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Author Topic: Improving play at 3+ players  (Read 10876 times)

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segura

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #25 on: February 01, 2020, 03:09:58 am »
0

Huh? This is not my definition, you analyzed those differences. Getting 10 Curses vs getting 5 Curses in 2P is the difference of 5 that I mentioned. But you constantly ignore tempo. That matters. A lot. I rather get 10 Curses by Witch slowly than 5 Ruins via Cultist quickly.

Again you're acting like the choice is between playing 2P and playing 3P.
The choice that you wanted to analyze is between buying a Curser and not. Your argument was that this very spread was larger in the case of 2P. I commented that this is not per se the case as it is two-dimensional: number of extra Curses you get is larger with the 2P spread but the tempo is larger in the 3P case.

First, marginal benefit of getting a Curser. Second, compare those marginal benefits in the 2P and 3P case. Not my ideal, it was yours so it is weird that you are confused about your very own analysis.
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Jeebus

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #26 on: February 01, 2020, 02:07:07 pm »
0

I said: In 3 player, if you don't and your opponents do, you'll get 50% of the junk (the others 25% each). In 4 player, you'll get 33% (the others 22% each).

There are many ways to crunch these numbers. It was your idea to compare the absolute difference between attack and not attack. There is also the relative difference: 100% (2P) vs. 50% (3P) vs. 33% (4P). And the difference in the proportion of curses you get: 50 percentage points (2P) vs. 16.7 (3P) vs. 8.3 (4P).

You are just saying that the tempo is larger in 3P. My point is that in 3P, the tempo is not (or only to a small degree) larger if you don't buy the attack compared to if you do. The point of the "spread", or any other metric of the difference of junk, is to compare within 2P games, how much do you get if you buy the attack as opposed to if you don't: There is a big difference! And then do that also within 3P games: There is a difference but much smaller! If we compare within 2P games, how much faster is the tempo, it's the same. If we compare within 3P games, how much faster is the tempo, it's the same.*

So the only thing we are left with, is that the tempo is always faster in 3P than in 2P, whether you buy the attack or not. So then what does it matter? Please explain that.

*Ok, as I said in a previous post, the fact that you're not slowing down your opponent(s), might mean that the tempo is actually a little faster for you than if you were also junking them. But that is actually even more true in 2P than in 3P, since in 3P your opponents are still junking each other!

segura

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #27 on: February 01, 2020, 04:00:12 pm »
+1

In 2P games you get one Curse per shuffle, in 3P 2. Of course there are feedback effects, due to the junking the frequency of playing Curses decrease. But a rough benchmark is nonetheless twice the speed. It is pretty basic and it is beyond weird to see the denial of the fact that that Alice gets one Curse per Bobˋs shuffle yet two if Charlie also plays along. Dude if you don’t believe basic arithmetic, just play a simple 4P base game with Witch. Lots of purple landing in your discard.

The only exception to that is a situation in which only one player has a junker. As I regularly play 3P games, that is not a situation which frequently occurs so I do not view it as relevant (you can make the case that we are all idiots or that not getting a junker while only one player has one is frequently a dominant strategy; I obviously do not think so).
What occurs is two players having one but one player not getting a junker. And I totally agree that this can be the best strategy in a particular Kingdom. For example if there is good trashing, you can deal with the high tempo of incoming junk. Bu in Kingdoms in which this tempo issue is more relevant than the final distribution of Curses, it can also be the best strategy for everybody to get a Curser.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2020, 04:06:44 pm by segura »
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segura

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #28 on: February 01, 2020, 04:10:08 pm »
0

Another funky card which neatly illustrates how junkers scale with the player count is Ambassador. Assuming symmetrical play, it is a net trasher in 2P, keeps the equilibrium in 3P and becomes a net junker in 4P.
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Jeebus

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #29 on: February 01, 2020, 05:03:41 pm »
+1

In 2P games you get one Curse per shuffle, in 3P 2. Of course there are feedback effects, due to the junking the frequency of playing Curses decrease. But a rough benchmark is nonetheless twice the speed. It is pretty basic and it is beyond weird to see the denial of the fact that that Alice gets one Curse per Bobˋs shuffle yet two if Charlie also plays along. Dude if you don’t believe basic arithmetic, just play a simple 4P base game with Witch. Lots of purple landing in your discard.

What you seem to be not getting is that we are not talking about Alice, we're talking about Charlie. The question is, should Charlie buy the attack if both Alice and Bob is giving out curses. If he does, that will have exactly the tempo effect you're talking about for Alice. But we're talking about the player considering whether to buy it - Charlie! It will have no tempo effect on Charlie whether he buys it or not.

Worblehat

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #30 on: February 01, 2020, 05:14:18 pm »
+1

I've seen it several times. Especially with cards that don't help your deck, like Sea Hag.

That is, to put it mildly, an unconvincing example. Sea Hag is very often skippable, in 2-player or multiplayer.

