Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: 1 ... 10 11 [12]  All

Author Topic: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards  (Read 112887 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Awaclus

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 11809
  • Shuffle iT Username: Awaclus
  • (´。• ω •。`)
  • Respect: +12849
    • View Profile
    • Birds of Necama
Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards
« Reply #275 on: May 01, 2014, 08:25:39 am »
0

I remember a game where I beat Cultist with PStone+Storeroom (which is known to be a strong combo, made even stronger by all those Ruins) - it was close though, and I have no idea what its win rate is like against it.
Even then, you had to pick a strategy that works well specifically against Cultist -> you didn't ignore Cultist.

True, I guess that "Harvest" and "don't buy Cultist because I think something else is better on this board" are not the same thing. :P
Those would be the same thing. "Harvest" and "don't buy Cultist because there's a strategy that counters Cultist on this board" are not the same thing, though.
Logged
Bomb, Cannon, and many of the Gunpowder cards can strongly effect gameplay, particularly in a destructive way

The YouTube channel where I make musicDownload my band's Creative Commons albums for free

SCSN

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2227
  • Respect: +7140
    • View Profile
Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards
« Reply #276 on: May 01, 2014, 08:39:00 am »
+1

SCSN being a remarkably good player, his claim that the simulator could potentially win in 90% of possible kingdoms after a day (which means a week of coding and another of debugging in devspeak) of serious scripting is very interesting.

I would very much like to read the thinking process that would get the simulator there. Would you use hard coded strategies? Evaluation algorithms (the way chess programs are mostly coded) to pick and choose which cards work best in a kingdom? And then there's more specific problems, like understanding first player advantage or multiplayer games, which I guess are not your prime concern, but I would still like to read about it should you eventually get down to work them into the simulator.

I think you misunderstood me. I definitely don't claim that, without investing years, I can write a general Dominion AI that can play just any random kingdom it's fed even remotely well. What I said was far more modest: given one specific kingdom that belongs to the bottom ~90% of those that are easiest to play (not too sure about the % obviously, but the set should include the majority of engine boards and all non-engines), I can come up with a script that plays it better than I would at my first attempt.

The actual programming takes quite a bit of cleverness and finesse (the main challenge is formulating the right equivalence classes in which to group dissimilar gamestates that can be treated equally without much impacting the quality of play), but it's nothing ground-breaking, as the stuff that would be most difficult to get a computer to do right (kingdom evaluation and tactical adjustments) still happens in my head.
« Last Edit: May 01, 2014, 08:40:36 am by SheCantSayNo »
Logged

SCSN

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2227
  • Respect: +7140
    • View Profile
Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards
« Reply #277 on: May 01, 2014, 08:56:15 am »
+1

Well, showing the code so that anyone can investigate its correctness, would have helped here.

silverspawn doesn't like this "black box" magic where someone puts some (non-public) script data into a black box and then claims that either of the strategies represented by these scripts is superior to the other.

My scripts have been publicly available for at least 6 months now. You can find them either in Dominiate or in the far more sophisticated Dominulator (on Sparafucile's GitHub), which requires Visual Studio to run. If you're genuinely interested I recommend the latter, as it's very flexible, e.g. a finding like this is practically impossible to obtain using Dominiate, as it's too slow to get a large enough sample. One of its interesting features is that you can manipulate the gamestate so that you start, say, with a lost Duchy split for one of the players, and investigate whether and how he should respond differently.
Logged

7string

  • Baron
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 56
  • Shuffle iT Username: 7string
  • Respect: +57
    • View Profile
Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards
« Reply #278 on: May 01, 2014, 10:38:29 am »
0

Either SCSN or Holger could start a thread (if it hasn't already been done) discussing what is going into their simulator, the kind of choices they make, how it chooses a strategy, etc.


I agree.  A separate thread for the topic of simulators would be a good idea.  We are starting to lose the core of this thread and discussing the actual cards themselves - which to me was a huge part of the value of publishing the Dominion Cards Lists.
Logged

BraveBear

  • Bishop
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 107
  • Respect: +97
    • View Profile
Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards
« Reply #279 on: May 01, 2014, 11:11:04 am »
+1

I'll help us get back on track.

I have Merchant Guild on my personal rankings at 25 and I see it in the low 40s on this list.

I know it isn't a power 5.  I know it doesn't attack or trash.  But it rivals Bridge and Grand Market on pay load.

Maybe its because I've won with it so convincing some times that it holds a special place in my heart.

