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Author Topic: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion  (Read 20057 times)

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guided

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #25 on: July 11, 2011, 04:09:22 pm »
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I should mention, one of my favorite things about the relatively practical system consisting of my suggestions #1/2/3 is that it allows you to more fairly randomize the starting hands between different players on the same board. If I lose because of a 4/3 split against a 5/2 Witch, well, I was expected to lose so my opponent doesn't get many points. And if I pull out a miraculous victory, I get extra credit! I think playing a bad split (or not fumbling a good split) is an interesting an important skill that is lost by forcing identical starting hands within the same table. I play identical starting hands on isotropic, but mainly because it reduces variance and I fancy myself a pretty good player who wants variance reduced as much as possible ;)
« Last Edit: July 11, 2011, 04:13:33 pm by guided »
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #26 on: July 11, 2011, 05:01:13 pm »
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You can't get nearly the sense of "duplicate" from dominion as you can in bridge. In bridge, nothing random occurs after the cards are dealt. So you fix this one random event, and you're good. In dominion there are too many shuffles occuring throughout the game, and they can't really be enforced to be "fair" in any reasonable way. Even if you fix the permutation the shuffle comes out in, unless you specify it to the players beforehand so they can discard in a strategic order, it will end up being "random" because they may end up discarding or buying cards in an arbitrarily different order.

All in all, I think the amount of fairness added is minimal compared to the amount of effort required to do the shuffling. I doubt this is any better than just playing more random games.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2011, 05:07:44 pm by HiveMindEmulator »
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Razzishi

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #27 on: July 12, 2011, 06:15:21 pm »
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The technical hurdles do not seem insurmountable.  With Young Witch, Black Market (as done on isotropic), Colony/Platinum, and Potion, there would be by my count at most 341 (see below) different cards in a two-player game.  A permutation of these 341 would require 341 entries each of which has one of 341 different values.  At 2 bytes per entry, this makes each potential shuffle 682 bytes.  At 100 per game (which is quite generous) and 100 games per tournament, that's around 7 megs of data, so storing the permutations needed for a tournament is not a problem.  Generating random permutations should not be a problem.  You then need to determine a standard way of assigning numbers to each card available and have a function that takes a list of cards by number along with a permutation and generates the correct order of just those cards.  While not trivial tasks, they don't seem like they'd be altogether too difficult.

The question then becomes how much data you can collect, and what information you're able to extract from the data.  In Bridge there is such a sliding scale of performance that generally there are quite a few different possible performances, while in Dominion two-players games have only 3 outcomes, with ties being somewhat uncommon.  You need to have a lot more games played to get the same amount of information as you get from Bridge hands, and each game of Dominion takes longer.  There would have to be some test-runs done to see just what kind of variance we could expect in a single game, and how many games are needed to reasonably differentiate between performances.

Numbers: 8 * 4 (Colony, Province, Duchy, Estate) + 10 * 12 (10 Kingdom cards, Bane, Curse) + 12 (Platinum) + 30 (Gold) + 16 (Potion) + 40 (Silver) + 60 (total Copper supply) + 3 * 2 (each player's starting Estates) + 25 (Black Market deck)
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timchen

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #28 on: July 12, 2011, 06:20:19 pm »
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I think this idea is not going to help.

Unlike bridge, where comparing results with identical boards and position can be meaningful, in Dominion it is pretty much meaningless.
To be precise, the biggest difference is that the randomness in bridge only occurs before the cards are dealt. One therefore, can respond
to the different hand/distribution in the following bid and play, and strive for a good score.

In Dominion, however, whenever you shuffle you have the randomness. One cannot foresee how the randomness can affect various strategies
and do things about it. Having the same result when playing identically does not mean much here, as mainly we will be comparing between
different play, where the rank of each play is not helped by keeping this shuffle the same.
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adf

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #29 on: July 13, 2011, 10:46:38 am »
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Bluffing is actually pretty big in high-level trick-taking-games, and while I haven't played a lot of bridge, from what I do know, I don't think it should be any different there.

There is zero bluffing in competitive duplicate bridge. If you make a bid, an opponent can ask for clarification on the bid, and you have to tell him exactly what caused you to make the bid (cf. http://web2.acbl.org/laws/auction.htm#law20F).
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #30 on: July 13, 2011, 10:55:30 am »
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I don't read that as them having to tell you why you bid, say 2 hearts, rather THAT you bid 2 hearts. Maybe I'm mis-reading it. Probably. But man, if you have to explain why you bid something, why not just tell them your cards? That seems to defeat the purpose.
But actually, there's not only bluffing in the bids, but probably moreso in the play (at least in my experience with other trick-taking games). If there isn't any bluffing, it's pretty easy to work out what the optimal play is, I don't understand how it isn't incredibly boring with everyone doing the same thing.
Again, I don't play bridge, so I imagine I'm probably wrong. But I'm quite confused.

