26
Puzzles and Challenges / Re: "Name a card, and do X"
« on: April 19, 2012, 08:30:50 am »
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27
Dominion Isotropic / TrueSkill questions
« on: April 19, 2012, 08:27:10 am »
1. If I win a game 41-40, or if I win a game 62-10, do these both affect my "skill range" on the leaderboard the same? (In other words, are all wins equal for the purpose of TrueSkill evaluation?)
2. If I come in second in a 3-player game, or if I come in third, to these both affect my "skill range" the same?
Thanks!
2. If I come in second in a 3-player game, or if I come in third, to these both affect my "skill range" the same?
Thanks!
28
Game Reports / Re: Why I love Wharf
« on: April 18, 2012, 11:29:37 am »
Is Gold ever better than Border Village if Wharf is in the tableau? (Not rhetorical, serious question.)
29
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Opening: Sea Hag / Ghost Ship?
« on: April 18, 2012, 11:08:36 am »
One thing I love about Dominion is that a newcomer can ask a question about a basic initial strategy decision with a given tableau, and high-level players will respond with different advice about the best choice. That's a testimony to the depth of the game.
I'm learning that when a good player beats me, it's not necessarily because he knew which strategy is optimal. He might, but I'm more likely to lose because whichever strategy he chooses, he can play it better than me (by better deck balancing, knowing how much treasure is in his draw pile, having a feel for whether another terminal is likely to lead to a collision, knowing whether to buy a province or spend more time tuning the engine, etc.) I can, for instance, know to buy Fishing Villages, Horse Traders, and Watchtowers for a nice engine, and play against an opponent buying the exact same cards in slightly different proportions and orders, and I get reliably trounced. Nothing replaces experience, I guess.
I'm learning that when a good player beats me, it's not necessarily because he knew which strategy is optimal. He might, but I'm more likely to lose because whichever strategy he chooses, he can play it better than me (by better deck balancing, knowing how much treasure is in his draw pile, having a feel for whether another terminal is likely to lead to a collision, knowing whether to buy a province or spend more time tuning the engine, etc.) I can, for instance, know to buy Fishing Villages, Horse Traders, and Watchtowers for a nice engine, and play against an opponent buying the exact same cards in slightly different proportions and orders, and I get reliably trounced. Nothing replaces experience, I guess.
30
Game Reports / Re: Noble Brigand Brigade
« on: April 17, 2012, 11:05:55 am »
Fascinating game. Newbie question: Had jfrisch forgone Gold and attempted to buy out the Cities, starting on turns 3 and 5, could that have been an effective counter? Along with the 3 Smithies he bought, is it likely he could have emptied the cities and then drawn his deck for reliable Province purchases with just Copper and the Silvers he managed to keep?
31
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Setting up the "golden deck" (Chapel/Bishop)
« on: April 13, 2012, 10:45:19 pm »
Thanks! I'll switch to there.
EDIT: Er, when I try, it tells me "Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days. Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic." So I guess it's better to use this new thread instead. (I'm kinda new to these forums, and I'm not sure of the etiquette.)
I don't have a good way to simulate this easily, but I've played perhaps a hundred solitaire setups, and I'm pretty sure Bishop/Chapel is the best opening. I've tried buying only one treasure before paring down to 5 cards, and I've tried buying 2 treasures before hitting the 5-card goal, and both seem good. (In each case, a first Province on turn 8 is common, with turn 9 also common, and occasional horrid misfires that don't line up for a painfully long time.) I'm pretty sure that buying a third treasure is slower, even if it's gold. And that second treasure might be suboptimal too; I'm just not sure. Each card you buy increases the odds that it will take several turns longer to get down to 5 cards; it's usually better to "trade up" to gold once you have control. I also tried buying nothing between turn 2 and when I get a 5-card hand, but that's clearly slower.
To be more specific, if you have a 5-card deck of Bishop, Chapel, and Copper x 3, it takes 4 more turns to get a Province. If your 5-card deck has two Silvers instead of Coppers, it just takes 2 more turns to get a Province. That's worth it. But an additional Gold, even if you can buy it, only gains you a turn once you get in set up, while making it much more likely to take many more turns to get to that 5-card goal.
