”. These two acts are the driving force of the game. So maybe the loop enablers in a strict sense are just the cards which establish a game state in which infinite plays or infinite buys are possible.

I will try to list the features of infinite-loop enablers and the cards that have these features. I think these are the features that make possible infinite plays or infinite buys of the same copy of a card. If it’s right, we wouldn’t be able to make an infinite loop without one of these cards.

I'm not sure if the list is complete, please tell me if I forgot some card with a certain feature or some other feature that enables infinite plays or buys.   

Cards that return phases
Villa
Cavalry

Cards that allow play actions in buy phase
Capitalism
Gamble
Toil
March
Scepter

Cards that remove cards from play
Mint
Horn of Plenty
Mandarin
Urchin
Pillage
Procession
Death Cart
Counterfeit
Madman
Spoils
Raze
Bonfire
Engineer
Small Castle
Pixie
Wish
Acting Troupe
Magic Lamp
Experiment
Stockpile
Horse
Way of the Butterfly
Way of the Horse

Obs:
- Cards that go to Tavern Mat remove themselves from play, but only when played, not when called, so they can’t be played repeatedly
- Knights can be removed from play, but it depends on the opponent deck
- Encampment also can leaves play area, but returns to the game only in clean-up phase
- Monastery, Changeling, Vampire and Bat remove cards from play, but only in the night phase
- Improve remove cards from play, but already in the clean-up phase

Cards that remove cards from the trash
Lurker
Fortress
Graverobber
Rogue
Treasurer

Cards that return cards to pile
Ambassador
Madman
Spoils
Wish
Experiment
Horse
Way of the Butterfly
Way of the Horse

Obs: Encampment also do it, but only in clean-up phase

Cards that make at least one action play that doesn’t put a card in play area
Throne Room
King’s Court
Procession
Band of Misfits
Disciple
Inheritance (Inherited Estates do it)
Overlord
Crown
Scepter
Citadel
Captain
Way of the Mouse

Obs:
- Innovation can do it, but only once per turn
- Royal Carriage can do it, but only once per turn for each copy of it
- Necromancer can do it, but only once per turn for each card in the trash
- Mastermind and Ghost do it, but only in your next turn

Cards that make at least one treasure play that doesn’t put a card in play area
Counterfeit
Crown

Cards that can be bought repeatedly
Forum
Scouting Party
Travelling Fair
Delve
Gamble
Pursue
Toil

480
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards essential to infinite loops
« on: April 23, 2020, 09:35:50 pm »
For a lot of loops, the key is being able to remove things from play, such as with Mandarin or Bonfire, so that they can be played again.

Yeah! Unless I’m mistaken, the only two voluntary acts a player can do for herself, without specific command from cards or situation, are “play” and “buy”. These two acts are the driving force of the game. So maybe the loop enablers in a strict sense are just the cards which establish a game state in which infinite plays or infinite buys are possible.

Mandarin and Bonfire are examples of the first case, Forum and Delve of the second. 

481
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards essential to infinite loops
« on: April 22, 2020, 10:29:48 pm »
In fact, the elements of an infinite loop seem to be four:

-   Something that allow repetitions of acts, like +buy on buy of Forum
-   Something that remove the costs (in $, actions, cards or buys) of each repetition, like Highway in this case, or something that produces the payload for it at each iteration
-   Something that prevents the repetitions from stop, like Trader effect of giving a silver or an inexistent silver, keeping intact Forum pile.
-   Something that make each iteration productive, like Goons effect in cards buy.

(edited to change "Goons effect in cards gain" to  "Goons effect in cards buy")

482
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards essential to infinite loops
« on: April 22, 2020, 09:47:40 pm »
In the Forum – Trader – Highway – Goons loop the element that create infinity is in Forum, the +buy on buy, like in some events like Delve. This feature is what allows infinite acts of the player. Trader and Goons react to these infinite acts and Highway only enable them removing money constraints.

Maybe the three elements are necessary to an infinite loop, create infinite acts, react to them and remove constraints, but the essential feature seems to be the first.

