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Author Topic: Engine Economies and the Limitations of Money Density  (Read 21337 times)

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werothegreat

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #25 on: March 28, 2015, 10:40:40 am »
+2

Engine 2: Engine Harder
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markusin

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #26 on: March 28, 2015, 10:44:11 am »
+1

So several people have brought up that pile control isn't very much explored here. They're right, of course, but I'm a bit puzzled - there are plenty of other reasons why you would want to go for an engine that I didn't really get into - I really wanted to focus on the differences in the economic paradigms here. If I wanted to really go in-depth on why you want to play an engine, I would need to elaborate on many points I gloss over above - the importance of access to extra gains, the ability to slow them down by attacking them often, etc.

As for pile control itself... when making the decision whether to go for an engine or not, having pile control is nice, but it's not usually a significant factor in deciding. The way that pile control really comes in for non-mirrors is when you end up buying Victory cards other than what the opponent is going for (most commonly, this means diving for lots of duchies when there are a couple of provinces left). I address this in the article, when I talk about buying less efficient sources of points (duchies are with .6 VP per coin, provinces are .75). I'm not even sure this is pile control, though I suppose it's definitely endgame control, which is the same concept, really.

But where pile control starts being enormously important is in engine mirrors.

Sounds like a very fair point, I don't think your article should go into all that. It's fine the way it is.
But then maybe you should look for a more fitting title for your article.

Seems totally reasonable. Have any suggestions? Anyone?
Yeah the article is fine as it is. It's an overview. Like, "Why Engine? An Overview" isn't good enough. enough? I'd avoid stuff like "Higher Perspective/Level' because it suggests that it's only accessible to higher level players.

Edit: Sorry, I meant to suggest " Why Engine: An Overview".
« Last Edit: March 28, 2015, 11:30:05 am by markusin »
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-Stef-

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #27 on: March 28, 2015, 11:11:08 am »
+2

Engine 2: Engine Harder

Yeah the article is fine as it is. It's an overview. Like, "Why Engine? An Overview" isn't good enough. I'd avoid stuff like "Higher Perspective/Level' because it suggests that it's only accessible to higher level players.

I don't think this is trying to be an 'advanced article' on engines at all. It's trying to correct a dead path you might be on in analyzing the game of Dominion. If you're stuck on it you can probably still make it to level 30, maybe 35 in the past, but that should be the ceiling for people refusing engines on all but the obvious boards.

My suggestion would be "The myth called Money Density".
Or if you don't like vague titles maybe something like "The limitations of Money Density" or something alike.
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terminalCopper

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #28 on: March 28, 2015, 03:33:59 pm »
+7

Indeed, the article avoids a limited BMish view on dominion. That's good. However, I am not able to get anything else out of it. And looking at 19+ respects, I kinda wonder: If the article wasn't written by WanderingWinder, but, say, werothegreat, would it get the same appreciation?
Assuming the latter, an elite dominion player might have remarked that the article is way too long, and could be replaced by ten words:

"Big Money needs money density. Deck-drawing engines grow exponentially."

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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #29 on: March 28, 2015, 03:48:06 pm »
+2

Indeed, the article avoids a limited BMish view on dominion. That's good. However, I am not able to get anything else out of it. And looking at 19+ respects, I kinda wonder: If the article wasn't written by WanderingWinder, but, say, werothegreat, would it get the same appreciation?
Assuming the latter, an elite dominion player might have remarked that the article is way too long, and could be replaced by ten words:

"Big Money needs money density. Deck-drawing engines grow exponentially."

I agree there is respect inflation for posts by Dominion "celebrities" (lol). But I'd point out that while articles by elite players are often tautological and not terribly useful unless you already understand the point, werothegreat's articles are often just plain wrong.
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Awaclus

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #30 on: March 28, 2015, 04:04:49 pm »
+1

Indeed, the article avoids a limited BMish view on dominion. That's good. However, I am not able to get anything else out of it. And looking at 19+ respects, I kinda wonder: If the article wasn't written by WanderingWinder, but, say, werothegreat, would it get the same appreciation?
Assuming the latter, an elite dominion player might have remarked that the article is way too long, and could be replaced by ten words:

"Big Money needs money density. Deck-drawing engines grow exponentially."

