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16001

Dominion Articles / Re: Questions about Gardens

« on: April 21, 2012, 05:40:39 pm »

I played a Gardens game the other day with a combo that's probably well known, but I hadn't considered:

Bureaucrat/Gardens - It's a pseudo buy, and puts silvers into your deck, allowing you to keep up your average card value. I bought 4 before greening, although I imagine mileage may vary. You still have to be concerned with where to empty piles, (Gardens, possibly Estates, and X) - Although perhaps switching off Gardens back to a few more Bureaucrat's mid game once your deck is a bit more stuffed might do well, especially in a non-mirror matchup.

In my experience the third pile in a Bureaucrat-Gardens deck probably wants to be Duchy.

Good to know. That was my first encounter with that combination, and was in a live game, so was a bit harder to track.

16002

Dominion Articles / Re: Questions about Gardens

« on: April 21, 2012, 01:20:59 pm »

I played a Gardens game the other day with a combo that's probably well known, but I hadn't considered:

Bureaucrat/Gardens - It's a pseudo buy, and puts silvers into your deck, allowing you to keep up your average card value. I bought 4 before greening, although I imagine mileage may vary. You still have to be concerned with where to empty piles, (Gardens, possibly Estates, and X) - Although perhaps switching off Gardens back to a few more Bureaucrat's mid game once your deck is a bit more stuffed might do well, especially in a non-mirror matchup.

16003

Solo Challenges / Re: 3 - No buys allowed

« on: April 21, 2012, 11:13:23 am »

Boy, I've got an idea for not using KC/TR, but it requires a long setup time, and 4 cards (needing most of them from their respective piles). I don't think it would be even close to competitive in time though.

However, it is still a mega-turn finish, though not luck based at all.

16004

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Who do you enjoy playing?

« on: April 20, 2012, 05:40:42 pm »

I don't really think I've played many forum goers. Paddyodoors and I matched up a short while back in a good game. I generally don't go out of my way to be talkative, but won't clam up either if my opponent initiates conversation. I don't generally use "gg, or glhf", prefering to type them out - A few extra keystrokes isn't going to kill me and it feels a little more proper; a sign of respect if you will. It's worth my time.

I don't like playing people who play inferior strategies when they know that they are, and spend the whole time talking about how much better it is than people think (Think Courtyard+BM loosing to 3x Pirate Ship (no +action) because he hit my first FIVE gold before I ever drew them).

I do enjoy some schadenfreude though. If you can absolute crush me, then props. I'll sit through it. I think I've resigned from 3 games total, 2 I was winning, and all 3 due to reconnect to many times. (Don't try playing from an Android phone).

Lastly as long as you weren't rude or obnoxious for no reason, I probably enjoyed the game (win or lose) even if I don't say so.

16005

Other Games / Re: Video Games

« on: April 20, 2012, 12:54:33 pm »

Just an FYI for anyone who cares:
The Diablo 3 beta is open for the weekend starting at noon PDT today. (about 2.5 hours from the time of this post)

While I likely won't play it, I did enjoy the first two immensely(until duping became ridiculous). So I very much hope that it is every bit as much fun and sees great success (although with Blizzard's fan base, that's not likely to be an issue).

16006

Simulation / Re: Simulation Tournament: Quints

« on: April 20, 2012, 11:04:37 am »

I thought about it. I love playing around in the simulator, but just the thought of not only producing a solid 5 card deck, with all contingent buy/play rules (well, play rules within the simulator's ability), but ALSO adding in code to account for the times when my opponent's bot may choose to share a card or two with me is just mind numbing. Assuming that you can gain more than 5 of any given card on a pre-created board of semi-strong cards (or at least high synergy) seems like a set-up to failure to me ... and some** of the strongest setups only work when amassing the card in question.

I'll be very interested in seeing the results once they're posted however, since the challenge was (is) very intriguing.

16007

Dominion General Discussion / Re: When do you want a cantrip

« on: April 20, 2012, 10:48:33 am »

Haggler gains to avoid unwanted terminals comes to mind, although I'm not 100% sure that's what you're looking for:

that aren't other-card specific?

