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Dominion Isotropic / Re: Attention-whoring thread.... I did it!!
« on: May 04, 2012, 09:21:17 am »
40!
That's Numberwang!
That's Numberwang!
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27
Council Room Feedback / Feature suggestion: Add date to game logs
« on: May 03, 2012, 05:02:01 pm »
When trying to find a game, I often know I played with a card or cards and roughly when I played the game. If I just search for my name and the card, I may end up with dozens of potential matches to weed through. A date would help narrow that down. Even better would be to allow searching by date.
I think a date would be sufficient, as opposed to a date/time, because (a) I don't think date/time information is available from isotropic, and (b) date/time information could potentially be incriminating
I think a date would be sufficient, as opposed to a date/time, because (a) I don't think date/time information is available from isotropic, and (b) date/time information could potentially be incriminating
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« on: May 03, 2012, 02:26:29 pm »And I even played a game yesterday where I avoided the Mutes and got crushed by an opponent who went for them (I think it was ehunt in fact), so it's not like this is all esoteric knowledge that only I know.Link
I assume that's the one? "Crushed" is a strong word, but interesting game nonetheless.
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Rules Questions / Re: Haggler - Buying cards with Potion cost
« on: May 03, 2012, 01:35:02 pm »
Ugh, I just tested in solitaire and it works fine. I'd swear it didn't work when we played this game. I'm not sure what happened, but never mind this.
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Rules Questions / Re: Haggler - Buying cards with Potion cost
« on: May 03, 2012, 01:31:54 pm »You should be allowed to gain a $2P card from buying a $3P card, I think. Also, it is correct that if you buy a $3P card you can get a $3 card since $3 < $3 + P.
It would make sense if I could take a $3 card or a $2p card. What doesn't make sense is being able to take a $3 card but not a $2p card. Maybe it's a bug?
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Rules Questions / (Resolved) Haggler - Buying cards with Potion cost
« on: May 03, 2012, 01:23:09 pm »
This came up in a game on Isotropic yesterday. The supply contained Familiar and Scrying Pool. I had a Haggler in play. I bought a Familiar assuming I could gain a Scrying Pool, since $2p costs less than $3p. I was a little unsure of the rule, though, and thought Isotropic may force me to take a $2 card. In fact, it did neither. Instead, it allowed me to gain a card costing up to $3, which makes no sense to me.
What's the rule and reasoning behind this? Do any other cards behave this way?
* edit - as mentioned below, gaining a Scrying Pool does work (tested in solitaire). I'm not sure what happened.
What's the rule and reasoning behind this? Do any other cards behave this way?
* edit - as mentioned below, gaining a Scrying Pool does work (tested in solitaire). I'm not sure what happened.
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« on: May 03, 2012, 12:09:29 pm »I am surprised University is ranked so low. It seems a great card whenever there are 2+ power $5 cards and you can use the village effect - this isn't that rare. Am I overrating it?Yeah. Thing is, it's slooooow. Because you have to take time to buy the potion, then time to buy the university, and only then can you start to grab actions. Whereas if you just buy silvers, you're probably getting to those power 5 cards a lot faster. Now, eventually you grab more than them. But in the meantime, they're building up a big advantage. So you really need those lots of actions to be very much more powerful than just a few.
With University as the only potion card, I would buy a potion much more often than with Golem as the only potion card.
When some of those power $5 cards are terminal, the non-University player would need to be buying villages in addition to Silver. Further, the treasures would tend to make it harder to line up +actions with terminals. Any time action density is a consideration (this, plus Conspirator, Scrying Pool, KC, ...), University seems like the better bet.
Also, whenever action card gain is useful in and of itself. University + Apprentice is a powerhouse in most kingdoms, as is University + Vineyards. University also gives a little more control over the end-game. If you have a few of them, you're more able to pile out when it's advantageous.
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« on: May 03, 2012, 11:16:20 am »
More important than the list itself, thanks for finishing it, and I'm glad to see you're around. People were starting to worry.
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Multiplayer Dronings
« on: May 03, 2012, 11:11:53 am »
I'm not complaining. As I said, we accept the random factor.
It was a response to calling plays by the third player "strategic moves." They aren't always such. Many times the third player will play just like so many level 0's on isotropic, doing things against his interest, ending the game while behind, etc. It's part of the game. It's hard to adjust to, since you can't be confident how the other player will behave. Ultimately, it just adds variance. In many cases, I think it makes the game more interesting.
It was a response to calling plays by the third player "strategic moves." They aren't always such. Many times the third player will play just like so many level 0's on isotropic, doing things against his interest, ending the game while behind, etc. It's part of the game. It's hard to adjust to, since you can't be confident how the other player will behave. Ultimately, it just adds variance. In many cases, I think it makes the game more interesting.