Well, I don't really agree that the article doesn't have a lot of content because it does, but it's definitely a thing that super high-level players get more respect for good advice than others. It's a bit funny when, say, Stef posts that he agrees with someone and gets more respect for it than the original post.
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SCSN

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #31 on: March 28, 2015, 06:00:30 pm »
+7

It's a bit funny when, say, Stef posts that he agrees with someone and gets more respect for it than the original post.

That shouldn't be surprising. When you experience some symptoms, read stuff on Wikipedia, make some vague conjecture about your condition and then visit your doctor who confirms it, your doctor's statement is far more valuable to you than the wikipedia article and your own guesswork.

Similarly, when Unknown Player X says something and Unknown Player Y argues the opposite, the entire argument would be pretty meaningless to a mediocre player who's unable to judge who's correct. Now, if Stef chimes in saying "I agree with every word of Player X, very well expressed!", that statement would be tremendously valuable.

The value isn't in the words themselves but in them being a destillation of high-level experience.
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Donald X.

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #32 on: March 28, 2015, 06:05:19 pm »
+30

It's a bit funny when, say, Stef posts that he agrees with someone and gets more respect for it than the original post.

That shouldn't be surprising. When you experience some symptoms, read stuff on Wikipedia, make some vague conjecture about your condition and then visit your doctor who confirms it, your doctor's statement is far more valuable to you than the wikipedia article and your own guesswork.

Similarly, when Unknown Player X says something and Unknown Player Y argues the opposite, the entire argument would be pretty meaningless to a mediocre player who's unable to judge who's correct. Now, if Stef chimes in saying "I agree with every word of Player X, very well expressed!", that statement would be tremendously valuable.

The value isn't in the words themselves but in them being a destillation of high-level experience.
I agree. Well put!
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werothegreat

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #33 on: March 28, 2015, 06:09:49 pm »
+1

It's a bit funny when, say, Stef posts that he agrees with someone and gets more respect for it than the original post.

That shouldn't be surprising. When you experience some symptoms, read stuff on Wikipedia, make some vague conjecture about your condition and then visit your doctor who confirms it, your doctor's statement is far more valuable to you than the wikipedia article and your own guesswork.

Similarly, when Unknown Player X says something and Unknown Player Y argues the opposite, the entire argument would be pretty meaningless to a mediocre player who's unable to judge who's correct. Now, if Stef chimes in saying "I agree with every word of Player X, very well expressed!", that statement would be tremendously valuable.

The value isn't in the words themselves but in them being a destillation of high-level experience.
I agree. Well put!

Now, despite making me laugh, I will refrain from +1-ing this to make a point.
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Awaclus

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #34 on: March 28, 2015, 06:39:02 pm »
+1

It's a bit funny when, say, Stef posts that he agrees with someone and gets more respect for it than the original post.

That shouldn't be surprising. When you experience some symptoms, read stuff on Wikipedia, make some vague conjecture about your condition and then visit your doctor who confirms it, your doctor's statement is far more valuable to you than the wikipedia article and your own guesswork.

Similarly, when Unknown Player X says something and Unknown Player Y argues the opposite, the entire argument would be pretty meaningless to a mediocre player who's unable to judge who's correct. Now, if Stef chimes in saying "I agree with every word of Player X, very well expressed!", that statement would be tremendously valuable.

The value isn't in the words themselves but in them being a destillation of high-level experience.