Edit: Also, PStone - They increase the value, while not directly decreasing chance of drawing Pstone to hand -- Granted, if you don't draw Pstone in hand, and play those cantrips until you do, you've removed them from the draw/discard, but overall, I think you'll see a net increase in value.

16008

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How do you think about Ambassador?

« on: April 20, 2012, 12:02:02 am »

It's definitely an attack-- how often did you see your deck shrink fast after you buy them?

Often enough that I find following chwhite's initial reaction of "give me 2" to need to wait until turn 3, so I at least have a starting silver in my deck. Unless there is a Workers Village / *Hamlet on the board along with Peddler (a niche case). (*Hamlets rock in that case)

Still, it's deck thinning is not to be undervalued.

Unless you're referring to playing tennis with them, I'm which case it comes down to who rallys better (ie. Gets the best draws). I'm still amazed at how many people skip them altogether still.

16009

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How do you think about Ambassador?

« on: April 19, 2012, 09:11:05 pm »

I love the card. I almost always pick it up turn 1 or 2, and often another turn 3. I also like opening amb/amb and skipping cursers altogether. About the only time I ignore it is if masquerade is on the board, and then it's a toss-up. As to how I voted... Trasher. But I see it as both. I don't use Steward for much more than trashing, so it's Steward on crack to me, that doesn't force me to trash 2 when I don't want to. (Steward does have more value late. My failure to evaluate that is my own short coming)

But my decks usually enjoy having them there.

That said, I like to be sure I can power build my economy while having 1-3 dead cards in early hands.

I gain it about 72.2% of the time, and my win rate with is 1.42 (without is 1.2). Weighted against my record, which gives me a point value of 1.222 shows that I perform at a higher level than I usually do when I buy it, and about average when I don't.

16010

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Math request: Nomad Camp

« on: April 19, 2012, 07:13:35 pm »

Nope, never meant it like that. That's why I had said I was willing to let 40% stand until I could produce a reason it shouldn't. I was willing to put the onus on me to prove/show where I thought I was right at. When I read WW's post, the details of the problem I was remembering came back. Similar, but definitely different than what we have going on here.

16011

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: April 19, 2012, 05:04:23 pm »

Pick Your Poison
$2 - Action/Attack
Gain a Province or a Curse, your choice.  Then each other player discards down to 1 or 5 cards, your choice.

I'll take the curse, in a fairgrounds Black Market game where I don't have one yet, and it pushes me up a bracket to beat my opponent who has 7 of the 8 provinces. Also, I played possession, so I make my opponent discard down to 5 cards, then KC a ton of Governors.

16012

Dominion Isotropic / Re: What's the worst Isotropic quirk in your opinion?

« on: April 19, 2012, 04:34:01 pm »

Also, I'm not sure what the complaint about Grand Market is? If I have 8 coins in hand (Gold, Silver, Silver, Copper), and GM is on the table, my button reads +$7 - granted, Ive almost missed buying a Province because I didn't double check my hand for that copper, but how should the system know I want to green now? It protects me in case I DON'T, so I can play quickly without costing myself a valuable card. I can play that copper anytime. I can't unplay it.

The issue is that figuring out whether your hand is capable of buying grand market is actually impossible. Trickiest case: if you have a Venture in hand, nobody knows what it will turn up when you play it, so in many situations you don't know whether you will have $6 after playing your treasures.

Unfortunately, in cases where special treasures are involved, +$ will play your coppers. The most annoying special treasure for this is probably Quarry.

The main reason this is a problem is that in grand market games, players become accustomed to using +$ even on turns where they want a grand market. Since GM+special treasure games are decently rare, it's easy to forget that in these games, you can't reliably use +$ to buy grand markets.

Thank you. I guess it's just never effected me because I always play my special treasures manually (at least, Quarry, FG, and even IGG) anyway.
[/quote]

16013

Dominion Isotropic / Re: What's the worst Isotropic quirk in your opinion?

