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Author Topic: Request: Philosopher's Stone  (Read 19551 times)

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dondon151

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #25 on: April 30, 2012, 03:15:45 pm »
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Relying on discarding parts of you hand to get to the next cost level for Philosopher's Stone doesn't seem consistent enough as to warrant actually going for it.

Also note that Oasis doesn't actually put more cards into the deck/discard; it just gives +$1.
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Voltgloss

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #26 on: April 30, 2012, 06:27:01 pm »
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Relying on discarding parts of you hand to get to the next cost level for Philosopher's Stone doesn't seem consistent enough as to warrant actually going for it.

Vault springs to mind.  But Vault-PStone is probably too slow compared to Vault-Gold in a Province game.  Maybe Vault-PStone > Vault-Plat in a Colony game?

Secret Chamber-PStone sounds intriguing.  SC alone is guaranteed $4 = Potion.  SC+Potion is guaranteed $3P = Philosopher's Stone.  SC+PS = $3 + (deck size - 2) / 5.  If there's +buy or some gainer around to quickly fatten your deck to 22 cards - heck, even a curser/junker being played by your opponent could work - this sounds like it could start hitting Province money surprisingly quickly.   
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jomini

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #27 on: April 30, 2012, 07:14:53 pm »
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6. Adventurer/venture. These conflict a good bit as you need to clear out the copper to really make it viable, but for some limited setups it can be viable. Something like remodel/decent 2 coin card/P stone/venture can hit a province every turn even if you are getting hit with curses from followers (or another late game curse giver like something out of the BM deck or IW/masq); any source of +buy can also allow you to tuck away a few tie breaking estates as well.

+1 for the rest of the list, but I'm not sure I understand this last one.  I would think Venture conflicts pretty badly with PStone.   With Venture, you like lean decks, and you really like it when a good percentage of your treasures are Ventures.  The ideal is to play a Venture, causing other Ventures to be played.  PStone likes bloated decks and doesn't like having lots of cards in play, since those cards reduce the deck + discard count.  Also, it seems like the Potion would end up getting in the way of Venture a little.

The up-side is that Venture will play the Potion more often, so you get the chance to acquire more PStones.  I'm not sure whether or not that makes up for the conflict.
IFF, you can get rid of your starting coppers and still have a good source of bloat, then this can work. It's pretty rare, but I've seen it work a bit. I cannot recall if I ever managed it without having something else on the list also there. The most memorable game, and I think strongest time for adventurer was on a swindler board. Coppers -> curses, golds -> adventurers made Pstones not too bad (and I had gone remodel because golem/pawn/peddler was out), it worked out well enough.
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Toblakai

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #28 on: April 30, 2012, 08:22:14 pm »
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One situation I've found for Pstone that is very powerful is on IGG boards
open Potion Silver
buy 2 or 3 Pstones, and as many IGG as you can get, always take extra coppers every time you play IGG, and even if you loose the curse war, when ur both rushing the duchy's pretty much every time you get a hand with Pstone, boom Province.  which should more then make up for a possible extra curse or 2 if your opponent opens silver/silver.
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dondon151

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #29 on: April 30, 2012, 08:31:00 pm »
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Secret Chamber-PStone sounds intriguing.  SC alone is guaranteed $4 = Potion.  SC+Potion is guaranteed $3P = Philosopher's Stone.  SC+PS = $3 + (deck size - 2) / 5.  If there's +buy or some gainer around to quickly fatten your deck to 22 cards - heck, even a curser/junker being played by your opponent could work - this sounds like it could start hitting Province money surprisingly quickly.

I tried this solitaire; you really do need a +buy card in order for Philosopher's Stone to work.

On the other hand, with a drop of luck, an Herbalist - Philosopher's Stone strategy can empty the Province pile in 20 turns, which is pretty decent. I'd imagine that it would be incredibly resilient to attacks to boot.
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ecq

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #30 on: April 30, 2012, 09:37:05 pm »
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One situation I've found for Pstone that is very powerful is on IGG boards
open Potion Silver
buy 2 or 3 Pstones, and as many IGG as you can get, always take extra coppers every time you play IGG, and even if you loose the curse war, when ur both rushing the duchy's pretty much every time you get a hand with Pstone, boom Province.  which should more then make up for a possible extra curse or 2 if your opponent opens silver/silver.