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Multiplayer Dronings
« on: May 03, 2012, 10:38:26 am »
I've run into a situation playing third-player with two friends, one who's fairly new to the game and one who is more experienced.
The inexperienced player will often buy the last province without considering his final point total, which is the king-making scenario. He's not trying to preserve 2nd place; he's just not looking at the points. In two-player, this would cause a loss for the irrational player, but in three-player it can also mess with the outcome for the other players. It's also not something that's easy to reason about before hand, since you don't know if the third player is going to make a rational or irrational move.
We just accept it as another random factor in the game, but I wanted to point out that the third player isn't always playing strategically or working in anyone's interest. The fun of playing with multiple friends wins out, but I could see where it would be frustrating in a more competitive setting.
The inexperienced player will often buy the last province without considering his final point total, which is the king-making scenario. He's not trying to preserve 2nd place; he's just not looking at the points. In two-player, this would cause a loss for the irrational player, but in three-player it can also mess with the outcome for the other players. It's also not something that's easy to reason about before hand, since you don't know if the third player is going to make a rational or irrational move.
We just accept it as another random factor in the game, but I wanted to point out that the third player isn't always playing strategically or working in anyone's interest. The fun of playing with multiple friends wins out, but I could see where it would be frustrating in a more competitive setting.
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Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: Guilds
« on: May 02, 2012, 08:20:21 pm »at this point maybe we should ask theory to set up a fan fic / slash fic subforum.
I like the ambiguity of the up-votes for this post. +1 this is funny or +1 we should totally do this?
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Dominion: Guilds Previews / Re: Guilds
« on: May 02, 2012, 04:02:47 pm »Amazing, a had a Dominion dream last night too!
I was teaching my bro and he kept taking JoaTs from supply and putting them in deck upside-down to mark each hand (5 cards). or soemthing like that
I had one, too!
A Young Witch drew me into her hand. I was there for but a moment before she released me, clearly wanting something else. "Reveal a Tunnel?" I playfully inquired. To my surprise, she answered with a resounding "Yes!" Unfortunately, at that point she tossed me aside, took my money, and started cursing some other guy.
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Game Reports / Re: how I was crushed by a nOOb and won
« on: May 02, 2012, 03:33:59 pm »
In general, it seems obvious that you should inform your opponent of the rule if he's doing this. If you were playing with physical cards, you'd have to. You'd need to know who to give the VP tokens to. I've informed opponents every time it came up.
However, in this specific case, if Big Tuna was also unaware of the rule, I kind of like the outcome. They started on equal ground. One player noticed something weird was happening and figured out what it was, while his opponent didn't. Big Tuna didn't win because he knew the rules better but because he was paying closer attention to the state of the game.
I probably still wouldn't have done the same, but it's not 100% black and white in my mind. The fact that he was way behind and enduring multiple Possession plays per turn makes me cut a little more slack as well.
However, in this specific case, if Big Tuna was also unaware of the rule, I kind of like the outcome. They started on equal ground. One player noticed something weird was happening and figured out what it was, while his opponent didn't. Big Tuna didn't win because he knew the rules better but because he was paying closer attention to the state of the game.
I probably still wouldn't have done the same, but it's not 100% black and white in my mind. The fact that he was way behind and enduring multiple Possession plays per turn makes me cut a little more slack as well.
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Dominion Articles / Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« on: May 02, 2012, 03:08:27 pm »Modifying the Optimized IGG into two separate bots, one that always takes Copper and one that takes it only when necessary, the only-necessary bot wins slightly 48/46. The optimized bot does slightly better than that. It takes unnecessary Copper at the point it would prefer buying an Estate to buying a Silver (<= 4 Duchies left)
Last I tested, taking no unnecessary copper vs taking unnecessary copper only near the end does not make a statistically significant difference: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=625.msg28178#msg28178. So if you're finding otherwise then I think it'd be interesting to see the bots you're using (in the simulation forum of course).
Using that bot, you're right. Using WanderingWinder's bot gave different answers, but your bot beats his. I hadn't seen yours before. It's a little surprising that the slight change in bots can change the decision on whether or not to take Copper.
Sorry for the excursion. Back on topic... Philosopher's Stone
Using blueblimp's IGG bot, buying Philosopher's Stone, and always taking Copper wins ever so slightly against straight IGG - 49/48. The conclusion I'd draw from that is that there's not much benefit from buying P. Stone in an IGG game. Consider that IGG + Single Moat beats both options by a slightly wider margin. That reasoning may change depending on what else is in the kingdom, of course. Herbalist and Apothecary have both been raised as good reasons to get P. Stone.