« on: April 19, 2012, 04:27:05 pm »

I think the simplest difference here is how to improve something.

I coach baseball. I ALWAYS use positive reinforcement. "Shrug it off, try this, get it next time" works a WHOLE lot better than "You messed up. Fix it and get it right". Discuss what would be cool, not in terms of what is WRONG, but in terms of could be better.

"X would be cool, discuss"
"Hey, I noticed the system doesn't do Y, any thoughts?"
"Do you think the system would be better if it did Z?"

If you try and improve (especially a free service offered by it's designer because he enjoyed creating or) through constructive, positive posts, you'll get a lot further than tearing down or complaining about it's current set up. And DougZ might feel more inclined to implement new things.

16014

Dominion Isotropic / Re: What's the worst Isotropic quirk in your opinion?

« on: April 19, 2012, 04:10:56 pm »

Also, I'm not sure what the complaint about Grand Market is? If I have 8 coins in hand (Gold, Silver, Silver, Copper), and GM is on the table, my button reads +$7 - granted, Ive almost missed buying a Province because I didn't double check my hand for that copper, but how should the system know I want to green now? It protects me in case I DON'T, so I can play quickly without costing myself a valuable card. I can play that copper anytime. I can't unplay it.

16015

Dominion Isotropic / Re: What's the worst Isotropic quirk in your opinion?

« on: April 19, 2012, 04:05:53 pm »

To those saying that one shouldn't complain about free things: Have you never complained about Facebook? Or Google? Or <insert 100 other free services here>?

Those aren't profit based products? I'll let then know.

16016

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Math request: Nomad Camp

« on: April 19, 2012, 03:49:38 pm »

Sure. I said all along I didn't have the proof. I tried to let it lie.

WW put up where I was going with my thoughts, which similar, produce very different results. Blueblimps venture example is closer to what I intended as well.

I remembered doing something similar (as this was) that produced counter intuitive results than 2/5 = 40%. I wasn't trying to argue that exactly, but the circumstances to what I was arguing were obviously slightly different - I just couldn't remember what they were at the time, and only saw the similarities.

16017

Rules Questions / Re: duration

« on: April 19, 2012, 02:54:14 pm »

Thanks. I can see the problem they had with that, but I'M surprised they haven't revisited the concept in a simpler form.

16018

Rules Questions / duration

« on: April 19, 2012, 02:42:33 pm »

This is probably hard to answer as there is no card that exists of this nature right now, but if there were a duration price reduction card (suspension bridge: This turn and next, +1 coin, +1 buy, all costs reduced by 1, no card may cost less than 0), would your opponent recieve the cost reduction benefit?

16019

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Math request: Nomad Camp

« on: April 19, 2012, 02:34:03 pm »

Your last point is valid, however the rest is wrong.

See, my error is where this is DIFFERENT than Monty. We recieve information in blocks of 5, not 1. If this were a Hall paradox, we would a) get to evaluate after 8 doors have been revealed, not 5, and b) we would know all subsets that show 3 estates in the first 8 are false, else we would have already lost; that is, he will always leave us a way to win (assuming "win" in this is naming which card holds the 3rd estate with greatest frequency).

Since we dont know cards 6-8, we cannot make assumptions about them. WW did indeed post the proof behind my problem - which is different than here.

16020

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Math request: Nomad Camp

« on: April 17, 2012, 04:35:28 pm »

The pop quiz is actually a different problem...it's about game theory or logic more than probability, and the reasoning behind it is quite different.  The most common set up for it is as the Paradox of the Unexpected Hanging.

Yes, that would be it almost exactly. And like I said, they aren't the same problem. But the idea behind the prisoners hanging, or popquiz, was to illustrate a point, disregarding the fallacies of the logic. The key being "surprise", rather than semi-controlled randomness. It was still designed to get you to "the most likely day is tomorrow".

But following that logic, the Lightning Tower is a cleaner problem, because it erases the unknown factor. It still brings you to the most likely day, because anything after would be less probable. And that's, at the basic level, what the Prisoner's Hanging / Popquiz was trying to show. It just leaves too many invariables, and a loose definition "surprise". It draws out to conclusions that can't be made with certainty.

