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Author Topic: On not giving in to temptation  (Read 10751 times)

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AJD

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On not giving in to temptation
« on: December 01, 2011, 03:13:59 am »
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Didn't save the game log. However, here's a lesson I learned the hard way tonight:

If you open Black Market / Potion, and then on Turn 3 you have Black Market plus $2P and the Black Market offers you a Chapel...

you should probably tell the Black Market no thanks, and just get that Familiar anyway.
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Jimmmmm

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2011, 03:19:02 am »
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Ooh, tough call.
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Geronimoo

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2011, 03:49:24 am »
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Depends on the board, but I'd guess Familiar 90% of the time.
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Thisisnotasmile

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2011, 04:50:50 am »
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Personally I'd take Familiar 100% of the time. I'm not a fan of boring "Trash your deck, then BM" games so I avoid them whenever possible, and it's certainly possible to avoid that when I've already got perfectly sound plans for a Familiar deck. This isn't always the right thing to do though. There's a reason my rating isn't as high as it could be. But I'm having fun and that's what matters to me.
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Davio

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2011, 06:53:25 am »
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If you buy the Chapel now, you could buy the Familiar later.

But if you do buy the Chapel, you have diverging goals. You want to trash as much as reasonably possible, but you also need $ to buy the Familiar and you can't trash the Potion.

If everything goes to plan, however, you can Chapel some Estates ánd buy the Familiar in the next playthrough of your deck, which gives you a great edge.

If there would be no other trashers, I think i'd buy the Chapel actually, delaying the Familiar a bit and eventually Chapeling the BM as well.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2011, 08:51:05 am »
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I think 90-100% is a bit high. Getting chapel can't be that bad. Late chapels run into the problem that they can't really trash 4 cards, since they get drawn with something good, but even trashing 2-3 cards can be good enough sometimes.

You'll get your first familiar later, but chapel trimming can let you play your fewer familiars more, and you shouldn't lose the curse split that badly. Then once that phase is over, you'll have a trimmer deck to transition into something, and less negative points if you manage to trash curses.

I think the decision should depend on what the transition is. If it's just money, it's probably not worth it, but if you can make a rabble chain or something, you should probably go for the chapel, I think...
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Geronimoo

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #6 on: December 01, 2011, 09:04:59 am »
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I did a few simulations and in case you're going for a money based strategy, the Chapel is definitely a bad idea (not awful, but bad)
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Davio

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #7 on: December 01, 2011, 09:28:24 am »
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Yeah, it definitely depends on what the game turns into after the Curses are gone.

If it's a Colony game, then Chapel is looking pretty good.
If it's a Province game without much else on the board, then Familiar is looking better.

Could you provide the complete board for us?
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theory

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #8 on: December 01, 2011, 09:41:46 am »
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Chapel is surprisingly weak past Turn 3.  It's the Treasure Map effect: your deck is filled with other stuff, so you don't always get your Chapel with what you want (namely 4 bad cards).

Just keep in mind that in playtesting they experimented with Chapel trashing only 3 instead of 4, and it was "horrible. Just, way slower than the current version, like you wouldn't believe."
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AJD

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #9 on: December 01, 2011, 09:55:16 am »
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Yeah, it definitely depends on what the game turns into after the Curses are gone.

If it's a Colony game, then Chapel is looking pretty good.
If it's a Province game without much else on the board, then Familiar is looking better.

Could you provide the complete board for us?

Here it is: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111130-205507-9a4d0a29.html

The thing that kept getting my goat was that Randomizer would play a bunch of Governors, giving me a huge handsize for my next turn, but with no Chapel in it—sometimes because Randomizer had made me skip my Chapel with a Spy, but sometimes not. I don't think I ever had my Chapel and any of my seven Curses in hand at the same time for the entire game.
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Davio

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #10 on: December 01, 2011, 10:21:28 am »
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Well, you just kept buying cards that clog your deck!

I wonder if it would have been better to wipe the slate clean first with Chapel, building it up from (almost) scratch, playing you're precious Familiar(s) more often.
Your turn 5 Wharf buy bothers me especially. Chances are you're either going to draw Wharf with Chapel in the same hand or pick Chapel up from the Wharf draw itself. You already had BM as a terminal!

Maybe if you hadn't bloated your deck, you'd have drawn your Chapel with your crappy cards...