Someone mentioned this on the previous page, but I'm skeptical.  I threw together a quick-and-dirty IGG bot that options Potion / Silver and prefers PStone over IGG until it has at least two PStones.  It loses badly to straight IGG, roughly 2:1.  The simulator doesn't take Coppers unless it needs them, but my gut says taking extra Coppers doesn't help the situation much.  Taking unnecessary Copper is sub-optimal in IGG, so it may even make things worse for PStone.

That said, I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #31 on: April 30, 2012, 09:59:18 pm »
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One situation I've found for Pstone that is very powerful is on IGG boards
open Potion Silver
buy 2 or 3 Pstones, and as many IGG as you can get, always take extra coppers every time you play IGG, and even if you loose the curse war, when ur both rushing the duchy's pretty much every time you get a hand with Pstone, boom Province.  which should more then make up for a possible extra curse or 2 if your opponent opens silver/silver.

Someone mentioned this on the previous page, but I'm skeptical.  I threw together a quick-and-dirty IGG bot that options Potion / Silver and prefers PStone over IGG until it has at least two PStones.  It loses badly to straight IGG, roughly 2:1.  The simulator doesn't take Coppers unless it needs them, but my gut says taking extra Coppers doesn't help the situation much.  Taking unnecessary Copper is sub-optimal in IGG, so it may even make things worse for PStone.

That said, I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
Make the sim take copper by putting it in your buy rules. Also, while I agree with you that this is probably a losing strategy as is... throw in some alternate VP cards and maybe? Like farmland, fairgrounds, maaaaaybe gardens, tunnel? Point being that you don't help them buy duchies out so much, since the p-stone gives you some kind of long-termed advantage. Probably I'd see fairgrounds actually being worth it maybe, but little else.
Also, you can try waiting on potion til after a reshuffle, to try to make sure you get enough cash to not whiff on p-stone. Or maybe work it with something else that costs potions that could be useful. Transmute?!

ecq

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #32 on: April 30, 2012, 11:28:53 pm »
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Taking Coppers and opening Potion / Silver doesn't lose quite as bad - 53% / 43%.  Buying the Potion after the first shuffle is a little worse than that.

It's a gambit.  You're sacrificing the IGG split and hoping to make up for it with Provinces on the tail end.  One big problem, though, is that the straight IGG player can afford Provinces with the IGG economy.  His economy is relatively better, too, since you weren't Cursing him.

I don't see alternate VP cards mattering much.  IGG/Gardens is awesome in general.  I'd take Gardens rather than Duchy if I were the IGG player.  The $6 cards have an awkward price point for P. Stone.  Also, Fairgrounds + IGG + P. Stone + Kingdom Silver-Equivalent isn't much of a combo, even if it works.  Certainly not enough to say that P. Stone works well in an IGG rush.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #33 on: April 30, 2012, 11:34:31 pm »
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Taking Coppers and opening Potion / Silver doesn't lose quite as bad - 53% / 43%.  Buying the Potion after the first shuffle is a little worse than that.

It's a gambit.  You're sacrificing the IGG split and hoping to make up for it with Provinces on the tail end.  One big problem, though, is that the straight IGG player can afford Provinces with the IGG economy.  His economy is relatively better, too, since you weren't Cursing him.

I don't see alternate VP cards mattering much.  IGG/Gardens is awesome in general.  I'd take Gardens rather than Duchy if I were the IGG player.  The $6 cards have an awkward price point for P. Stone.  Also, Fairgrounds + IGG + P. Stone + Kingdom Silver-Equivalent isn't much of a combo, even if it works.  Certainly not enough to say that P. Stone works well in an IGG rush.
You're missing the point of the alternate VP. The point is they make the game longer. If you go for gardens, I go for duchies, and you have to buy all 8 to end it. If you go duchies, I go fairgrounds - you need all 8 to end it.

qmech

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #34 on: May 01, 2012, 04:09:13 am »
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Hmm, I guess my understanding of the sentence "per 5 cards between them" was off. I thought it would be worth more when there is a greater spread.  ???