Re: Militia, agreed, that's not an attack that scales in multiplayer. Though it's safe to assume not everyone will skip it, since getting the first attack out there is still good, and people aren't going to let that first player be the only one not affected by a handsize attack.

Re: good junking attacks (Witch/Cultist/Torturer etc., rather than the weaker ones like Sea Hag or Marauder), the argument seems to be as follows. In 2-player, both players must get them. In multiplayer, it can be reasonable to ignore them in favor of some other useful card. Put in more concrete terms, you're saying that on a board with Witch and Lab, in 2-player your first $5 is always Witch, in multiplayer one should take Lab. Am I correctly understanding the argument being presented here?

In my experience (playing this game for ten years, almost exclusively multiplayer), that is not correct. Eating 2-3 curses/ruins per turn will cripple you, and the "but when the junk runs out" end state is irrelevant because the game is over. Remember, piles run really fast in multiplayer.

If the card you buy instead of the junker is a trasher like Sentry or Junk Dealer, yeah, that could sometimes work. But if something like that is on the board there's a decent case to be made that they should be the first $5 you buy anyway.

Suggestion for those of you in the "attacks are weaker in multiplayer" camp: play the Invasions recommended set (Dark Ages + Intrigue). Compare 2-player and 4-player, particularly as player 4. That was the most memorable, though not the most enjoyable, Dominion game I've ever played.  ::) At least in 2-player there's a chance shuffle luck can keep you afloat...
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segura

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #31 on: February 01, 2020, 05:33:49 pm »
0

In 2P games you get one Curse per shuffle, in 3P 2. Of course there are feedback effects, due to the junking the frequency of playing Curses decrease. But a rough benchmark is nonetheless twice the speed. It is pretty basic and it is beyond weird to see the denial of the fact that that Alice gets one Curse per Bobˋs shuffle yet two if Charlie also plays along. Dude if you don’t believe basic arithmetic, just play a simple 4P base game with Witch. Lots of purple landing in your discard.

What you seem to be not getting is that we are not talking about Alice, we're talking about Charlie. The question is, should Charlie buy the attack if both Alice and Bob is giving out curses. If he does, that will have exactly the tempo effect you're talking about for Alice. But we're talking about the player considering whether to buy it - Charlie! It will have no tempo effect on Charlie whether he buys it or not.
Do you really not get that this features 2 layers, first calculating marginal benefits of buying a Curser and then comparing these very marginal benefits of the 2P and 3P game? In case you really don't get it, and are not just willfully ignorant to deny the tempo issue, I will go over it again.

Step 1 - marginal benefits of getting a Curser relativ to not getting a Curser:
2P: difference is 5 Curses at normal tempo.
3P: difference is 3.3 Curses at double the tempo

Step 2 - compare these marginal benefits with each other:
In 2P games, it hurts more (relative to 3P) to not get a Curser as you will end up with 5 more Curses than you would otherwise. In 3P games, it hurts more (relative to 2P) to not get a Curser as you will receive the Curses at double the tempo.

Which of these effects dominates is Kingdom-dependent. For example if there is good trashing, the tempo issue is less relevant and your argument that junking is nastier in the 2P game likely holds. But if there is no or slow trashing, the tempo issue matters a lot and the junking in the 3P game is likely harsher.
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Donald X.

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #32 on: February 01, 2020, 06:11:03 pm »
+1

Re: good junking attacks (Witch/Cultist/Torturer etc., rather than the weaker ones like Sea Hag or Marauder), the argument seems to be as follows. In 2-player, both players must get them. In multiplayer, it can be reasonable to ignore them in favor of some other useful card. Put in more concrete terms, you're saying that on a board with Witch and Lab, in 2-player your first $5 is always Witch, in multiplayer one should take Lab. Am I correctly understanding the argument being presented here?

In my experience (playing this game for ten years, almost exclusively multiplayer), that is not correct. Eating 2-3 curses/ruins per turn will cripple you, and the "but when the junk runs out" end state is irrelevant because the game is over. Remember, piles run really fast in multiplayer.

If the card you buy instead of the junker is a trasher like Sentry or Junk Dealer, yeah, that could sometimes work. But if something like that is on the board there's a decent case to be made that they should be the first $5 you buy anyway.
If we're going with arguments by authority, I've been playing since 2006, beat that, with thousands of games of multiplayer.

Yes if you pass on Witch it might be for a trasher, though it may also be for a significant money card. It probably won't be for Lab; a key thing is that when everyone has a lot of Curses fast, the +2 Cards on Witch sucks, and Lab is no better.

To be definitive we'd have to consider each attack and each non-attack you could get over it separately, plus the rest of the board, and time does not permit. For sure there are some non-attacks you will want over some attacks, and with Witch it's specifically because, your extra Curses aren't so many, Witch isn't great in your deck, and the other card you get can make up the difference. You still might get that Witch, there are all the circumstances where you get it. But it's not rare to not want it, once the other players have it (if the other players somehow pass on it, man, get it).