As for attacks, it seems to me that any time an opponent curses me it sets me back a turn. On my next turn, I have to lose a card by bishoping and declining to buy in order to get back in the swing of things. (I could put it off a turn, or two if I'm lucky, but I risk not drawing my Bishop. If that happens, I have to skip the turn completely, or give up on the golden deck strategy.) I doubt the strategy can be sustained at all in a tableau that includes cursing. And Embassy can hurt a little too, though it only sets you back a single turn (per buy).
Militia (or Goons or Margrave or Ghost Ship) also sets you back a turn each time you're militiaed, though you can still Bishop a Silver for 2 VP and use the Gold to buy it back, so it's not a totally lost turn. 2 VP per turn is pretty slow though. I don't know if a Militia barrage could effectively defeat a golden deck strategy or not. And Embargo on Provinces is absolutely poison, as Voltgloss pointed out below. Deck attacks like Pirate Ship, Saboteur, Oracle, Fortune Teller, etc., have no effect at all (though note that Noble Brigand is just as damaging to this deck as Witch is). And Bureaucrat and Cutpurse might slow you down a tad, or perhaps not at all.
If someone does effective simulate different strategies for setting up the golden deck, I'd love to hear the results. For instance, I'd still like to know at what point it's better to abandon the plan and try a more traditional Bishop strategy.
EDIT: Er, when I try, it tells me "Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days. Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic." So I guess it's better to use this new thread instead. (I'm kinda new to these forums, and I'm not sure of the etiquette.)
I don't have a good way to simulate this easily, but I've played perhaps a hundred solitaire setups, and I'm pretty sure Bishop/Chapel is the best opening. I've tried buying only one treasure before paring down to 5 cards, and I've tried buying 2 treasures before hitting the 5-card goal, and both seem good. (In each case, a first Province on turn 8 is common, with turn 9 also common, and occasional horrid misfires that don't line up for a painfully long time.) I'm pretty sure that buying a third treasure is slower, even if it's gold. And that second treasure might be suboptimal too; I'm just not sure. Each card you buy increases the odds that it will take several turns longer to get down to 5 cards; it's usually better to "trade up" to gold once you have control. I also tried buying nothing between turn 2 and when I get a 5-card hand, but that's clearly slower.
To be more specific, if you have a 5-card deck of Bishop, Chapel, and Copper x 3, it takes 4 more turns to get a Province. If your 5-card deck has two Silvers instead of Coppers, it just takes 2 more turns to get a Province. That's worth it. But an additional Gold, even if you can buy it, only gains you a turn once you get in set up, while making it much more likely to take many more turns to get to that 5-card goal.
As for attacks, it seems to me that any time an opponent curses me it sets me back a turn. On my next turn, I have to lose a card by bishoping and declining to buy in order to get back in the swing of things. (I could put it off a turn, or two if I'm lucky, but I risk not drawing my Bishop. If that happens, I have to skip the turn completely, or give up on the golden deck strategy.) I doubt the strategy can be sustained at all in a tableau that includes cursing. And Embassy can hurt a little too, though it only sets you back a single turn (per buy).
Militia (or Goons or Margrave or Ghost Ship) also sets you back a turn each time you're militiaed, though you can still Bishop a Silver for 2 VP and use the Gold to buy it back, so it's not a totally lost turn. 2 VP per turn is pretty slow though. I don't know if a Militia barrage could effectively defeat a golden deck strategy or not. And Embargo on Provinces is absolutely poison, as Voltgloss pointed out below. Deck attacks like Pirate Ship, Saboteur, Oracle, Fortune Teller, etc., have no effect at all (though note that Noble Brigand is just as damaging to this deck as Witch is). And Bureaucrat and Cutpurse might slow you down a tad, or perhaps not at all.
If someone does effective simulate different strategies for setting up the golden deck, I'd love to hear the results. For instance, I'd still like to know at what point it's better to abandon the plan and try a more traditional Bishop strategy.
