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Author Topic: Prismata  (Read 133543 times)

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silverspawn

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #150 on: December 19, 2014, 12:13:25 pm »
0

if you lose every match with a >50% chance, then your odds of promoting do decrease with every step. if, for example, you have 1% chance to win each individual match, start with 0 points, need 1 point to promote, and each win/loss equals +/-1 point, then you have 1% chance to promote instantly, but with each loss that chance decreases. after the first loss your chance for instant promotion is 0,01%. overall, you roughly get a chance of 1% + 0,01% + 0,0001% ... = 1,01010101...%. that's slightly simplified, because if you do get a win the chance does increase again, but that doesn't weigh in heavily, and it's useful to understand why your chance does stay low.

so much for my logical approach. if I read your article correctly, it just states that you lose eventually with a neutral or negative winrate (which is what pacofv just said)

Quote
thus, even if you find a fair casino, you're certain to end up broke

it does not state that you don't go broke with a positive winrate, but the fact that it also doesn't state that you do seems like a strong indication that you don't.

this is actually something I randomly started thinking about about a year ago, without ever having heard of gambler's ruin. I concluded that you always lose with <50% and =50%, and have a chance to lose with >50% for each individual match. I even came up with a formal proof that you always lose with exactly 50%.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2014, 12:19:20 pm by silverspawn »
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pacovf

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #151 on: December 19, 2014, 12:18:48 pm »
0

Your link does state that the odds of getting into the absorbing state are less than 1 if your odds of moving away from the absorbing state are strictly higher than 0.5. You don't need "stable" regions away from the absorbing state.
Where does it say that?

Can't copy text from a pdf...

P:4 "
If p>q, then since h0 = 1 we get a family of solutions hi = (q/p)^i + A*(1-(q/p)^i); for a non-negative solution we must have A>=0, so the minimal non-negative solution is hi = (q/p)^i
"

Ergo, hi < 1, so there's a chance you don't ever get into the absorbing state.

I also edited my previous post BTW.

EDIT: actually, if A = 1, hi = 1. Hrm let me see if they say anything else.

EDIT2: oh ok, they actually prove before that that the solution has to be minimal, so yeah.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2014, 12:38:14 pm by pacovf »
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #152 on: December 19, 2014, 12:21:54 pm »
+1

Sorry all, I need to work on my reading skills.
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liopoil

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #153 on: December 19, 2014, 10:29:05 pm »
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So, uhh, that hard boss. I've managed to breach and kill the gunbots, but it's not enough! I run out of drones :(
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silverspawn

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #154 on: December 20, 2014, 12:28:40 am »
0

So, uhh, that hard boss. I've managed to breach and kill the gunbots, but it's not enough! I run out of drones :(

I've seen a video where a guy from the staff talked about this one. he said it was designed to be crazy difficult, and that a lot of players tried it for hours without making it. but it is possible to do it, and you can even do it without building engineers.

qmech

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #155 on: December 20, 2014, 07:03:03 am »
+1

http://play.prismata.net/?r=xZVj7-nfWXK

My current project is to defend without Walls when possible.  This game had Wild Drone, Chieftain, and Feral Warden, so it was a perfect opportunity.  It also had (new-style) Apollo, which ruled out Feral Warden and most of the attackers.  So I buy one Chieftain a turn when I can, and take Gauss Cannons for attack.  My opponent defends with Walls, which I snipe with Apollo after dealing with their foray into Hellhounds, and when the Walls run out they burn all their drones into Forcefields.  A breach takes out their Auride Cores, and then it's a case of making sure I don't defend stupidly.

I did make at least a couple of stupid mistakes in this game.  I buy an Animus that I never use (everything Red is vulnerable to Apollo), but at least it soaks up an Apollo snipe.  I also buy a Blastforge after my last one is destroyed when I already have two Synthesizers and a large stockpile of Green.

I'm not sure how important it is here, but I'm a fan of Wild Drone in general.  It's either cheap defence or cheap economy, both of which are great.  The main problem with it defensively is that your opponent can just ignore it if they want to, so you need to have something else too.
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Re: Prismata
« Reply #156 on: December 20, 2014, 07:13:02 am »
0

So, I'm enjoying the game, but three times now while playing I've had Windows Blue Screen with an SQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error, or something very similar to that at least. Has this happened to anyone else? It's kinda hard to play the game when any longer game ends up crashing like this :(.
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qmech

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #157 on: December 20, 2014, 07:31:52 am »
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I'm having no problem in Chromium on Ubuntu.  It takes a while to load occasionally, but I'm prepared to put that down to server load.  It's better than Goko at any rate.  I tried to play Dominion this morning and every time it crashed after showing the loading screen for about 5 minutes.
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silverspawn