guided

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #31 on: July 13, 2011, 12:03:34 pm »
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"Bluffing" bids (generally called psych bids) are absolutely legal in bridge, so long as there's no agreement between partners about when they will be employed. When I make a bid, the opponents can ask my partner to explain what it means, and for a true psych bid my partner will be just as deceived as my opponents and will tell them something about my hand that is not true. Under no circumstances am I ever allowed or required to explain my own bids during the hand. If on the other hand I make a psych bid, and through experience my partner recognizes it as a psych and acts accordingly, that's illegal, because this situation represents a tacit, secret agreement between us in violation of the bidding conventions we have made public to our opponents.

Similarly, if my partner and I have agreements for card play on defense (generally signaling) I can unilaterally violate them during the play of the hand, so long as my partner is equally as deceived as the opponents. Or as declarer I can make any unconventional card play I like in an attempt to deceive the defenders.
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DG

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #32 on: July 13, 2011, 12:19:11 pm »
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The explanation for the bridge protocol is that you're not allowed to use a bid as a planned deception. An example would be a case where both partners knew that a bid 3 clubs signalled a long heart or spade suit and the partner should then bid 3 hearts to transfer suits. If the partners told the opponents that 3 clubs was a strong natural bid showing clubs it would be completely misleading and unfair.

Allowing players to ask the meaning of any bid prevents the most cryptic bidding system from beating the most effective bidding system.
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rspeer

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #33 on: July 13, 2011, 12:22:42 pm »
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I don't read that as them having to tell you why you bid, say 2 hearts, rather THAT you bid 2 hearts. Maybe I'm mis-reading it. Probably. But man, if you have to explain why you bid something, why not just tell them your cards? That seems to defeat the purpose.
But actually, there's not only bluffing in the bids, but probably moreso in the play (at least in my experience with other trick-taking games). If there isn't any bluffing, it's pretty easy to work out what the optimal play is, I don't understand how it isn't incredibly boring with everyone doing the same thing.
Again, I don't play bridge, so I imagine I'm probably wrong. But I'm quite confused.

Your confusion is understandable. Bridge is wack. You really do have to tell your opponents what your partner's bid means if they ask.

The really strange thing is that there are many entirely reasonable bidding conventions that will get you thrown out of bridge clubs. Even if you put them on your convention card and explain them when necessary. These are mostly conventions that would force old people to have to adapt to your strategy instead of playing the game the way they always have. It's kind of like people who yell at you when you play Possession, except the club organizers are on their side.

Now, this is not the same as there being no hidden information, as you imply. Bridge has enough going on in it to be interesting as it is. But the arbitrary restrictions on gameplay (and the fact that the same play might be legal or illegal based on what you are thinking at the time) do irk me. If anyone knows of an "anything goes" bridge club, where you are allowed to play "illegal" conventions, I might actually get into the game.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #34 on: July 13, 2011, 12:40:56 pm »
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I want to make a thousand comments here, but I'll limit it to three.
Quote from: DG
Allowing players to ask the meaning of any bid prevents the most cryptic bidding system from beating the most effective bidding system.
How is being cryptic not part of being effective? Game theory, man, game theory.
Second, I don't understand how any of these rules are actually enforceable.
Thridly and finally, I'm now much, much happier I don't play bridge.

timchen

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #35 on: July 13, 2011, 01:47:07 pm »
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I want to make a thousand comments here, but I'll limit it to three.
Quote from: DG
Allowing players to ask the meaning of any bid prevents the most cryptic bidding system from beating the most effective bidding system.
How is being cryptic not part of being effective? Game theory, man, game theory.
Second, I don't understand how any of these rules are actually enforceable.
Thridly and finally, I'm now much, much happier I don't play bridge.

It's funny to see this turning into a bridge discussion. :P
Let me say something for bridge, as a player playing it for more than ten years.

Firstly, I don't think DG's statement is true. Note that under the constraint of open information, there can still be cryptic bidding systems. I once played a system which opens a major with only 3+ cards. It is cryptic in the sense that you can hold a variety of holdings with that same bid and make it harder for your opponents to judge the situation and intervene. It is generally the case that your own constructive bidding becomes less effective, but sometimes you can adjust the information flow so that you become precise in later rounds, where it is a lot harder for opponents to do competitive bidding. Of course, all of these adjustments to the bidding system has to be determined before game and written on the system card.

If we think about the possibility of not having to explain their own bid, it becomes a whole different game. It is still fair in the sense that both sides can do the same thing, the problem is that the bidding becomes less interesting. I would imagine that one could invent some sinister convention to lure opponents into traps, (such as, agreement A becomes B after a single use) but in the end, people would probably just give up on guessing what the other side means and focus on their own. There are thus less information exchanging, and more guesswork involved.