That is true, but the doctor generally doesn't have to be one of the top ten doctors in the world for his word to be valuable enough that I can trust it. Sure, if two or more semi-high level players disagree about something, then it's probably a very difficult decision and the opinion of a better player is extremely useful, but that's not always the case. EDIT: I mean, of course it's still useful if Stef just chimes in to agree with the general consensus, but to a lesser extent.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2015, 06:46:13 pm by Awaclus »
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #35 on: March 28, 2015, 06:39:25 pm »
+9

That shouldn't be surprising. When you experience some symptoms, read stuff on Wikipedia, make some vague conjecture about your condition and then visit your doctor who confirms it, your doctor's statement is far more valuable to you than the wikipedia article and your own guesswork.

Similarly, when Unknown Player X says something and Unknown Player Y argues the opposite, the entire argument would be pretty meaningless to a mediocre player who's unable to judge who's correct. Now, if Stef chimes in saying "I agree with every word of Player X, very well expressed!", that statement would be tremendously valuable.

The value isn't in the words themselves but in them being a destillation of high-level experience.

This sounds nice, but I am pretty sure the main effect is just from name recognition (and not an actual informed evaluation of authority based on player skill). I have certainly had posts where the Stef "I agree" post got more +1s than mine. There's not a large enough skill gap there to doubt my post but believe his. But everyone knows "Stef is the best" (which is true).

I now want to end this post in a way that doesn't make me seem bitter, as a I think the phenomenon is entertaining, not upsetting. So imagine I wrote whatever thing allows you to believe me.
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SCSN

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #36 on: March 28, 2015, 06:52:45 pm »
+1

That shouldn't be surprising. When you experience some symptoms, read stuff on Wikipedia, make some vague conjecture about your condition and then visit your doctor who confirms it, your doctor's statement is far more valuable to you than the wikipedia article and your own guesswork.

Similarly, when Unknown Player X says something and Unknown Player Y argues the opposite, the entire argument would be pretty meaningless to a mediocre player who's unable to judge who's correct. Now, if Stef chimes in saying "I agree with every word of Player X, very well expressed!", that statement would be tremendously valuable.

The value isn't in the words themselves but in them being a destillation of high-level experience.

I have on several occasions recanted my original position and personally acknowledged SCSN's great wisdom on this particular subject.

It's ok Mic.
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AdamH

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #37 on: March 28, 2015, 06:53:20 pm »
+2

1. I believe that the best player in the world changes with time. Over the past several months I believe that the only two people who have held that title are stef and MQ. I also believe that MQ has had more days with that distinction than stef, though it's close. Of course that's all subjective.

2. I love how we're arguing over which posts deserve more respect when dominion posts don't get nearly as much respect as other types of posts around here. I have a rant about this that I want to make but I'll probably just do it on stream at some point. I'm on vacation right now :P
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Awaclus

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #38 on: March 28, 2015, 07:19:52 pm »
0

2. I love how we're arguing over which posts deserve more respect when dominion posts don't get nearly as much respect as other types of posts around here. I have a rant about this that I want to make but I'll probably just do it on stream at some point. I'm on vacation right now :P

I don't really care about the respect points, people get +1s for ridiculous reasons and I'm a prime example of that myself. But I think that there are a lot of players who would deserve much more actual respect than they're getting, mainly from the lower level people.
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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #39 on: March 28, 2015, 10:06:08 pm »
0

As much as I love Mic's streams and videos, I'd be extremely surprised if there ever was a point in time when he was a favorite over Stef in a random game. Does anyone have their overall record?

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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #40 on: March 28, 2015, 11:54:58 pm »
0

As much as I love Mic's streams and videos, I'd be extremely surprised if there ever was a point in time when he was a favorite over Stef in a random game. Does anyone have their overall record?

ITT gossip and speculation about dominion end bosses runs rampant.