16021

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Math request: Nomad Camp

« on: April 17, 2012, 04:02:40 pm »

This reminds me of the Lightning Town problem (I don't know what other people call it--I call it the Lightning Town problem).

You have a town that experiences weirdly frequent lightning storms. The storms occur randomly, but on average, once a week. There is a lightning storm today (Tuesday). What day is the most likely day of the next storm?

Tomorrow (Wednesday). Most people incorrectly say either a week from today, or every day is equally likely. They are equally likely to have a storm, true, but they are not equally likely to be the next day with a storm. For instance, for the day after tomorrow (Thursday) to be the next day with a storm, there would have to be no storm on Wednesday. For Friday to be the next day with a storm, there would have to be no storm on Thursday or Wednesday, which is even less likely. So we discover that tomorrow is the next most likely day for a lightning storm, because there is the least amount of time for a storm to interrupt what you could call the next-day chain.

We always did that as Popquiz:


Teacher:Sometime next week (Monday-Friday) will be a popquiz, but I'm not going to tell you when, because I don't want you to put off studying until the night before.
Student 1: Well, it can't be Friday then, because if it hadn't happened on Monday through Thursday, we would KNOW it was Friday, and we would study Thursday night.
Student 2: And if it can't be Friday, then we KNOW it can't be Thursday, because if we havn't had it by Wednesday afternoon, we would KNOW to study that night.
Student 3: ...
Class: Our popquiz therefor MUST be on Monday, so we should study this weekend.

And then she has it Friday after you guys study all weekend.  There's some fallacy here.

Of course. That's a bit of the point, but as with the Lightning Tower, the thought process that brings you to the answer of Tomorrow/Monday is the same. In truth, the teacher is NOT randomly choosing a day once per week. But it's the same logic. The longer you go, the more likely it is to occur the following day. Since she's looking for a surprise, she's looking for the smallest chance of knowing when it'll be.

16022

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Math request: Nomad Camp

« on: April 17, 2012, 03:52:13 pm »

This reminds me of the Lightning Town problem (I don't know what other people call it--I call it the Lightning Town problem).

You have a town that experiences weirdly frequent lightning storms. The storms occur randomly, but on average, once a week. There is a lightning storm today (Tuesday). What day is the most likely day of the next storm?

Tomorrow (Wednesday). Most people incorrectly say either a week from today, or every day is equally likely. They are equally likely to have a storm, true, but they are not equally likely to be the next day with a storm. For instance, for the day after tomorrow (Thursday) to be the next day with a storm, there would have to be no storm on Wednesday. For Friday to be the next day with a storm, there would have to be no storm on Thursday or Wednesday, which is even less likely. So we discover that tomorrow is the next most likely day for a lightning storm, because there is the least amount of time for a storm to interrupt what you could call the next-day chain.

We always did that as Popquiz:


Teacher:Sometime next week (Monday-Friday) will be a popquiz, but I'm not going to tell you when, because I don't want you to put off studying until the night before.
Student 1: Well, it can't be Friday then, because if it hadn't happened on Monday through Thursday, we would KNOW it was Friday, and we would study Thursday night.
Student 2: And if it can't be Friday, then we KNOW it can't be Thursday, because if we havn't had it by Wednesday afternoon, we would KNOW to study that night.
Student 3: ...
Class: Our popquiz therefor MUST be on Monday, so we should study this weekend.

16023

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Math request: Nomad Camp

« on: April 17, 2012, 02:05:06 pm »

For the record, I am now +1ing all of the exceptional trolling in this thread for it's exceptionalness.

To be fair, I wasn't intentionally trolling, and if I could find this stupid proof, it wouldn't have gotten so out of hand. I've also tried to back down until I CAN, as it's as obvious to me as it is to you and anybody else that the right answer APPEARS to be 40%. It's the nature of the problem.