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #158 on: December 20, 2014, 07:44:14 am »
+1

http://play.prismata.net/?r=xZVj7-nfWXK

My current project is to defend without Walls when possible.  This game had Wild Drone, Chieftain, and Feral Warden, so it was a perfect opportunity.  It also had (new-style) Apollo, which ruled out Feral Warden and most of the attackers.  So I buy one Chieftain a turn when I can, and take Gauss Cannons for attack.  My opponent defends with Walls, which I snipe with Apollo after dealing with their foray into Hellhounds, and when the Walls run out they burn all their drones into Forcefields.  A breach takes out their Auride Cores, and then it's a case of making sure I don't defend stupidly.

I did make at least a couple of stupid mistakes in this game.  I buy an Animus that I never use (everything Red is vulnerable to Apollo), but at least it soaks up an Apollo snipe.  I also buy a Blastforge after my last one is destroyed when I already have two Synthesizers and a large stockpile of Green.

I'm not sure how important it is here, but I'm a fan of Wild Drone in general.  It's either cheap defence or cheap economy, both of which are great.  The main problem with it defensively is that your opponent can just ignore it if they want to, so you need to have something else too.

you are way overestimating how good apollo is. don't build gauss canons over tarsiers just because he's there. the only reason why that didn't cost you the game was that both of you did it.

i think :)

qmech

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #159 on: December 20, 2014, 08:02:52 am »
0

Thanks!  I had forgotten that Apollo is now legendary when I started, so I was a bit worried about losing Tarsiers under a flood of Apollos.  Is sniping of Animus not going to be a problem if I go heavy on Red?
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silverspawn

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #160 on: December 20, 2014, 08:20:09 am »
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Apollo is going to be a problem, but skipping Tarsiers doesn't really make him that much less of a problem. If a finished tarsier is worth 6$, he's worth just as much as an Animus. Even if you skip red completely, he's worth just 1$ more than a blastforge (plus the production facilities are often better targets for Apollo anyway, because you can screw with your opponent's resource balance).

So, you probably do get a small advantage out of having Gauss Canons instead of Tarsiers, but I'm pretty sure it's not enough to justify the difference in cost. Gauss canon is just so weak.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2014, 08:21:10 am by silverspawn »
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pingpongsam

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #161 on: December 20, 2014, 02:23:42 pm »
+6

With 4 hours left I got myself a Christmas present and backed for $50.

I hope I don't hate myself since I am pretty terrible at it so far.
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qmech

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #162 on: December 20, 2014, 05:12:17 pm »
0

http://play.prismata.net/?r=BW3ZB-qfvaK

So here's a game in which I do ignore Apollo and lose.  Is it because the game went on so long (30 turns, although I'd lost by 20ish) that Apollo was very efficient damage?
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liopoil

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #163 on: December 20, 2014, 05:51:52 pm »
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So, uhh, that hard boss. I've managed to breach and kill the gunbots, but it's not enough! I run out of drones :(

I've seen a video where a guy from the staff talked about this one. he said it was designed to be crazy difficult, and that a lot of players tried it for hours without making it. but it is possible to do it, and you can even do it without building engineers.
I saw that video too. Have you beaten it? Here's the best I've been able to do:

DD/DD/DAA/Fang+Rhino/FangEE (leave drone back)/FangE(leave drone back)/Fang(leave 4 drones back)/Breach for 4/Breach for 5 and lose.
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qmech

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #164 on: December 20, 2014, 06:41:25 pm »
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Funded with $140 000 on the nose! 

(People were switching to Paypal.)
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silverspawn

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #165 on: December 20, 2014, 11:38:38 pm »
0

Have you beaten it?
no, I gave up after like 5 tries

GeoLib

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #166 on: December 21, 2014, 12:39:41 am »
0

What determines whether things with one health have red or blue health? There's no difference, right? I just don't think it really makes sense for non-blocking 1-health things to have blue health. Thinking of Gauss charge in particular here.
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silverspawn

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #167 on: December 21, 2014, 12:44:12 am »
+2

http://play.prismata.net/?r=BW3ZB-qfvaK

So here's a game in which I do ignore Apollo and lose.  Is it because the game went on so long (30 turns, although I'd lost by 20ish) that Apollo was very efficient damage?

I think you did two big mistakes this game.