So, maybe we can list the cards that change the game this way, allowing infinite acts.  Of course, excluding the case of unproductive repetitive acts, like Moat do.

483
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards essential to infinite loops
« on: April 22, 2020, 09:01:22 pm »
Well partly we need to define how simple an infinite loop is allowed to be. Simply having Moat along with any attack card can create an infinite loop of revealing Moat forever. Though you could also be slightly more creating by revealing Secret Chamber and changing around your hand forever.

If you mean an infinite loop in which you gain at least some value out of performing the action forever, then you have a pretty simply one with Forum, Highway (or any cost reduction), Trader, and Goons (or Merchant Guild).

Other than that, most infinite loops involve King's Court; removing that eliminates a lot of possibilities. The most recent version of "Empty the Supply on Turn 1" that we had relied on several different specific cards; although doesn't work with the new Band of Misfits errata.

So basically, there's no simple answer to this question; you would have to remove a lot of different cards in order to have no infinite loops left.
There is no definite answer to this, because some cards only cause infinite loops in a combination with others (Forum + Trader is a simple example).  We can come up with some smallest set, but it won't be unique.

Thank you.

Maybe I can make the question in a different way. Which are the features of the cards that make possible to them create an infinite loop?

For instance, all the cards in the loop Forum – Trader – Highway – Goons have an under the line effect. In general, I think no infinite loop would be possible without cards or landscapes with effects that break the vanilla rules of the game for targeted cards and a trigger condition. It’s right?

484
Dominion General Discussion / Cards essential to infinite loops
« on: April 22, 2020, 07:43:20 pm »
Which are all the cards and landscapes in Dominion that are essential to make infinite loops? I mean, the ones that if you remove them from the game no infinite loop would be possible.

485
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Challenge: Maximum VPs against the bots
« on: April 22, 2020, 07:28:13 pm »
Pretty amusing challenge!

I have an infinite solution here. I tried to make it as quick as possible in clicking time, but I made the mistake of using a ruins pile instead of a pile of all the same cards, which would have made it easier to click.

There's a quirk in the bots that makes it relatively easy to lock them -- as far as I know, they always discard to Torturer as long as there are curses left. So if you can play 3 a turn, they'll never take turns, then you can Witch them to make sure they get to negative points. After that, you get all the time in the world to do your combo, and there are infinite ones.

Here's a screenshot of mine:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/643886239233081366/702629645656391720/Screen_Shot_2020-04-22_at_2.18.44_PM.png

Very nice job!

It’s cool how Way of the Horse makes the game infinite and at the same time prevents your deck from any clogged hand, even with a lot of terminals.

Did you ever use Stonemason and Apothecary or they aren’t part of your solution?

Since it´s easy to block the bots (Is there another way besides using Torturer?) and it removes time constraint, making the challenge almost equivalent to “how to make infinite VPs”, maybe we can add a new rule to it: you can’t pin the bots in a situation intrinsically useless.

486
Puzzles and Challenges / Challenge: Maximum VPs against the bots
« on: April 22, 2020, 12:51:30 pm »
Hi, everybody. I’m new in these forums and this is my first post.

I’m from Brazil, so please excuse me about any mistakes in my writing.

First of all, thanks Donald for this wonderful game.

In normal times, I play a lot of Dominion IRL with my friends. I never played online before this quarantine, but now it’s the solution.

Playing with the bots, I proposed myself this challenge: how many VPs can I do in a real game against them without the bots make any single point?

These are the rules of the challenge:

- Three players game, you against two bots
- You may choose the entire setup from all expansions: all kingdom cards, up to four landscape cards, colonies or not, shelters or not
- You may choose player's order
- You may restart the game until you have luckier draws on first 4 turns
- On scoring, the bots must end up with zero VPs or negative

The best I could do was this:



However, I think you, more advanced players than me, can do a lot better. I don’t know, maybe you already know an almost infinite loop you can line up before the bots get $8 in hand and buy a province. I’d like to see your results.

I will post later the cards and landscapes I used. By now, how many of them can you guess?

Thank you very much.

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