I don't really think that's what anyone was talking about... Well Adam was but I'm not really sure where that came from. Since you've asked this question though I will tell you what I know: in the isotropic era our head to head record was overwhelmingly in Stef's favor, something like 66% for him. Oh and amalloy wrote a tool a while back that let's you look this stuff up:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11112.0

According to it I've improved from 33% up to 44% in Goko times. Woohoo.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #41 on: April 01, 2015, 08:22:33 pm »
+6

How about "Engine Economies and the Limitations of Money Density"?

werothegreat

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #42 on: April 01, 2015, 08:51:23 pm »
+3

How about "Engine Economies and the Limitations of Money Density"?

Who are you, Adam Smith?  Sorry, guess I like fluffy titles and things.
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nate_w

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #43 on: April 05, 2015, 10:47:07 pm »
+1

I'm new to the forums and haven't given out a lot of plus ones, but I generally read them on my phone and don't have a lot of screen space. To maximize my viewing, I don't look at the names of posters.  However, when I read a post that I find especially right on or especially questionable I often scroll over and see who wrote it.

A LOT of the times the deep, "right" comments (in my opinion at least) come from wanderingw, MicQ, and Stef.

Never has it been one of those guys when I've looked because the information posted just seemed wrong.

So, yes I am sure there is some celebrity respect, but I would argue that is a reasonable thing; most of it is a result of quality opinion, which I'm sure carries over into the mundane. If I read person A say "X is correct" and I've seen that in cases where I have been able to evaluate, I've come to appreciate that person A is usually correct, then I will certainly have more respect for that statement than random person B saying the exact same thing.
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dondon151

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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #44 on: April 05, 2015, 11:03:59 pm »
+2

How about "Engine Economies and the Limitations of Money Density"?

I prefer "Beyond Silver."
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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #45 on: April 10, 2015, 12:35:57 am »
+3

I love how we're arguing over which posts deserve more respect when dominion posts don't get nearly as much respect as other types of posts around here. I have a rant about this that I want to make but I'll probably just do it on stream at some point. I'm on vacation right now :P
Upvote-based systems generally reward not just quality, but also fast consumption and easy judgment. It only takes a few seconds to read a humor post, chuckle, and upvote it. It takes several minutes to read an article, and after you read it, you might not even know whether you agree with it.

That's why reddit gets flooded with jokes, images, and short videos. Respect here has the same problem but it doesn't change the visibility of posts, so it doesn't really hurt anything.

I think it should be possible to create internet rating systems that express a more fine-grained evaluation than "like" and "didn't express an opinion", but I haven't seen a good one yet, probably because it's a hard problem.
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Re: Why Engine?
« Reply #46 on: April 14, 2015, 08:01:05 am »
+1

So several people have brought up that pile control isn't very much explored here. They're right, of course, but I'm a bit puzzled - there are plenty of other reasons why you would want to go for an engine that I didn't really get into - I really wanted to focus on the differences in the economic paradigms here. If I wanted to really go in-depth on why you want to play an engine, I would need to elaborate on many points I gloss over above - the importance of access to extra gains, the ability to slow them down by attacking them often, etc.

As for pile control itself... when making the decision whether to go for an engine or not, having pile control is nice, but it's not usually a significant factor in deciding. The way that pile control really comes in for non-mirrors is when you end up buying Victory cards other than what the opponent is going for (most commonly, this means diving for lots of duchies when there are a couple of provinces left). I address this in the article, when I talk about buying less efficient sources of points (duchies are with .6 VP per coin, provinces are .75). I'm not even sure this is pile control, though I suppose it's definitely endgame control, which is the same concept, really.

But where pile control starts being enormously important is in engine mirrors.

I'd like to jump in here again.

How about generating a whole sequence about engines?
Then we can do something like a mindmap about engines. Economy is one part of it. End game control is another one. Attacks might be a third one. Matchups like engine vs. slog could be other articles and so on.
In the end we could have a general engine srticle that points out strengths and limitations of engines in a general way. I't wouldn't need to go into all the details because we had seperate articles linked to that general one where those details are being explained.
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