32
Dominion General Discussion / Setting up the "golden deck" (Chapel/Bishop)
« on: April 13, 2012, 03:08:52 pm »
I recently watched a video (though I can't seem to find it now) of a very good player winning with what he called a "golden deck". Bishop and Chapel were in the supply, with no attacks available besides Pirate Ship. He bought a Chapel and Bishop on turns 1 and 2, and then chapeled down to 5 cards as quickly as possible. He then bishoped his least useful card each turn, buying money, until he had enough to bishop away a Province each turn for 5 VP, and still buy a new Province each turn. (Actually, he was buying/trashing a Colony each turn, but the principle is the same.) The strategy was extremely fast, and although it's susceptible to most attacks, Pirate Ship did nothing to it.
I was impressed, and looked for discussion on how to set this up. I couldn't find posts on it... is there one I missed?
Sure enough, yesterday I found myself in a game containing Bishop, Chapel, and no likely attacks to slow it down. I set it up the same way, and it worked beautifully. (Game log.) Bureaucrat could have slowed it down, but I don't think it would have prevented me from winning. I know I messed up on turn 4, chapeling only 2 instead of 4 cards, a slip of the finger. But other than that, did I play this optimally?
My shuffle luck was decent in that game, but I'd like some advice on setting this up when the shuffles don't work out, and I assume the same skills would be applicable when setting up any extremely-small-deck combo strategies. With good shuffle luck I can buy my first Province on turn 8, and then on each turn afterwards. But I'm not sure how to handle bad shuffle luck. For instance, bad luck might lead to a Chapel-Bishop collision on turn 3 where I chapel 2 Estates and a Copper, then 4 Copper on turn 4 where I buy a Silver, then $6 (4 Copper and a Silver) on turn 5. It seems like I should pass in that case, buying nothing, hoping to shrink my deck as quickly as possible. But it seems ridiculous not to buy a Gold, since I'll need a Gold soon anyway. Which is the better move?
In general, I trying to figure out what the best way is to set this up when the shuffles aren't cooperating. Thanks for any advice.
I was impressed, and looked for discussion on how to set this up. I couldn't find posts on it... is there one I missed?
Sure enough, yesterday I found myself in a game containing Bishop, Chapel, and no likely attacks to slow it down. I set it up the same way, and it worked beautifully. (Game log.) Bureaucrat could have slowed it down, but I don't think it would have prevented me from winning. I know I messed up on turn 4, chapeling only 2 instead of 4 cards, a slip of the finger. But other than that, did I play this optimally?
My shuffle luck was decent in that game, but I'd like some advice on setting this up when the shuffles don't work out, and I assume the same skills would be applicable when setting up any extremely-small-deck combo strategies. With good shuffle luck I can buy my first Province on turn 8, and then on each turn afterwards. But I'm not sure how to handle bad shuffle luck. For instance, bad luck might lead to a Chapel-Bishop collision on turn 3 where I chapel 2 Estates and a Copper, then 4 Copper on turn 4 where I buy a Silver, then $6 (4 Copper and a Silver) on turn 5. It seems like I should pass in that case, buying nothing, hoping to shrink my deck as quickly as possible. But it seems ridiculous not to buy a Gold, since I'll need a Gold soon anyway. Which is the better move?
In general, I trying to figure out what the best way is to set this up when the shuffles aren't cooperating. Thanks for any advice.
33
Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Cartographer/Tunnel
« on: April 13, 2012, 02:12:56 pm »Oh! Does that mean Vault-Tunnel is actually better then?
Well, no. Strictly speaking, it just means that the Vault/Tunnel strategy you described beats the Cartographer/Tunnel strategy you described slightly more often in a head-to-head matchup, when neither strategy buys any other cards or reacts intelligently to the opponent's play. It was "just for fun", as I said. Still, it might indicate that Vault/Tunnel works better in general... I'd have to play a few dozen games to see how well it works in real games, and see if I'm missing any added flexibility or good counters to either strategy.
34
Simulation / Re: The limits of simulation
« on: April 12, 2012, 10:52:30 am »Your post be more appropriately titled as "the limits of simulating 5 line of code strategies."