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Dominion Articles / Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« on: May 02, 2012, 10:02:33 am »
Modifying the Optimized IGG into two separate bots, one that always takes Copper and one that takes it only when necessary, the only-necessary bot wins slightly 48/46. The optimized bot does slightly better than that. It takes unnecessary Copper at the point it would prefer buying an Estate to buying a Silver (<= 4 Duchies left)
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Dominion General Discussion / Re: A rule of thumb on three-piling
« on: May 02, 2012, 09:51:40 am »
The Engine Corollary to the Penultimate Province Rule.
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Dominion Articles / Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« on: May 02, 2012, 09:33:40 am »Taking unnecessary Copper is sub-optimal in IGG, so it may even make things worse for PStone.
Wait, I thought I read before that it was optimal to always take the copper. My intuition is all confuzzled now.
In the late IGG game, you want to be buying Duchies and, with the rare $8 hand, Provinces. Coppers don't do much to help you hit $5 and they hinder you from hitting $8. If you have supporting Kingdom cards (e.g. Smithy), you'll play them less frequently. Don't be shy about taking them when you need them, but don't take them if you're not using the coins in the current hand. It may be wise to start taking unnecessary Copper in the very late game, at the point when you're struggling to hit $5 and preferring Estates to Silver, but certainly not from the start.
That advice goes out the window, of course, if you have some other reason to want Coppers. They're great for IGG/Gardens, for instance, and you'd probably want them for IGG/P. Stone.
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Dominion Isotropic / Re: Huge gaping bug that prevents time out
« on: May 01, 2012, 04:44:48 pm »
I N C E P T I O N
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Council Room Feedback / Re: New Councilroom feature: card conditional winning stats
« on: May 01, 2012, 02:21:56 pm »The deltas are just differences in quality.
I guess what you really want is conditions to be not based on the supply, but rather based on co-occurrence inside a single deck?
I'd really like this. Given two cards, A and B available in a kingdom, how have players historically fared buying both, just one, or neither? If there's enough data, it'd be nice to be able to see it broken down by opponent purchases, too. So, buying A against an opponent who buys B, or buying A + B against an opponent who buys only A.
It seems like that alleviates the confusing results theory mentioned before. Just now I was looking for interactions between Philosopher's Stone and Ill-Gotten Gains. The delta is near-0, but I realized that doesn't mean much because people rarely gain P. Stone when it's available.
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Dominion Isotropic / Re: Decline of civility and a huge gaping bug
« on: May 01, 2012, 12:01:20 pm »
Fair enough. It'd take me about 5 minutes to write a bookmarklet that would extend the timeout indefinitely by sending periodic chat messages.
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Dominion Isotropic / Re: Decline of civility and a huge gaping bug
« on: May 01, 2012, 11:36:57 am »
In my mind, the chat "bug" isn't the real problem. Even if you fix it, it's still possible to grief someone by slow-rolling. Make one play/decision every 2m45s. Play one treasure at a time. In most games, it'd be easy to drag out every turn to at least 10 minutes.
You could probably solve the problem with some sort of play clock (combined with a few seconds of grace period per click). Alternately, you could solve it by having a "report abuse" link that logs the game, chat, timestamps, and a description of the problem. Said logs could be farmed out to moderators to minimize work for DougZ. The remaining problem is that it's easy for people to just create new accounts.
You could probably solve the problem with some sort of play clock (combined with a few seconds of grace period per click). Alternately, you could solve it by having a "report abuse" link that logs the game, chat, timestamps, and a description of the problem. Said logs could be farmed out to moderators to minimize work for DougZ. The remaining problem is that it's easy for people to just create new accounts.
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Simulation / Re: Simulation Challenge: Ill-Gotten Gains / Philosopher's Stone
« on: May 01, 2012, 11:09:49 am »
Interesting. That seems to suggest that P. Stone's losses tend to come from drawing $2p.
I discovered something else when playing with DG's solution. Take the following 4 bots:
1 beats 3 (narrow margin)
1 ties 2
3 beats 2 (narrow margin)
3 beats 4 (55 / 40)
I guess that illustrates that bots really need to be optimized against their opponent for definitive results, not against themselves.
I discovered something else when playing with DG's solution. Take the following 4 bots:
- Optimized Ill-Gotten Gains Bot
- Optimized Ill-Gotten Gains Bot, modified to buy Philosopher's Stone
- Default Ill-Gotten Gains Bot, modified to buy Provinces with $8
- Default Ill-Gotten Gains Bot, modified to buy Provinces with $8 and to buy Philosopher's Stone
1 beats 3 (narrow margin)
1 ties 2
3 beats 2 (narrow margin)
3 beats 4 (55 / 40)
I guess that illustrates that bots really need to be optimized against their opponent for definitive results, not against themselves.