Hmm, reading this back it all sounds really mean, but I don't mean it that way. ;)
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Fangz

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #11 on: December 01, 2011, 11:04:17 am »
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Getting the chapel is probably a reasonable gamble. To make it work, though, I'd have gone with a focus on governor - getting governor before even gold, and certainly before getting wharf. Governor's a great complement to chapel, really.
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Fabian

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #12 on: December 01, 2011, 12:14:29 pm »
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I'd definitely go with Familiar, for the same kind of reason why you lose 90% of the Silver/Chapel mirrors where your opponent hits his Chapel on turns 3/4, and you don't; Chapel is (comparatively) super unimpressive when you don't get going "right away", so to speak. Buying Chapel after the first reshuffle, not drawing it until some point during the second reshuffle (which is already reasonably late in the game), probably only getting to trash 3 cards at best, while passing up an insanely strong card (Familiar).. that's a lot of opportunity cost involved.

Chapel is one of the most "exponentially" powerful cards I can think of. That is, a card that gets stronger the earlier you use it. I mean, there's a reason why you always buy it on turns 1/2, and never later. Treasure Map is another card like that, which I'd basically never consider if I didn't pick one up on turns 1/2. My gut feeling tells me that a turn 3 Chapel won't do you much good compared to the alternative.
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AJD

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #13 on: December 01, 2011, 01:35:25 pm »
+1

Your turn 5 Wharf buy bothers me especially. Chances are you're either going to draw Wharf with Chapel in the same hand or pick Chapel up from the Wharf draw itself. You already had BM as a terminal!

"Giving into temptation" is a common theme with Black Market, and this was another case of it on my part. Wharf is a great card, you know, and when you (by which I mean, I) see one in the Black Market you're likely to go 'Ooh! Awesome card, and this is my only chance to get one!' without really reasoning through whether it's the best card for your deck at this point in the game. At least, that's what happened to me in this game with both Wharf and (to a lesser extent) Chapel, and I think it's a problem I fall victim to with Black Market a lot.
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rinkworks

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #14 on: December 01, 2011, 01:39:19 pm »
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Chapel is one of the most "exponentially" powerful cards I can think of. That is, a card that gets stronger the earlier you use it.

I played around with the "Win Rate By Turn" graphs on councilroom, and Trading Post was the only other card I could find that had as dramatic a drop as Chapel after the first and second shuffles.  Even Moneylender has a comparatively shallow drop.  No doubt I missed checking some likely candidates, though.  link
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ackack

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #15 on: December 01, 2011, 06:53:17 pm »
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Getting the chapel is probably a reasonable gamble. To make it work, though, I'd have gone with a focus on governor - getting governor before even gold, and certainly before getting wharf. Governor's a great complement to chapel, really.

It's especially good when you're the only one with a Chapel, as then your opponent's Silver gains aren't nearly as meaningful.

That said, theory and Fabian are basically right - a Chapel acquired this way is much weaker than a normal Chapel. If there's a big robust draw engine you're planning on building anyway it might be worth it, but most of the time taking the Familiar will be better. added: just saw AJD linked the game. In that set I'm nearly certain Familiar is better.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2011, 06:55:49 pm by ackack »
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Jimmmmm

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #16 on: December 01, 2011, 09:00:52 pm »
+1

Chapel is one of the most "exponentially" powerful cards I can think of. That is, a card that gets stronger the earlier you use it.

I played around with the "Win Rate By Turn" graphs on councilroom, and Trading Post was the only other card I could find that had as dramatic a drop as Chapel after the first and second shuffles.  Even Moneylender has a comparatively shallow drop.  No doubt I missed checking some likely candidates, though.  link

Of course, most of these 3rd+ turn Chapels have to compete with a Chapel opening. It's another question entirely how well they would do against no Chapel.
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Thisisnotasmile

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #17 on: December 02, 2011, 06:35:45 am »
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I ran a simulation (hadn't simulated for a while and felt like seeing if I could still use it) of this. I had a (completely arbitrary) Familiar bot against the exact same Familiar bot with a very first buy rule of "Buy a Chapel if you have a Potion in play and 0 Chapels in your deck". This should pretty accurately simulate the decision at hand, ignoring other cards in this particular game.

Straight Familiar 54 - 43 Buy Chapel First.