Well, if the goal were simply to beat Double Jack, then that 5-line strategy is probably close to optimal. But the goal of beating a likely opponent is done very differently, which is what my post was trying to get at. Perhaps "The limits of simulation alone, without actual playtesting" would express it better?
Quote
There is no reason that one bot can't contain a strategy that plays tons of workshops then gardens strategy against a standard, 4+ prov strategy, and few workshops, early gardens against an opponent's workshop strategy.
It's true, and I've been writing just that. But I never would have realized that was important to do without real-game, non-simulated experience with the cards.
And Geronimoo, wow, Wandering Winder's sim is a thing of beauty. I'll be studying that for a while.
35
Simulation / Re: Dominiate: a Dominion simulator that runs on the Web
« on: April 12, 2012, 10:12:42 am »
Post-script: The limits of simulation.
36
Simulation / The limits of simulation
« on: April 12, 2012, 10:10:25 am »
Simulation won't exactly duplicate real-world play, obviously, but for some strategies that doesn't seem to matter all that much. Double-Jack is Double-Jack. But there's a very subtle problem I encountered recently that I think demonstrates the limits of simulation when determining the power of a strategy.
I was attempting to see how good a "Workshop Gardener" strategy was against other standard strategies, and I tweaked it in all kinds of ways. I finally found that against standards like Big Money, Village-Torturer, Double-Jack, etc., the best strategy was to buy all the workshops first, and then buy gardens, buying up estates with spare cash as you can along the way.
This is very fast, and seemed to beat nearly every simulated strategy I could throw at it. It beats Big Money 96% of the time and Double Jack 59% of the time, whereas other Workshop-Gardener strategies (such as the one described in the Gardens article on DS) were slower and had lower percentages. I thought I knew how to win Dominion (at least when Workshop and Gardens are on the board) better than the experts.
But...
A very small number of real games showed me how wrong I was. Although this strategy is the best at beating players who ignore Workshop and Gardens, few decent players will do that (unless they see something better on the board). And when "Fastest Workshop Gardener" goes up against a similar strategy that switches to Gardens earlier, it loses badly. For instance, I call the following strategy "Workshop-Gardener switch after 4", and it more closely simulates what's described in the Gardens article:
Although it only beats Big Money 83% of the time, and Double Jack a measly 34% of the time, it beats "Fastest Workshop-Gardener" 72% of the time. So is "Workshop-Gardener switch after 4" the best strategy? Not against "Workshop-Gardener switch after 2"! It seems to me that the best Workshop-Gardener strategy depends entirely on what your opponent does. I like to open double Workshop, and if my opponent does as well then I immediately switch to Gardens. But if my opponent starts with only 1 or even 0 Workshops, I keep buying Workshops instead of Gardens until I feel I have to switch. It's almost a game of chicken: it's best to put off Gardens buys, but you really don't want to be the second player to buy one.
And this is for trying to find the best strategy for a very simple artificial situation, where Workshop and Gardens are the only things I buy. In a real game I'll buy a good $2 or an excellent $3 instead of Estates, and there are probably other card interactions that will effect this strategy in subtle ways. There's obviously a lot about this strategy that I'll only learn through real-game experience, no matter how much simulation I do. But even for this artificially constrained situation, it's easy to overestimate the value of simulations in the absence of experience.
I was attempting to see how good a "Workshop Gardener" strategy was against other standard strategies, and I tweaked it in all kinds of ways. I finally found that against standards like Big Money, Village-Torturer, Double-Jack, etc., the best strategy was to buy all the workshops first, and then buy gardens, buying up estates with spare cash as you can along the way.
Code: [Select]
{
name: 'Fastest Workshop-Gardener'
author: 'Quadell'
requires: ["Workshop", "Gardens"]
gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
"Workshop"
"Gardens"
"Estate"
"Copper"
]
torturerPriority: (state, my) -> [
'curse'
]
}This is very fast, and seemed to beat nearly every simulated strategy I could throw at it. It beats Big Money 96% of the time and Double Jack 59% of the time, whereas other Workshop-Gardener strategies (such as the one described in the Gardens article on DS) were slower and had lower percentages. I thought I knew how to win Dominion (at least when Workshop and Gardens are on the board) better than the experts.
