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Geronimoo

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Going infinite
« on: June 22, 2011, 03:52:45 am »
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Here's a simple puzzle:
Find a way to gain infinite points in a solitaire game. Use as few buys as possible. You get infinite turns to do it of course.

And a more difficult extension of this puzzle:
Find a way to gain infinite points in a 2-player game. Use as few buys as possible. You get infinite turns to do it. Your opponent will try to end the game (even if this means he loses!)
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Personman

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Re: Going infinite
« Reply #1 on: June 22, 2011, 04:15:39 am »
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Um. Buy a Monument?

Edit: Oh, misread part 2. Well, the KC/Goons/Masquerade lock + Monument should do it. (You have KC/KC/Goons/Monument/Masquerade for a deck, each turn KC Goons, Monument, Masq in that order, they run out of cards and can only empty the curses and coppers over time while you buy nothing and get infinite points)

I guess the question is, can you assemble it before they can singlemindedly run out a different pile, say the masquerades? Given that you both get perfect shuffle luck, I bet you can set it up in 9 turns, but you have to contend with their masquerades messing with your perfect hands :/ It's pretty gnarly to work out, maybe I should find an easier-to-prove method.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2011, 04:34:29 am by Personman »
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DStu

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Re: Going infinite
« Reply #2 on: June 22, 2011, 05:04:08 am »
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Quote
I bet you can set it up in 9 turns

Even without him buying Masquerades there are Estates, so we need 8 turns.
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danshep

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Re: Going infinite
« Reply #3 on: June 22, 2011, 06:41:55 am »
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You've got to account for your opponent running out a 2-pile before you kick in your lock-down, otherwise they can end the game on curses and coppers.

Of course, if you get one of whatever two-pile he is emptying, you can ambassador it back into the supply once you've destroyed all his money.
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Thisisnotasmile

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Re: Going infinite
« Reply #4 on: June 22, 2011, 08:23:29 am »
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You've got to account for your opponent running out a 2-pile before you kick in your lock-down, otherwise they can end the game on curses and coppers.

Of course, if you get one of whatever two-pile he is emptying, you can ambassador it back into the supply once you've destroyed all his money.

You'd need 2 of whatever two-pile he is emptying, otherwise when you return just one, it will go to him. Returning 2 will leave 1 in the supply.
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guided

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Re: Going infinite
« Reply #5 on: June 22, 2011, 11:05:55 am »
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As someone already pointed out, unlimited points in solitaire is trivial (buy a Monument). The famous KC/Masquerade pin is a 2p solution if you add a card to it:

Get a 5-card deck of KC/KC/Militia/Monument/Masquerade and trash your opponent's entire deck, netting 3 VP from Monument every turn forever. They can only empty out the Coppers and Curses so they can't end the game.
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Personman

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Re: Going infinite
« Reply #6 on: June 22, 2011, 01:31:31 pm »
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Guided, did you read the rest of this thread? That's exactly what we've been discussing ^_^ The issue is that they maybe can empty a third pile before you get going.

I was thinking the problem with them trying to rush estates is that it might take an extra turn anyway towards the end since their deck is so full of estates, but I didn't think about it enough, and that's wrong - rushing estates is the fastest plan. However, Masquerades might still be better, since then we have to be able to assemble the combo in 9 turns with (usually) 4-card hands.
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guided

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Re: Going infinite
« Reply #7 on: June 22, 2011, 04:21:40 pm »
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I doubt the OP ever worked out a solution that makes it impossible for the other player to end the game before you pin them, even if they started trying on turn 1. If they really were trying to empty a pile from turn 1, it should be faily simple to add Caravan and Ambassador to the Kingdom to work around it, even without perfect luck.

Of course, if we really want a solution that assumes the opponent will be doing their best to stop us, knowing full well from the beginning what we plan to do... they can just go for their own pin. It's a whole other can of worms.

If you assume perfect luck, you can probably do this with Possession, Ambassador, and a Bureaucrat/Watchtower pin, if you want to get really exotic.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2011, 04:24:11 pm by guided »
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paulbaxter

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Re: Going infinite
« Reply #8 on: June 22, 2011, 07:27:46 pm »
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For a 2-p game this would require allowing never allowing stacks to deplete. The simplest solution for defeating this endeavor would be for the opponent to buy out all of one 2 cost stack, of which estates are always in play, followed by all of the copper and curses. Thus the only way to actually accomplish it would be to find a way to prevent your opponent from buying all of the estates, or to keep your opponent from playing at all. Can't imagine any scenario where that could happen.