These rules are enforceable, through the use of a convention card. Basically every pair has to fill in a summary of their bidding system, and show it to their opponents. The opponents do not have to look through it; they can ask about bids on the table. The explanation, however, has to match what is written. For the psych bids, you cannot do it regularly to the extent that your partner is expecting it. If some opponents are in doubt that you have private agreement, they can notify the director, and he will usually take notice of it. If the same situation happens again before long, he will assume that your partner can "expect" the psych, which makes it a private agreement, and do suitable adjustments (and warning!).

Oh and a correction to a statement above: with screens in use (which cut the table in half, so that you can only see one of your opponents), it is possible and happens quite regularly that you have to explain your own bid to the opponent sit on your side. In that situation, it is important to tell him what the bid is supposed to mean, instead of what is in your hand.

Bridge is a very interesting game. The learning curve is a bit steep comparing to other table games I think; but once you understand the game, you will start to appreciate the right mix of luck and technique in the game.
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DG

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #36 on: July 13, 2011, 02:06:08 pm »
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Quote
How is being cryptic not part of being effective? Game theory, man, game theory.

Yes a cryptic bidding system can be the most effective, in the same way that a thuggish sportsman can be the most skilful as soon as the opposition all have broken legs. It's not the fair way to conduct the game.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2011, 02:14:54 pm by DG »
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theory

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #37 on: July 13, 2011, 02:39:01 pm »
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David desJardins wrote a good post in a Tichu discussion about Bridge conventions, in response to a rather heated discussion about conventions in Tichu that originated here.
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guided

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #38 on: July 13, 2011, 02:42:36 pm »
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Oh and a correction to a statement above: with screens in use (which cut the table in half, so that you can only see one of your opponents), it is possible and happens quite regularly that you have to explain your own bid to the opponent sit on your side. In that situation, it is important to tell him what the bid is supposed to mean, instead of what is in your hand.
My bad, I've never played at a high enough level to be using screens.

In any case, you can still psych without being required to explain that it was a psych.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #39 on: July 13, 2011, 03:42:26 pm »
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Quote
How is being cryptic not part of being effective? Game theory, man, game theory.

Yes a cryptic bidding system can be the most effective, in the same way that a thuggish sportsman can be the most skilful as soon as the opposition all have broken legs. It's not the fair way to conduct the game.

That's such a bad analogy. I'm going to assume you didn't mean it to be intentionally insulting, as you've always seemed a nice enough buy. Broken legs cause great, real harm that extends far beyond the reach of the game.
What I'm suggesting is more like not having to tell the opposing team what play you're running.

Apparently this flies in the face of how bridge is played... everywhere, but not against the general rules of the game I've read (in decades old books albeit). I was unaware of these rules against subterfuge, and I don't like them - but then I don't have to play bridge.

WanderingWinder

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #40 on: July 13, 2011, 03:43:19 pm »
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David desJardins wrote a good post in a Tichu discussion about Bridge conventions, in response to a rather heated discussion about conventions in Tichu that originated here.
Interesting. I'd never heard of Tichu before, and it certainly seems interesting, though I'm not sure I'll ever get into it.

WanderingWinder

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #41 on: July 13, 2011, 03:46:51 pm »
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Also, I'm sure you guys would never want to play bridge with me either, because a) I'd come up with the weirdest convention within the rules, but more importantly b) I'd take forever analyzing out the game to its solution. This takes out so much of the hidden aspect of the game that I would probably start working it out to probabilities based on the little information remaining unknown to me.
What I would like for bridge, analogous to other trick-taking games, is that if you want to stop all the signalling, you actually need to bid it up pretty quickly and actually go more for your hand. But then, I'm quite happy to not play bridge and play the other trick-taking games that are out there, which I enjoy quite well.

guided

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #42 on: July 13, 2011, 04:09:56 pm »
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What I would like for bridge, analogous to other trick-taking games, is that if you want to stop all the signalling, you actually need to bid it up pretty quickly and actually go more for your hand.
This is called preemptive bidding, and it's very much a part of modern bridge! A good convention system strikes a balance between preemptive bids that try to steal bidding space from the opponents vs. more deliberate and slow bidding that tries to communicate enough information between partners to find an optimal contract. There are huge progressive bonuses for bidding and making certain numbers of tricks (9 tricks at notrump, 10 at spades/hearts, 11 at clubs/diamonds, 12 in any denomination, 13 in any denomination), so when the partnership has a very strong combined holding they want to figure out exactly how many tricks they are likely to take.