But...
A very small number of real games showed me how wrong I was. Although this strategy is the best at beating players who ignore Workshop and Gardens, few decent players will do that (unless they see something better on the board). And when "Fastest Workshop Gardener" goes up against a similar strategy that switches to Gardens earlier, it loses badly. For instance, I call the following strategy "Workshop-Gardener switch after 4", and it more closely simulates what's described in the Gardens article:
Code: [Select]
gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
"Workshop" if my.countInDeck("Workshop") < 4
"Gardens"
"Workshop"
"Estate"
"Copper"
]Although it only beats Big Money 83% of the time, and Double Jack a measly 34% of the time, it beats "Fastest Workshop-Gardener" 72% of the time. So is "Workshop-Gardener switch after 4" the best strategy? Not against "Workshop-Gardener switch after 2"! It seems to me that the best Workshop-Gardener strategy depends entirely on what your opponent does. I like to open double Workshop, and if my opponent does as well then I immediately switch to Gardens. But if my opponent starts with only 1 or even 0 Workshops, I keep buying Workshops instead of Gardens until I feel I have to switch. It's almost a game of chicken: it's best to put off Gardens buys, but you really don't want to be the second player to buy one.
And this is for trying to find the best strategy for a very simple artificial situation, where Workshop and Gardens are the only things I buy. In a real game I'll buy a good $2 or an excellent $3 instead of Estates, and there are probably other card interactions that will effect this strategy in subtle ways. There's obviously a lot about this strategy that I'll only learn through real-game experience, no matter how much simulation I do. But even for this artificially constrained situation, it's easy to overestimate the value of simulations in the absence of experience.
37
Simulation / Re: Dominiate: a Dominion simulator that runs on the Web
« on: April 11, 2012, 11:12:51 am »
Thanks! That works, and it will be useful to know how to do this in future tests. In this case it appears to be moot, as you point out, since this alone is pretty strong:
It beats Big Smithy, Double Jack, any simple cursing strategy, etc. You can improve this with Great Hall, Village, or Fishing Village, and probably others, but it looks to me like most $2-$3 cards (including Moat) just make it worse. Anyway, thanks again!
Code: [Select]
{
name: 'Simplest Workshop-Gardener'
author: 'Quadell'
requires: ["Workshop", "Gardens"]
gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
"Workshop"
"Gardens"
"Estate"
"Copper"
]
}It beats Big Smithy, Double Jack, any simple cursing strategy, etc. You can improve this with Great Hall, Village, or Fishing Village, and probably others, but it looks to me like most $2-$3 cards (including Moat) just make it worse. Anyway, thanks again!
38
Simulation / Re: Dominiate: a Dominion simulator that runs on the Web
« on: April 11, 2012, 10:36:28 am »
I'm trying to simulate a Gardens-Workshop-Moat strategy (if Moat is the only low-cost third kingdom card available), and I can't stop it from playing Moat instead of Workshop, which is disastrous for the strategy. How can I tell the simulator to prefer to play Workshop over Moat?
39
Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Cartographer/Tunnel
« on: April 10, 2012, 11:23:35 am »My instincts suggest those would be the optimal approaches, but I could be wrong. Tunnel is complicated, of course, because of its VP value, and there'll be turn by turn assessments as to whether it helps or not.
Just for fun, I simulated both those strategies on Dominiate, and both did quite well. Vault-Tunnel beat Cartographer-Tunnel 58% of the time, even with the latter taking full advantage of Vault's side effect of allowing one's opponent to discard.
40
Dominion Articles / Re: Hinterlands: Fool's Gold
« on: April 09, 2012, 08:00:29 pm »
Thanks for the article! I've been running a lot of simulations with Fool's Gold, since it's fairly easy to construct simple algorithms with FG that have a pretty high success rate. As you said above, I was surprised to learn that FG works poorly with Chapel and Moneylender, and was utterly unsurprised to find it works well with things like Smithy and Wharf. A few surprises I found:
- The best FG-only strategy I found buys Provinces whenever possible, Golds if you have $6+ and a single buy, and FG otherwise (until the end, when it's time to buy Duchies). I call it "Fool Money", as opposed to "Big Money", and it's really not bad. (It beats Big Money 66% of the time.)