An interesting reading.  This would play more like a Counting House that is weakest in the middle of a shuffle than a Philosopher's Stone.  I guess you could tweak the 5 to increase its average value, but that would give you some extremely high-value turns.

(The card text says "total between", which I think is less ambiguous.)
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ecq

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #35 on: May 01, 2012, 09:37:32 am »
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Taking Coppers and opening Potion / Silver doesn't lose quite as bad - 53% / 43%.  Buying the Potion after the first shuffle is a little worse than that.

It's a gambit.  You're sacrificing the IGG split and hoping to make up for it with Provinces on the tail end.  One big problem, though, is that the straight IGG player can afford Provinces with the IGG economy.  His economy is relatively better, too, since you weren't Cursing him.

I don't see alternate VP cards mattering much.  IGG/Gardens is awesome in general.  I'd take Gardens rather than Duchy if I were the IGG player.  The $6 cards have an awkward price point for P. Stone.  Also, Fairgrounds + IGG + P. Stone + Kingdom Silver-Equivalent isn't much of a combo, even if it works.  Certainly not enough to say that P. Stone works well in an IGG rush.
You're missing the point of the alternate VP. The point is they make the game longer. If you go for gardens, I go for duchies, and you have to buy all 8 to end it. If you go duchies, I go fairgrounds - you need all 8 to end it.

I understand the point; I just don't think it works.  Avoiding Gardens to drag out the game seems like a mistake.  $6 VP cards are tough because the P. Stone player shouldn't be seeing many hands at that price point ($6 or $7, but not $8).  Of the options, I think Tunnel is the most viable... time to head over to the sim forum.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #36 on: May 01, 2012, 05:27:03 pm »
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Taking unnecessary Copper is sub-optimal in IGG, so it may even make things worse for PStone.

Wait, I thought I read before that it was optimal to always take the copper.  My intuition is all confuzzled now.
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ecq

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #37 on: May 02, 2012, 09:33:40 am »
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Taking unnecessary Copper is sub-optimal in IGG, so it may even make things worse for PStone.

Wait, I thought I read before that it was optimal to always take the copper.  My intuition is all confuzzled now.

In the late IGG game, you want to be buying Duchies and, with the rare $8 hand, Provinces.  Coppers don't do much to help you hit $5 and they hinder you from hitting $8.  If you have supporting Kingdom cards (e.g. Smithy), you'll play them less frequently.  Don't be shy about taking them when you need them, but don't take them if you're not using the coins in the current hand.  It may be wise to start taking unnecessary Copper in the very late game, at the point when you're struggling to hit $5 and preferring Estates to Silver, but certainly not from the start.

That advice goes out the window, of course, if you have some other reason to want Coppers.  They're great for IGG/Gardens, for instance, and you'd probably want them for IGG/P. Stone.
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DStu

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #38 on: May 02, 2012, 09:46:22 am »
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From the sims I remember, IGG-rush wants "always Copper" if mirrored and "only Copper if needed" if not.
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ecq

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #39 on: May 02, 2012, 10:02:33 am »
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Modifying the Optimized IGG into two separate bots, one that always takes Copper and one that takes it only when necessary, the only-necessary bot wins slightly 48/46.  The optimized bot does slightly better than that.  It takes unnecessary Copper at the point it would prefer buying an Estate to buying a Silver (<= 4 Duchies left)
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DStu

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #40 on: May 02, 2012, 10:19:16 am »
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Ah yes, I looked up the old thread, and it was the one where we discovered some problems with (not occuring) recursion in Dominiate, so any information taken from there is probably not very stable...
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blueblimp

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #41 on: May 02, 2012, 12:36:15 pm »
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Modifying the Optimized IGG into two separate bots, one that always takes Copper and one that takes it only when necessary, the only-necessary bot wins slightly 48/46.  The optimized bot does slightly better than that.  It takes unnecessary Copper at the point it would prefer buying an Estate to buying a Silver (<= 4 Duchies left)

