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Author Topic: Project - card parallels  (Read 8187 times)

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segura

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Re: Project - card parallels
« Reply #25 on: June 17, 2019, 02:32:37 am »
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Not strictly worse, for two reasons: (a) debt-cost cards, and (b) trash-for-benefit cards.

It's close enough to strictly better to be considered strictly better, though. Bridge would be roughly the same strength as Woodcutter otherwise, but that's obviously not the case.
Applying the term "strictly better" for something which is not strictly better in more than just fringe cases is pretty dubious.
Just say something like "most of the times Canal is better the Project version of Key/Treasury" or whatever.

Cards that give +Buy, making cost reduction better than +: 53
Cards that want cards to cost more, making cost reduction worse than +: 9
Cards that cost Debt, making cost reduction worse than +: 9

The cases where cost reduction isn't strictly better than + is more of a fringe case than the cases where it is. 53 / 394 ~= 13%; and since there are 10 Kingdom cards in each game, the average game will have ~1.3 cards that give +Buys, making cost reduction better than +. Not exactly a fringe case. Especially when the cards that make cost reduction worse than + are combined 1/3rd as common as the cards that make cost reduction better.
Strictly better means more or less the same as always better. As you just pointed out, the cases in which an auto-Peddler is better than an auto-Highway occur relatively frequently. Less frequently than 1/4 as you ignored gainers but nonetheless often enough to not call these instances fringe cases.

That's why it makes no sense to say that Canal is strictly better than Treasury as a Project but more sense to say that Canal is more often than not or on average better than Treasury as a Project which indicates that Treasury as a Project might have to cost less than $7.

Strictly better makes only sense for something like Mining Village > Village as there is no instance (somebody could probably construct a weird exception) in which the former is worse than the latter.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2019, 02:34:46 am by segura »
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hhelibebcnofnena

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Re: Project - card parallels
« Reply #26 on: June 17, 2019, 10:07:41 am »
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Strictly better makes only sense for something like Mining Village > Village as there is no instance (somebody could probably construct a weird exception) in which the former is worse than the latter.

There can be instances where Mining Village is equal to Village, because you will never use the optional trash ability. However, because the optional trash ability is optional, Mining Village can never be worse than Village. And if it could, as you point out, it wouldn't be strictly better anymore.
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Gubump

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Re: Project - card parallels
« Reply #27 on: June 17, 2019, 05:08:14 pm »
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Strictly better means more or less the same as always better.

That's not what people normally mean when they say strictly better, though; the number of card pairs where one is truly strictly better than the other becomes infinitesimal if that's your definition. What people normally mean is that card X is strictly better than card Y if card X is better commonly enough that it would be bad game design for both cards to cost the same.

That's why it makes no sense to say that Canal is strictly better than Treasury as a Project but more sense to say that Canal is more often than not or on average better than Treasury as a Project which indicates that Treasury as a Project might have to cost less than $7.

For example, what you've said in italics is what people normally mean by "strictly better."
« Last Edit: June 17, 2019, 05:15:09 pm by Gubump »
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segura

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Re: Project - card parallels
« Reply #28 on: June 17, 2019, 05:26:03 pm »
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Strictly better means more or less the same as always better.

That's not what people normally mean when they say strictly better, though; the number of card pairs where one is truly strictly better than the other becomes infinitesimal if that's your definition. What people normally mean is that card X is strictly better than card Y if card X is better commonly enough that it would be bad game design for both cards to cost the same.
This is not what strictly better means and not how the majority of people apply the term (as there is already a term, on average better or just better without an absolutey predicate like strictly in front of it). In game theory it means the same as choice/strategy A dominates choice/strategy B independent of what the opponent does. So using this for Dominion means that a card A is strictly better than a card B when there is no Kingdom in which this is not the case.

Hunting Party is on average better than Laboratory but not strictly better. Just like Highway is on average better than Peddler but not strictly better.

By the way, I am totally against constructing weird fringe cases that occur with a very small probability to prove that something is not strictly better; that's just pointless nonsense.
One example the Diadem-Storyteller thing in the other thread and another would be the claim that e.g. Farming Village is not  strictly better than Village due to Shepherd or Oppulent Castle. I'd categorize this under insignificant.

Another example to illustrate (this really no so hard to understand difference between absolutes and averages) is comparing cards of roughly equivalent strength. For example it makes absolutely no sense to claim that Mountain Village is strictly better than Farming Village but I guess most people would agree that it is on average the better card.
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Commodore Chuckles

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Re: Project - card parallels
« Reply #29 on: June 17, 2019, 08:01:24 pm »
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Strictly better makes only sense for something like Mining Village > Village as there is no instance (somebody could probably construct a weird exception) in which the former is worse than the latter.

Possession :P
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hhelibebcnofnena

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Re: Project - card parallels
« Reply #30 on: June 17, 2019, 11:08:17 pm »
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Strictly better means more or less the same as always better.

That's not what people normally mean when they say strictly better, though; the number of card pairs where one is truly strictly better than the other becomes infinitesimal if that's your definition. What people normally mean is that card X is strictly better than card Y if card X is better commonly enough that it would be bad game design for both cards to cost the same.

That's why it makes no sense to say that Canal is strictly better than Treasury as a Project but more sense to say that Canal is more often than not or on average better than Treasury as a Project which indicates that Treasury as a Project might have to cost less than $7.

For example, what you've said in italics is what people normally mean by "strictly better."

I would add to your common usage definition the fact that the "strictly better" and "strictly worse" card have to also be somewhat similar (so e.g. adding +1 Card or changing + to cost reduction by ). Because Laboratory is on average better than, say, an Amulet, but nobody would call it strictly better, even by the looser definition, because they aren't similar to each other. On the other hand, you could take Poacher < Peddler < Highway as an example. You could imagine a situation where you wanted to discard a card, such as Tunnel, but usually it's a downside. And you could imagine a situation where you wanted the pure + instead of the cost-reduction, such as tfb, you usually prefer the cost-reduction. And all of these are similar enough that they can be called "strictly better" by the common usage. And I won't argue with the common usage, because language is supposed to evolve.
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buckets

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Re: Project - card parallels
« Reply #31 on: June 29, 2019, 03:36:14 am »
+1

people are confusing a common vernacular definition with a specific game theory term
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