For me the key thing is, that I want Witch less often in multiplayer than in 2-player, and prefer the amount I want it in multiplayer; I wish I'd scaled Curses differently.
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heron

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #33 on: February 01, 2020, 06:34:52 pm »
+1

I will make a note on this argument.

Until the curses (would have) run out, the rate at which you receive curses is independent of whether or not you buy witch.
Instead, buying witch affects the rate at which the other players receive curses, and does so to the same extent in both 2p and 3p.
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Jeebus

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #34 on: February 01, 2020, 07:07:15 pm »
0

First of all, as I said, I don't think it's helpful comparing these differences in absolute numbers without considering the amount of curses the other players have. So saying 5 and 3.3 isn't saying much.

In 2P games, it hurts more (relative to 3P) to not get a Curser as you will end up with 5 more Curses than you would otherwise.

You are saying that you will end up with 100% of the curses instead of 50% which you would "otherwise", meaning if you do buy the attack. This is true.

In 3P games, it hurts more (relative to 2P) to not get a Curser as you will receive the Curses at double the tempo.

"It hurts more to not get a curser, since you will receive them at double the tempo." It sounds like you're saying that you will receive them at double the tempo if you don't get a curser. Which of course is false. You will receive them at double the tempo no matter what you do. This is why I'm still waiting for the explanation of why "double the tempo" is a factor in deciding whether to buy a curse.

It does have an effect on your opponents, but so far you have not argued that, at least not in a way coherent enough to understand. But as Heron said, it has the same effect on your opponents in 2P and 3P, so this is not an argument to make buying the curser better in 3P.

segura

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #35 on: February 02, 2020, 02:05:07 am »
0

"It hurts more to not get a curser, since you will receive them at double the tempo." It sounds like you're saying that you will receive them at double the tempo if you don't get a curser. Which of course is false.
It would indeed be wrong. But that's not what I wrote:

In 3P games, it hurts more (relative to 2P) to not get a Curser as you will receive the Curses at double the tempo.
The goal of my last post was to clearly seperate the marginal benefit of getting a Curser (intra-game) and the comparisons of those benefits over different player counts (extra-game). So please don't blur those very differences via misquoting me.
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Jeebus

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #36 on: February 02, 2020, 09:36:46 am »
0


I included two (accurate) quotes from you. I'm both of them you said "relative to 2/3P". In the first one you were actually saying that the effect was due to not getting a curser. You're just not expressing yourself very clearly. But I think it's because you're not thinking about this clearly. In any case, I already responded to the other possible thing you could have meant, and you didn't respond to that. Since we agree that getting the curser has no effect on tempo for you, only your opponents, then what are you talking about?

Mic Qsenoch

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #37 on: February 02, 2020, 04:59:37 pm »
+6

I don't read the forums as much as I used to, but it's always comforting to know you can come home and find tristan arguing with people here.
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popsofctown

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #38 on: February 03, 2020, 04:34:55 am »
0

Tristan hasn't posted here? Is an alt in play here
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GendoIkari

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #39 on: February 03, 2020, 04:55:18 pm »
+2

Wizard_Amul's post summarizes most of the content, though the phrasing "attacks are still pretty good" is misleading - attacks are in general much better in multiplayer than in 2-player. For example the "Invasion" recommended set for Dark Ages + Intrigue is quite an experience, particularly for player 4...  :P

I think you're saying that Attacks are more powerful when you get hit by multiple players. But that's a different thing. The point is that for the player considering to get the Attack card, it will be less powerful. In 2 player, if you don't get the junker and your opponent does, you'll get 100% of the junk. In 3 player, if you don't and your opponents do, you'll get 50% of the junk (the others 25% each). In 4 player, you'll get 33% (the others 22% each). So it matters less the more players there are. If the others go for the attack, it's not rare that you'll win if you don't, because then you can do something more useful instead.

I can't find it, but I know I had this exact same discussion not all that long ago... a long argument with someone that all came down to the paradox that attacks hurt more with more players, yet are better buys with fewer players.

*Edit* Found it! http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18987.msg801810#msg801810
« Last Edit: February 03, 2020, 04:59:21 pm by GendoIkari »
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Jeebus

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #40 on: February 03, 2020, 09:26:09 pm »
+1

I can't find it, but I know I had this exact same discussion not all that long ago... a long argument with someone that all came down to the paradox that attacks hurt more with more players, yet are better buys with fewer players.

*Edit* Found it! http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18987.msg801810#msg801810

And who did you have that discussion with...?  ::)

hhelibebcnofnena

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Re: Improving play at 3+ players
« Reply #41 on: February 03, 2020, 09:37:52 pm »
0

You're just not expressing yourself very clearly. But I think it's because you're not thinking about this clearly.

I think segura is thinking about this perfectly clearly, and neither of you are understanding what the other is trying to say. You're having two separate arguments, and are both making valid points for the arguments you each think you're having.
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