The most important one was to buy multiple Xeno Guardians. Xeno is a good unit because he has vigilante. He can attack and block at the same time (and has 4 health). That's super good, and it's often a reason to get him as fast as possible, but you almost never want to buy multiple copies of him. Each one after the first one is just an overly expensive Tarsier. Think about it, aside from the first one, what does he do to make him more valuable than a Tarsier? If you block with more than one, you lose them, which you don't want to happen anyway. After the first one, buying multiple copies is actually even worse than buying Gauss Canons, as they cost 9$ and are basically equally strong.

The second mistake was not to get Apollo. Man, I never said not to get Apollo. What I said was, Apollo is not a reason for you to get Gauss Canons, because getting Gauss Canons doesn't protect you from him. Get Tarsiers over Gauss Canons, but then buy him anyway (if the game goes that long). Your opponent did have good targets, he had two Steelsplitters, which cost 7$.

Of course, in this game you do have to find a secondary damage source eventually, simply because there are just 10 Tarsiers in the supply. What I would have done is, get one Xeno ASAP and then look for the most efficient source of damage. Tarsier is one damage for 5$, that's the best. Get all 10 of them before you buy any other damage units. After that, the second best is one damage for $7 from either Steelsplitter or Gauss Canon, so start getting those. And add Apollo at some point during that.

By the way, if anyone disagrees with anything I say, please comment on it.

What determines whether things with one health have red or blue health? There's no difference, right? I just don't think it really makes sense for non-blocking 1-health things to have blue health. Thinking of Gauss charge in particular here.

I think blue is considered "normal", so for one health units, where it makes no difference, they just went with that.

Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #168 on: December 21, 2014, 12:50:06 am »
+1

What determines whether things with one health have red or blue health? There's no difference, right? I just don't think it really makes sense for non-blocking 1-health things to have blue health. Thinking of Gauss charge in particular here.
They could introduce effects in the future that modify the health of units and then it will matter whether the thing is fragile or not.
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Awaclus

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #169 on: December 21, 2014, 03:01:53 am »
+1

What determines whether things with one health have red or blue health? There's no difference, right? I just don't think it really makes sense for non-blocking 1-health things to have blue health. Thinking of Gauss charge in particular here.

It needs to be specifically fragile in order to have red health, so blue health is simpler.
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pacovf

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #170 on: December 21, 2014, 06:30:39 am »
+1

http://play.prismata.net/?r=BW3ZB-qfvaK

So here's a game in which I do ignore Apollo and lose.  Is it because the game went on so long (30 turns, although I'd lost by 20ish) that Apollo was very efficient damage?

I think you did two big mistakes this game.

The most important one was to buy multiple Xeno Guardians. Xeno is a good unit because he has vigilante. He can attack and block at the same time (and has 4 health). That's super good, and it's often a reason to get him as fast as possible, but you almost never want to buy multiple copies of him. Each one after the first one is just an overly expensive Tarsier. Think about it, aside from the first one, what does he do to make him more valuable than a Tarsier? If you block with more than one, you lose them, which you don't want to happen anyway. After the first one, buying multiple copies is actually even worse than buying Gauss Canons, as they cost 9$ and are basically equally strong.

The second mistake was not to get Apollo. Man, I never said not to get Apollo. What I said was, Apollo is not a reason for you to get Gauss Canons, because getting Gauss Canons doesn't protect you from him. Get Tarsiers over Gauss Canons, but then buy him anyway (if the game goes that long). Your opponent did have good targets, he had two Steelsplitters, which cost 7$.

Of course, in this game you do have to find a secondary damage source eventually, simply because there are just 10 Tarsiers in the supply. What I would have done is, get one Xeno ASAP and then look for the most efficient source of damage. Tarsier is one damage for 5$, that's the best. Get all 10 of them before you buy any other damage units. After that, the second best is one damage for $7 from either Steelsplitter or Gauss Canon, so start getting those. And add Apollo at some point during that.

By the way, if anyone disagrees with anything I say, please comment on it.

Your cost conversion is confusing me... You are converting every special resource into one coin. I think that is very misleading. One coin is not equal to any other resource. Heck, resources are very much not equal to each other. One spark, one green, one blue or one red are wildly different in "cost".

Anyway, Apollo is quite possibly the unit I understand the least (I think I've lost most games that involved him), so disclaimer.

I am still unsure whether tarsiers are a good target for Apollo, because they are cheap, and they make your opponent fear breaches. You can snipe your opponent tarsiers, sure, but he can flood you with them faster than you can take them out. And taking them all out actually removes a weakness from his strategy. I guess it depends on how long you think the game is going to be, and what your short term breaching perspectives look like.
That's a problem with all heavy-blue strategies though: if your opponent sees that you are going that way and goes heavy red, you are already heavily disadvantaged anyway. I think.