A more interesting puzzle would be to see how many points could theoretically be gained by one player in a two player game before it ended. You would have to assume cooperation on the part of p-2, or a rule where he could only spend, at most, 2 coins per turn.
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Personman

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Re: Going infinite
« Reply #9 on: June 22, 2011, 07:45:56 pm »
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The answer to your 'more interesting' puzzle is 'infinity' or 'as many as he wants'. There was a bunch of work done in a comment thread ages ago on the max points you can gain in a single turn, which is a really stupidly large number, since you're buying the whole spread under 10 goons. There was also some discussion about the highest infinitely sustainable points per turn, I think, but it never really went anywhere. It will involve basically doing the same thing every N turns, using ambassador (and opponent's lighthouse) to put back all the cards you bought and then buying them all under 10 Goons again.
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guided

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Re: Going infinite
« Reply #10 on: June 22, 2011, 08:36:54 pm »
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For a 2-p game this would require allowing never allowing stacks to deplete. The simplest solution for defeating this endeavor would be for the opponent to buy out all of one 2 cost stack, of which estates are always in play, followed by all of the copper and curses. Thus the only way to actually accomplish it would be to find a way to prevent your opponent from buying all of the estates, or to keep your opponent from playing at all. Can't imagine any scenario where that could happen.

You can trash somebody's entire deck so that they can no longer afford even a single $2 card. All you have to do is stick one Estate (or whatever) back into the pile with Ambassador before they finish emptying the Coppers and Curses. I suggested Caravan as another helpful adjunct because KC/Caravan each turn starts you with 8-card hands and leaves you with some extra actions.

The answer to your 'more interesting' puzzle is 'infinity' or 'as many as he wants'. There was a bunch of work done in a comment thread ages ago on the max points you can gain in a single turn, which is a really stupidly large number, since you're buying the whole spread under 10 goons. There was also some discussion about the highest infinitely sustainable points per turn, I think, but it never really went anywhere. It will involve basically doing the same thing every N turns, using ambassador (and opponent's lighthouse) to put back all the cards you bought and then buying them all under 10 Goons again.

A theoretical upper bound on points per turn sustainable indefinitely is 600: 10x KC'd Ambassadors is at most 60 cards returned per turn, and 10xGoons times 60 cards is 600 points. I want to say I posted a practical example of a little over 300 points per turn back on BGG, but I can't find the thread. We could add a handful to the upper bound with Monument and Bishop, but in my tinkering with practical solutions I saw little evidence that anything near 60 cards per turn was actually approachable. You have a LOT of cards to draw every turn, which tends not to leave enough KC effects to triple up on all your Ambassadors.
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DG

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Re: Going infinite
« Reply #11 on: June 22, 2011, 09:02:38 pm »
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Just to tighten up the wording of the puzzle -

I can think of a combination of kingdom cards which can prevent your opponent emptying any stacks, once a state of play has been reached. However since these cards are available in the kingdom to your opponent, I don't see any reason why a competitive opponent wouldn't shut you down via the same strategy and allow themselves any method of ending the game, if they are playing to thwart the puzzle. I'd suggest instead that "Your opponent will try to play a pure money strategy and will try to end the game (even if this means he loses!)".

I'd also take it read that you're not just buying just one ironworks and gaining almost all the other cards you need through some tedious method using bridges.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2011, 09:09:02 pm by DG »
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danshep

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Re: Going infinite
« Reply #12 on: June 22, 2011, 09:12:59 pm »
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I think the puzzle is still interesting where the other player is playing optimal, but we are assuming 'perfect shuffle luck', which means that the opponent also has perfectly bad shuffling luck.

But then again, that leaves such a large puzzle space that it's probably going to devolve into madness, as your strategy is going to need to defend against ambassadoring, cursing, hand reduction, masquerading.

Edit: If you can get the combo done in 5 turns, then you've definitely got it (as with perfectly bad shuffling, they're not going to get any actions before then). If you can build it to defend against any cost 3/4 terminal played on turn 5 and can by done by turn 8 (when their actions will come back again) then you've got it too.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2011, 09:27:27 pm by danshep »
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