Without the math and proof behind it, I'm more than happy to let it go. I thought I knew where the material was, and I was wrong, so now am stuck in an awkward position of having done this twice academically, and yet not being able to provide more information.

If I can uncover where I put it, I'll be happy to come back with that information.

-- Either way! -- I can't provide the proof right now, so I'm happy to abstain and let it stand with the intuitive answer until I can.

... which will be, if you want to provide a correct proof, ONCE AND FOR ALL!

That's rather uncalled for. Fair enough that I havn't been able to provide a proof for my reasoning yet, but I've done my best to explain it in Lamens terms without it. I've also acknowledged that at this time, I'm willing to let it go with 40% until I can. It took me many weeks of staring at the solution to believe it, because yes, it is VERY unintuitive. Still, I havn't been rude about my reasons for my suggestion.

16024

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Math request: Nomad Camp

« on: April 17, 2012, 01:48:27 pm »

Alright, look - I can't find the source material right now, despite looking through everything I can find, so I'll abstain for the time being.

I was hoping that somebody else would have encountered this particular paradox, and could help me if they had the proof on hand (I imagine mine got recycled at some point, but I'm usually pretty organized and don't get rid of anything).

If I can find the information, I'll bring it out, but for now, follow the intuitive answer of %40 - However, it's still really %30. 

I think no one else is helping you out here because you are quite obviously wrong. Either you are using a definition of odds which is not the standard definition or you have some sort of fundamental misunderstanding of conditional probability.

And it's been said many times already but let me try again. Probability and odds are a measure of unknown information. Once I reveal to you new information (like the first 5 cards) the odds can and do change. This is called conditional probability, the odds of something happening given a certain amount of information. The odds start at 30% but once you draw your hand with 1 estate they change to 40%.

Also, ss someone mentioned before, I highly recommend you read up on the monty hall problem for a particularly mind bending example of this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

In particular Jonts, this came up (for me, years ago), following the Monty Hall problem, when after solving it, we were provided with a list of other seeming Paradox's to choose from, and provide the proofs for. This was one of them. It is just as unintuitive - That is, the easy answer of Monty Hall's problem is 33%, as is the easy answer here 40% (or in the case of the 26/26 card deck, whatever the odds would SEEM based on what you KNOW is left) - But it isn't. As Monty's is actually 66%, so here is it actually 30%, and in the case of the playing deck, 50%.

16025

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Math request: Nomad Camp

« on: April 17, 2012, 01:44:16 pm »

Galzria,

Just want to make sure I'm getting your argument, please answer the following!

1. I shuffle my deck and draw my starting hand. My starting hand is 3 Estate and 2 Copper. Is the probability of me having an Estate on the bottom of my library a) 0% b) 30% c) 40% d) other?

The odds that the bottom card is an Estate IS still 30% - BUT - You know that it will be 0% of the time, since you have 3 of 3 in hand. This only holds true, however, because you've revealed 100% of the remaining. Thusly:

2. I shuffle my deck and draw my starting hand. My starting hand is 2 Estate and 3 Copper. Is the probability of me having an Estate on the bottom of my library a) 0% b) 30% c) 40% d) other?

The odds that the bottom card is an Estate IS still 30% - BUT - In this case, intuitively, 1 in 5 remain to be an Estate, so it would SEEM to be 20%, but it isn't, because it's initial probability hasn't changed. Until you reach 0% or 100%, it remains 30% because that was the information the system was given to start. EVERY card is 30% until all are revealed. That is, even when you can know 100% of the time, if it IS or ISN'T, IT'S odds are still 30%.

3. I shuffle my deck and draw my starting hand. My starting hand is 1 Estate and 4 Copper. Is the probability of me having an Estate on the bottom of my library a) 0% b) 30% c) 40% d) other?

As above, The odds of the bottom card is an Estate IS still 30% - BUT - In this case, intuitively, 2/5 remain to be an Estate, so it would SEEM to be 40%, but it isn't.

-- Either way! -- I can't provide the proof right now, so I'm happy to abstain and let it stand with the intuitive answer until I can.