I disagree with your opinion that gauss cannons don't counter Apollo. The objective of going heavy green is to reduce possible Apollo targets to drones or conduits, while you keep hammering him with reliable attack. Even if he breaches, you don't really care that much, because green units have a lot of health (just don't let him destroy all your drones). Whether this strategy works depends on what else is in the board, of course. For example here, I think Xenoguardians are good. While they are expensive, costing 7 coins and extra blue (!), they are still immune to Apollo, and they defend you. It's hard to find something to defend yourself against Apollo, since they chew through most defenses (walls, rhinos, what have you) quite quickly.
You are right that gauss cannons are slow though, so if that's the only thing you can buy with green, it's probably better to go for Apollo yourself.

About Xenoguardians: you want to compare them to steelsplitters, not to tarsiers. If you want a tarsier, buy a tarsier. If you want a steelsplitter, see if you can buy a xenoguardian instead.

I don't know if it is that clear cut here whether you want to go Apollo or not. The Apollo player can use his extra blue for grenade mech and pixies (and xenoguardians). The green player can get xenoguardians to defend himself and keep the attack going... well that may be too slow now that I think about it. Meh. Ok yeah maybe you want to go Apollo here anyway.

One last thing, I notice that your opponent doesn't rush his Apollo, but instead builds up some Apollo-resistant attack first, which obviously delays his Apollo by 5 turns. It works out for him because qmech doesn't build any good Apollo target (walls, steelsplitters) until later. That's actually quite well done, I have to try to remember to do that.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2014, 06:34:59 am by pacovf »
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qmech

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #171 on: December 21, 2014, 07:17:28 am »
+1

I think the comparison between Xeno Guardians and Steelsplitters is a good one, but you can spin the conclusion the other way: how often do you want to buy multiple Steelsplitters?  silvespawn is suggesting viewing it as a mini Colossus, which makes some sense to me.  There still seems to be some attraction to massing Xeno Guardians though, as they allow you to attack whilst building up defence for the future.  But maybe they're so expensive that that's rarely a good idea.

http://play.prismata.net/?r=m8OEn-ocTSR

Here's a slightly less embarrassing Xeno Guardians game.  Here I do buy a couple for defence as my opponent has two Frost Brooders.  Is that a reasonable play?  There are undoubtedly other problems with this game (I have far too much red, having some idea of buying Lucina Spinos, but deciding that it's far too breach vulnerable, although I do get a nice Tarsier burst on one turn), and I think I mostly won due to errors by my opponent (they allowed me to breach and kill 6 Tarsiers, and spent their Chill what felt to me like too soon).

I'm also not completely sold on projecting costs down to a single axis.  It's a useful starting point, and something I do when comparing various units, but I don't think you want to take it too seriously.
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qmech

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #172 on: December 21, 2014, 07:50:49 am »
+1

http://play.prismata.net/?r=65RlR-I7Bsu

First time I've bought Blood Pact.  I'm spinning my wheels with Zemora Voidbringer and have burnt through most of the Walls and Ferals when, under heavy time pressure, my opponent lets me kill his Centurion.  I have to go all in with my Steelsplitters, so Blood Pact steps in to prevent a return breach.
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silverspawn

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #173 on: December 21, 2014, 08:59:59 am »
+2

Your cost conversion is confusing me... You are converting every special resource into one coin. I think that is very misleading. One coin is not equal to any other resource. Heck, resources are very much not equal to each other. One spark, one green, one blue or one red are wildly different in "cost".
It is of course not correct, but it's a good enough metric for the point I was trying to make. a slightly better metric would be red = 1$, green = 4/3$, blue = 5/3$, but really, that doesn't hurt my point at all, because it just makes tarsier even cheaper.

I disagree with your opinion that gauss cannons don't counter Apollo. The objective of going heavy green is to reduce possible Apollo targets to drones or conduits, while you keep hammering him with reliable attack.
I wasn't saying that it does nothing to defend, I was saying that it is not worth it, because the disadvantage of buying Gauss Canons over Tarsiers is way too big.

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Re: Prismata
« Reply #174 on: December 21, 2014, 01:09:06 pm »
0

How do you play Antima Comet?

http://play.prismata.net/?r=MfdGM-VNbzf

The game might is mostly just something to hang the question off.  I've learnt through experience that playing Antima half a turn after your opponent is a losing move as all your Engineers die to their comet and then your comet does nothing at all.  So here I decided to just hold off the comet any way I could and then fire my own off later.  Is this the right sort of approach?  I could also probably have been first to the comet if I'd wanted to (skipping the Frost Brooder).  How fast do you want the comet in general?
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