Bots in case anyone wants to check out the totally arbitrary buy rules I came up with for Familiar (I just went with what I would probably do in a game):

Code: [Select]
<player name="Familiar+" author="TINAS" description="">
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
   <buy name="Province"/>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Familiar">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Familiar"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="3.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Curse"/>
         <operator type="greaterOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Potion">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Potion"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
</player>

Code: [Select]
<player name="Familiar+ChapelAJD" author="TINAS" description="">
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
   <buy name="Chapel">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInPlay" attribute="Potion"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Chapel"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Province"/>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Familiar">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Familiar"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="3.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Curse"/>
         <operator type="greaterOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Potion">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Potion"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
</player>
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Geronimoo

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #18 on: December 02, 2011, 07:12:59 am »
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Your Chapel bot needs one more condition: "if available $ >= 3". Otherwise it will buy a Chapel at $2P while the Familiar player wouldn't be able to buy a Familiar at that time.
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Thisisnotasmile

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #19 on: December 02, 2011, 07:23:37 am »
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I considered that but I thought it didn't need it as the point was to pit Familiar-Bot against Familiar-Bot-That-Will-Intentionally-Whiff-Its-First-Potion-For-A-Chapel. It's already a loser and making it double-whiff for no real reason isn't going to help it. Besides, if AJD had had a hand of Potion/BM/E/E/E and pulled the Chapel, he wouldn't have skipped the Chapel (I hope).
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Fangz

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #20 on: December 02, 2011, 08:36:17 am »
+1

But wait, on this deck you need to consider the additional complication of Governor. Governor helps chapel a lot by (a) allowing you to draw a lot of cards to trash at once, (b) allowing you to remodel your chapel into something else, and (c) allowing you to gain gold easily and quickly while at the same time throwing silvers at your opponent to slow down his familiars. In turn chapel helps governor by upping your number of plays of it and helping with governor/gold collisions. I'd probably have taken the chapel, really - but that's probably partially my visceral hatred of mirror matches talking.

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Jimmmmm

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #21 on: December 02, 2011, 07:07:51 pm »
+1

Slightly different but related and generally more useful question: what's the best opening with Chapel and Familiar on the board?
Obviously it's some subset of {Chapel, Silver, Potion}. Would Chapel/Potion make a turn 3-4 Familiar too unlikely? Of course, Chapel/Silver makes a turn 3-4 Familiar impossible, and Potion/Silver will leave us with an "exponentially worse" Chapel. I suspect probably Chapel/Silver is the way to go, but I'm not sure.
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Geronimoo

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #22 on: December 03, 2011, 05:02:20 am »
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According to simulations Chapel/Potion is better than Chapel/Silver which is better than Silver/Potion. The possibility of an early Familiar is probably key, but it's high variance (which I'm sure a lot of players will hate). The last option buys a turn 3 Chapel which is just not effective.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2011, 05:08:22 am by Geronimoo »
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #23 on: December 03, 2011, 06:02:13 am »
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According to simulations Chapel/Potion is better than Chapel/Silver which is better than Silver/Potion. The possibility of an early Familiar is probably key, but it's high variance (which I'm sure a lot of players will hate). The last option buys a turn 3 Chapel which is just not effective.
What's the appeal of chapel/silver? You have zero chance of getting a familiar before the second shuffle with that opening. If the silver collides with chapel, you're not going to use it anyway, so you might as well have got a potion. And if the silver doesn't collide with chapel and provides a $5 hand, you're just going to buy a potion with it anyway? It seems like there is nothing to gain by getting silver instead of potion...
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guided

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Re: On not giving in to temptation
« Reply #24 on: December 03, 2011, 06:16:34 am »
+1

According to simulations Chapel/Potion is better than Chapel/Silver which is better than Silver/Potion. The possibility of an early Familiar is probably key, but it's high variance (which I'm sure a lot of players will hate). The last option buys a turn 3 Chapel which is just not effective.
What's the appeal of chapel/silver? You have zero chance of getting a familiar before the second shuffle with that opening. If the silver collides with chapel, you're not going to use it anyway, so you might as well have got a potion. And if the silver doesn't collide with chapel and provides a $5 hand, you're just going to buy a potion with it anyway? It seems like there is nothing to gain by getting silver instead of potion...
It's plausible to me that Silver/Potion/Chapel is worse than Chapel/Silver, and you'll note he did say that Chapel/Potion was the best out of the three.

I wonder how Silver/Potion fares if it doesn't buy a Chapel? I've found turn-3 Chapel to be quite weak in general (from earlier solitaire studies of increased costs for Chapel), and I've found Chapel to be mediocre at best against fast Cursing attacks.
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