Last I tested, taking no unnecessary copper vs taking unnecessary copper only near the end does not make a statistically significant difference: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=625.msg28178#msg28178. So if you're finding otherwise then I think it'd be interesting to see the bots you're using (in the simulation forum of course).
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ecq

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #42 on: May 02, 2012, 03:08:27 pm »
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Modifying the Optimized IGG into two separate bots, one that always takes Copper and one that takes it only when necessary, the only-necessary bot wins slightly 48/46.  The optimized bot does slightly better than that.  It takes unnecessary Copper at the point it would prefer buying an Estate to buying a Silver (<= 4 Duchies left)

Last I tested, taking no unnecessary copper vs taking unnecessary copper only near the end does not make a statistically significant difference: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=625.msg28178#msg28178. So if you're finding otherwise then I think it'd be interesting to see the bots you're using (in the simulation forum of course).

Using that bot, you're right.  Using WanderingWinder's bot gave different answers, but your bot beats his.  I hadn't seen yours before.  It's a little surprising that the slight change in bots can change the decision on whether or not to take Copper.

Sorry for the excursion.  Back on topic... Philosopher's Stone

Using blueblimp's IGG bot, buying Philosopher's Stone, and always taking Copper wins ever so slightly against straight IGG - 49/48.  The conclusion I'd draw from that is that there's not much benefit from buying P. Stone in an IGG game.  Consider that IGG + Single Moat beats both options by a slightly wider margin.  That reasoning may change depending on what else is in the kingdom, of course.  Herbalist and Apothecary have both been raised as good reasons to get P. Stone.
« Last Edit: May 02, 2012, 03:10:44 pm by ecq »
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aldaryn

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #43 on: May 30, 2012, 11:46:17 pm »
+3

Everyone on isotropic tells me I should be involved over here, so look! A comment!

A lot of what I've read so far is discussing a few cards in a vacuum, but we all know you have to consider all 10 kingdom cards together.

Philosopher's stone isn't a card I buy a potion for - to me it's a card you end up adjusting your strategy to along the way, usually because you've already bought a potion, whether because you're reaching for Possession but didn't hit 6, or you've already bought Familiar or University (but obviously it doesn't mesh with Scrying Pool that much). In a Familiar or University game, both of those cards lead to fat decks, which means that P. Stone compliments them well.

Point being: I don't think P. Stone is a card you look at and say from game start "Should I focus around this card?", but a card you stop and ask yourself about during the mid/end game: "Should I be picking those up now?"
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O

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #44 on: May 30, 2012, 11:58:48 pm »
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Everyone on isotropic tells me I should be involved over here, so look! A comment!

A lot of what I've read so far is discussing a few cards in a vacuum, but we all know you have to consider all 10 kingdom cards together.

Philosopher's stone isn't a card I buy a potion for - to me it's a card you end up adjusting your strategy to along the way, usually because you've already bought a potion, whether because you're reaching for Possession but didn't hit 6, or you've already bought Familiar or University (but obviously it doesn't mesh with Scrying Pool that much). In a Familiar or University game, both of those cards lead to fat decks, which means that P. Stone compliments them well.

Point being: I don't think P. Stone is a card you look at and say from game start "Should I focus around this card?", but a card you stop and ask yourself about during the mid/end game: "Should I be picking those up now?"

Woo! I'm glad I was part of that group telling you to join  8).

This person somehow got to level 42 without knowing about the tiny tricks like Black Market-Tactician or (well, this ones uncommon regardless..) TR-TR-Outpost-Masquerade, or Masquerade pins in general, which I find impressive. I would never have broken 40 without learning all these tiny tricks from F.DS  :P

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toaster

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #45 on: June 04, 2012, 06:20:50 pm »
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Philosopher's stone isn't a card I buy a potion for - to me it's a card you end up adjusting your strategy to along the way, usually because you've already bought a potion, whether because you're reaching for Possession but didn't hit 6, or you've already bought Familiar or University (but obviously it doesn't mesh with Scrying Pool that much). In a Familiar or University game, both of those cards lead to fat decks, which means that P. Stone compliments them well.