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Simulation / Simulation Challenge: Ill-Gotten Gains / Philosopher's Stone
« on: May 01, 2012, 09:52:05 am »
The Challenge: Show that Philosopher's Stone is worth buying as part of an Ill-Gotten Gains strategy.
Create a bot which uses a Philosopher's Stone + Ill-Gotten Gains strategy to defeat a bot on a pure Ill-Gotten Gains strategy. Inspired by claims in the Philosopher's Stone article request.
Some rules:
- Use the optimized Ill-Gotten Gains bot as a starting point, not the default bot.
- If you include alternate VP, the pure IGG strategy should be updated to buy those cards where rational. So, for instance, if the P. Stone / IGG bot is buying Tunnel / Province, the pure IGG bot should buy Tunnel with < $5 hands while greening, or to end the game.
- There's no limit in the number of extra cards you throw in the mix, but since the point is to show that P. Stone and IGG work well together, the fewer the better. I.e. it's a stronger statement to say "IGG + P. Stone works great in the presence of alternate VP" than it is to say "IGG + P. Stone works great if you have at least 3 alternate VP cards and Monument."
Create a bot which uses a Philosopher's Stone + Ill-Gotten Gains strategy to defeat a bot on a pure Ill-Gotten Gains strategy. Inspired by claims in the Philosopher's Stone article request.
Some rules:
- Use the optimized Ill-Gotten Gains bot as a starting point, not the default bot.
- If you include alternate VP, the pure IGG strategy should be updated to buy those cards where rational. So, for instance, if the P. Stone / IGG bot is buying Tunnel / Province, the pure IGG bot should buy Tunnel with < $5 hands while greening, or to end the game.
- There's no limit in the number of extra cards you throw in the mix, but since the point is to show that P. Stone and IGG work well together, the fewer the better. I.e. it's a stronger statement to say "IGG + P. Stone works great in the presence of alternate VP" than it is to say "IGG + P. Stone works great if you have at least 3 alternate VP cards and Monument."
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Dominion Articles / Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« on: May 01, 2012, 09:37:32 am »Taking Coppers and opening Potion / Silver doesn't lose quite as bad - 53% / 43%. Buying the Potion after the first shuffle is a little worse than that.You're missing the point of the alternate VP. The point is they make the game longer. If you go for gardens, I go for duchies, and you have to buy all 8 to end it. If you go duchies, I go fairgrounds - you need all 8 to end it.
It's a gambit. You're sacrificing the IGG split and hoping to make up for it with Provinces on the tail end. One big problem, though, is that the straight IGG player can afford Provinces with the IGG economy. His economy is relatively better, too, since you weren't Cursing him.
I don't see alternate VP cards mattering much. IGG/Gardens is awesome in general. I'd take Gardens rather than Duchy if I were the IGG player. The $6 cards have an awkward price point for P. Stone. Also, Fairgrounds + IGG + P. Stone + Kingdom Silver-Equivalent isn't much of a combo, even if it works. Certainly not enough to say that P. Stone works well in an IGG rush.
I understand the point; I just don't think it works. Avoiding Gardens to drag out the game seems like a mistake. $6 VP cards are tough because the P. Stone player shouldn't be seeing many hands at that price point ($6 or $7, but not $8). Of the options, I think Tunnel is the most viable... time to head over to the sim forum.
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Dominion Articles / Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« on: April 30, 2012, 11:28:53 pm »
Taking Coppers and opening Potion / Silver doesn't lose quite as bad - 53% / 43%. Buying the Potion after the first shuffle is a little worse than that.
It's a gambit. You're sacrificing the IGG split and hoping to make up for it with Provinces on the tail end. One big problem, though, is that the straight IGG player can afford Provinces with the IGG economy. His economy is relatively better, too, since you weren't Cursing him.
I don't see alternate VP cards mattering much. IGG/Gardens is awesome in general. I'd take Gardens rather than Duchy if I were the IGG player. The $6 cards have an awkward price point for P. Stone. Also, Fairgrounds + IGG + P. Stone + Kingdom Silver-Equivalent isn't much of a combo, even if it works. Certainly not enough to say that P. Stone works well in an IGG rush.
It's a gambit. You're sacrificing the IGG split and hoping to make up for it with Provinces on the tail end. One big problem, though, is that the straight IGG player can afford Provinces with the IGG economy. His economy is relatively better, too, since you weren't Cursing him.
I don't see alternate VP cards mattering much. IGG/Gardens is awesome in general. I'd take Gardens rather than Duchy if I were the IGG player. The $6 cards have an awkward price point for P. Stone. Also, Fairgrounds + IGG + P. Stone + Kingdom Silver-Equivalent isn't much of a combo, even if it works. Certainly not enough to say that P. Stone works well in an IGG rush.