- I was stunned to find that Fool's Gold works even better in games with Platinums and Colonies (at least against Big Money).
- Fool's Gold redeems Woodcutter. When you're buying Fool's Gold, Woodcutter is suddenly a good card, and Nomad Camp is even better. (You only want one.)
- Bridge is good, but the killer combo is with Goons. A simple Fool's-Gold-and-Goons strategy beats Double Jack.
41
Rules Questions / Re: If Secret Chamber is the Bane...
« on: April 07, 2012, 01:44:55 pm »
Thanks, that's how I thought it worked, but I wanted to be sure.
42
Rules Questions / If Secret Chamber is the Bane...
« on: April 06, 2012, 09:05:06 pm »
So if Secret Chamber is the Bane card in a game with Young Witch, and I am attacked, can I first use Secret Chamber's reaction ability (to draw 2 and put 2 back on my library) and then reveal the Secret Chamber to prevent the attack from affecting me?
43
Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $3 cards
« on: April 06, 2012, 08:50:12 pm »
In a hand with one Estate and two Copper, Dominiate's Ambassadors return the one estate rather than the coppers. Is this optimal? Otherwise, I don't see a problem.
I don't think Fortune Teller is great, but I suspect it's undervalued in games where there's not a great engine to build. It soundly beats most other $3 "Silver plus" cards (e.g. Woodcutter) in a head-to-head buy-one-card-only matchup. I know real games aren't played that way, but in cases where you need +$2 terminals (Duke rush, Hunting Party, etc.) I think it's a solid choice.
And Ambassador may just be somewhat overrated. Assuming Dominiate's Ambassador play isn't broken, I can't find an easy-to-simulate strategy that buys Ambassadors and consistently beats an identical strategy that buys Fortune Teller instead. (For instance, buying Libraries and Caravans and one Ambassador does slightly worse than one buying Libraries and Caravans and one Fortune Teller.)
I don't think Fortune Teller is great, but I suspect it's undervalued in games where there's not a great engine to build. It soundly beats most other $3 "Silver plus" cards (e.g. Woodcutter) in a head-to-head buy-one-card-only matchup. I know real games aren't played that way, but in cases where you need +$2 terminals (Duke rush, Hunting Party, etc.) I think it's a solid choice.
And Ambassador may just be somewhat overrated. Assuming Dominiate's Ambassador play isn't broken, I can't find an easy-to-simulate strategy that buys Ambassadors and consistently beats an identical strategy that buys Fortune Teller instead. (For instance, buying Libraries and Caravans and one Ambassador does slightly worse than one buying Libraries and Caravans and one Fortune Teller.)
44
Dominion General Discussion / Ambassador vs. Fortune Teller
« on: April 06, 2012, 02:45:06 pm »
I find it fascinating that Ambassador, a $3 attack, is listed as the best $3 card in the game, while Fortune Teller, another $3 attack, is fourth from the bottom. (Qvist even calls Ambassador "the best attack relative to its cost" while calling Fortune Teller "the worst attack in the game".) And yet the simulations at Dominiate seem to tell a very different story.
When you play the predefined "Double Ambassador" strategy against a "Double Fortune Teller" strategy (exactly the same, but replace "Ambassador" with "Fortune Teller" in the code), the Fortune Teller strategy wins 55% of the time. In fact, when I experiment with other strategies (buying only one, or buying three plus Laboratories, etc.), Fortune Teller seems to beat Ambassador every time. What gives? Why would the community judge Ambassador as so much better, when it loses in a head to head match-up?
When you play the predefined "Double Ambassador" strategy against a "Double Fortune Teller" strategy (exactly the same, but replace "Ambassador" with "Fortune Teller" in the code), the Fortune Teller strategy wins 55% of the time. In fact, when I experiment with other strategies (buying only one, or buying three plus Laboratories, etc.), Fortune Teller seems to beat Ambassador every time. What gives? Why would the community judge Ambassador as so much better, when it loses in a head to head match-up?
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