I just think when building an tight engine and you are looking for a pay load MG shines even more then goons sometimes.  It isn't too tough to get 3 MG in play and buy another 5 engine components and then empty the province pile in one turn.

I just think coin tokens aren't valued enough and MG is the best in the biz.

-Bear
Logged

Awaclus

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 11809
  • Shuffle iT Username: Awaclus
  • (´。• ω •。`)
  • Respect: +12849
    • View Profile
    • Birds of Necama
Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards
« Reply #280 on: May 01, 2014, 11:31:10 am »
0

I know it isn't a power 5.  I know it doesn't attack or trash.  But it rivals Bridge and Grand Market on pay load.
Rivaling Bridge, a $4 card, isn't that hot for a $5 card.

Logged
Bomb, Cannon, and many of the Gunpowder cards can strongly effect gameplay, particularly in a destructive way

The YouTube channel where I make musicDownload my band's Creative Commons albums for free

silverspawn

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5301
  • Shuffle iT Username: sty.silver
  • Respect: +3191
    • View Profile
Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards
« Reply #281 on: May 01, 2014, 11:38:59 am »
0

Quote
Because what you're criticising is mostly my work, which Holger builds upon. And I certainly feel you're doing it injustice.

i stand by the claim that i didn't criticise it, but we're not going to come to an agreement here, so we should let it rest.

--

both merchant guild and bridge are variants of the effect "+1$, +1$ per card you buy this turn". bridge has the drawback that you don't get +$ if the card you're buying costs less than the amount of bridges you have played, mg has the drawback that its effect kicks in delayed, and has more flexibility to reallocate the $ you're getting.

I think mg is a little bit stronger once you got it, but bridge is stronger relative to its cost.
« Last Edit: May 01, 2014, 11:40:28 am by silverspawn »
Logged

KingZog3

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3163
  • Respect: +1380
    • View Profile
Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards
« Reply #282 on: May 01, 2014, 11:47:11 am »
0

I know it isn't a power 5.  I know it doesn't attack or trash.  But it rivals Bridge and Grand Market on pay load.
Rivaling Bridge, a $4 card, isn't that hot for a $5 card.

It basically is the same strength as Bridge. I think if bridge costed $5 it would play about the same way.
Logged

sudgy

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3431
  • Shuffle iT Username: sudgy
  • It's pronounced "SOO-jee"
  • Respect: +2706
    • View Profile
Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards
« Reply #283 on: May 01, 2014, 11:55:16 am »
0

I think Merchant Guild is in the middle.  If you have a few extra actions, it can easily be added to your engine and help it a lot.  I one time got like 50 coin tokens from it once.
Logged
If you're wondering what my avatar is, watch this.

Check out my logic puzzle blog!

   Quote from: sudgy on June 31, 2011, 11:47:46 pm

KingZog3

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3163
  • Respect: +1380
    • View Profile
Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards
« Reply #284 on: May 01, 2014, 12:07:09 pm »
0

I think Merchant Guild is in the middle.  If you have a few extra actions, it can easily be added to your engine and help it a lot.  I one time got like 50 coin tokens from it once.

It has potential to give enough $$ to last you the game, which is it's advantage over Bridge which need to all be played on the same turn. But usually Bridge does the job just as well.
Logged

Holger

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 736
  • Respect: +458
    • View Profile
Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $5 cards
« Reply #285 on: May 04, 2014, 07:02:57 pm »
+1

i mostly meant that, even if rebuild/militia beats rebuild/mount/militia in straight simulation, whenever you do go mount and your opponent didn't, you can still switch into a BM plan, because I do think mount/militia beats rebuild/militia (hence the "?")

i also don't really trust simulation... not because of the concept, but people seem to place way too much trust into simulations which do significant strategic mistakes

Sorry for the late reply. I'm certain that Mount/Militia does not beat Rebuild/Militia based on simulation data from Dominiate (using the standard Rebuild and DoubleMount strategies implemented there http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/dominiate/play.html#Rebuild/DoubleMountebank, just buying 2 resp. 1 additional Militia for $4, which seem to be more or less the optimal numbers, gives a 59-41 win for Rebuild). Feel free to point out any strategic or other mistakes in the strategies. DoubleMountebank is certainly not as perfectly optimised as Rebuild was by SCSN, but there's not that many decisions to make there either.

(FWIW, Rebuild already beats Mount. among the one-card strategies; an additional terminal support card is not going to help Mountebank much...)
Logged
Pages: 1 ... 10 11 [12]  All
 

Page created in 0.237 seconds with 20 queries.