Point being: I don't think P. Stone is a card you look at and say from game start "Should I focus around this card?", but a card you stop and ask yourself about during the mid/end game: "Should I be picking those up now?"

I think that is often the case, but not always.  The problem with going for P.Stones later in the game is that if you've got a fat deck, you're not going to be able to acquire/use those P.Stones very much. If, on the other hand, you can anticipate that a game will be long with fat decks, going for it early can give you a decisive advantage.  That's exactly what happened in the game of mine against WanderingWinder:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120529-153420-066c6c11.html

Despite the lack of any other potions in this set, there are several factors here in P.Stone's favor:

1) Game length - With Goons, Colony, and no great engine options, this game is going to be a long slog.  The means large decks, which P.Stone likes.
2) +buy - in addition to the game lengthening effects, the +buy provided by Goons is a little extra deck-bloat for the PS.
3) Discard attacks - Although the effect is small, P.Stones are a (very) soft counter to discard attacks...as a discard attack has a 40% chance of increasing the value of each P.Stone by 1 the next turn.  On turn 33, for example, this guaranteed me a double Colony turn whether or not WW had played his Goons.

Now, often it is the case that P.Stone is a late one-off pick up in a bloated deck (Familiar being one of the best examples), but on boards where such bloat and game length are predictable, grabbing them early instead of late can be well worth the slower start.
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Davio

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Re: Request: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #46 on: July 05, 2012, 03:03:54 am »
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I just played a Colony game that had these contenders: Mountebank, City, Hunting Party, Golem, Philosopher's Stone and Transmute. Ghost Ship, Vault, Tribute and Fool's Gold were also available, but were ignored by both players.

Now if Philosopher's Stone is the only Potion card, there's more of an incentive to skip it, because of its opportunity cost, but this was like a perfect storm: Mountebank in a Colony game slows the game down to a crawl. PS likes this. And then there are other Potion cards which you can buy. I didn't buy a Golem, because PStones were more important to me and I didn't want to Golem into a Transmute, but the option was there.

I started Potion/Silver to my opponent's 5/2 Mountebank/-, so I was immediately behind and had some catching up to do.
My first Potion buy was a Transmute on T4 where I could have bought a PS to help deal with some Curses possibly or to trash some of my starting Estates for a Gold or two. After the Transmute I just bought a PS every time I had the Potion.

By the end of the game my PStones were roughly $7 each and I ended up with 6 Colonies to his 2.

Final decks:
Him:  [38 cards] 8 Cities, 3 Hunting Parties, 2 Golems, 2 Mountebanks, 9 Coppers, 5 Silvers, 1 Potion, 4 Estates, 2 Colonies, 2 Curses
Me: [55 cards] 7 Hunting Parties, 3 Philosopher's Stones, 1 City, 1 Mountebank, 1 Transmute, 16 Coppers, 7 Silvers, 1 Potion, 3 Golds, 1 Province, 6 Colonies, 8 Curses

That's right, I lost the Cursing war 8-2, I only bought 1 City late in the game to his 8 and yet I prevailed due to PS playing an incredible role here (and him not buying any actual money).

My PS was played for $5.8 on average, with the most valuable PS giving me $9. PS sort of anti-synergizes with big hand sizes because it makes your PS less valuable (less cards in deck and discard, more in hand or on the table), but it was more important to me to draw it and play it anyway. Hence, the Hunting Parties.


To summarize I will stress that PS loves slow games where you can steadily build up the value of your PStones. Now, this means that you will also see your PStones less throughout the game, but this is made up for by having an almost guaranteed Colony every single time you can play one of them. Of course, the article on the front page illustrates a combo with Herbalist in which you can both buy more Philosopher's Stones and play them more often, but if that ability is lacking, a slow game is what you want.
« Last Edit: July 05, 2012, 03:05:53 am by Davio »
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