There are also big penalties for bidding too high and being defeated by several tricks, so you can't be completely reckless in bidding too high with too little information: the opponents may double you and get a much better score than they could have achieved by simply bidding and making a contract.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2011, 04:14:26 pm by guided »
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rinkworks

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #43 on: July 13, 2011, 04:36:04 pm »
+1

Fair warning:  No Dominion talk here, only Bridge:

Quote
Also, I'm sure you guys would never want to play bridge with me either, because a) I'd come up with the weirdest convention within the rules, but more importantly b) I'd take forever analyzing out the game to its solution.

Despite its reputation as a social game, Bridge really IS played to that degree of analysis.  It's not by accident that it's the only other game besides Chess that routinely has a game analysis column about it in daily newspapers, alongside the crossword puzzle.  Most moves in Bridge can be made pretty quickly -- sometimes all you can do is follow suit, so you do -- but for the ones that require difficult strategical considerations, it's normal to take a fair amount of time figuring out what to do.  It's a lot slower a game than Dominion, but I guess what I'm saying is that Bridge players wouldn't be frustrated with you for taking your time with it, because if you didn't like slow, analytical games, you wouldn't be playing Bridge in the first place.

The thing about bidding conventions, though, is that there is really a lot less room for experimental conventions than you'd think.  It would be like making up your own openings for Chess.  You absolutely *can* do it -- but whatever you're liable to come up with out of the mainstream is virtually guaranteed to have been tried before and found lacking.  (Which does not mean they wouldn't be reasonably competitive, playable, or fun, but I digress.)

Two further things limit the space available for exploring new bidding conventions.  One, the few standard conventions are sufficient for the vast majority of hands.  It's unusual for an experienced partnership not to be able to settle into a good contract with natural bids and the standard conventions.  (An exception:  When the opposing team is also bidding, but that will interfere with any and all conceivable conventions.)

Two, there is a practical limit to the number of conventions you can usefully play, for the simple reason that every artificial bid you use is a natural bid you can't use.  If you play with the Gerber Convention (where bidding 4 clubs when clubs has not previously been mentioned by the partnership does NOT mean clubs but asks the question, "Shall we try for a slam or grand slam?"), then you are no longer able to use 4 clubs as a natural bid, and, should the occasion arise when you would have wanted it to be natural, you are stuck trying to figure out how to cope with the inability to do so.  But it's a good convention, because it allows you to do something you often want to do at the expense of something you rarely want to do.  But the number of worthwhile trade-offs you can make like this are limited:  You need most of the possible bids to be natural bids, unless your convention is arbitrarily silly, like "clubs mean diamonds and diamonds mean clubs".

Again, I'm not saying there isn't room for experimentation, and definitely not that it wouldn't be fun to experiment even if you never improve on the traditional conventions.  There is just less potential for that sort of thing that it might seem.  What makes Bridge such a satisfying game for analytical thinkers is not its breadth (as in inventing whole new approaches) but its depth (working out the complex situations that arise in the normal course of the game).

You might want to give the game a shot sometime.  You seem like the kind of person who would really take to it.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2011, 04:38:13 pm by rinkworks »
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guided

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #44 on: July 13, 2011, 04:50:46 pm »
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To play devil's advocate, it's worth noting that there are legitimately competitive convention systems (e.g. strong pass) that are generally banned outside of very high-level play simply because they are so difficult to defend against without specific preparation. These systems aren't necessarily better than less unusual systems--there are known defenses after all--but they will befuddle club-level players who can't really be expected to be familiar with defending against them.
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fp

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #45 on: July 13, 2011, 09:15:52 pm »
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Back to Dominion:

A silly question- is playing random game boards in random positions something players are interested in on a competitive level? Specifically, in the long run, the number of bad shuffles and openings will be even for all players, so the fact that some players may get luckier in some circumstances than others is acceptable, and in part expected. Are people okay with that?

I ask because the whole premise of duplicate Dominion was purposed on the basis that luck should be reduced in part in order to separate the top players from one another.

In any case, as it stands, I really like the simplistic idea guided as suggested:

Quote
1. All tables play the same board for each game.
2. The initial deck order is randomized for each seat, but duplicated per-seat between tables.
3. Players are awarded points based on placement in each game, based on the placing record for that seat and that board across all tables.
4. ... The shuffle order immediately after the opening (and only this one shuffle) for each seat is duplicated between tables.

I guess the simplistic question is: Does this appear more fair than normal random games? (I think so)

While here, let me elaborate other potential consequences (or implementations) of Duplicate Dominion:

Since all players are playing the same board in the same positions, players will be able to be more intimate upon the discussing that particular board. Players are more likely to engage the community on a topic (in this case a particular board) if they have experience with it.  More engagement, means more Dominion.

Since there are many games with the same board, it is easier to gather data about the effect specific card combinations. Right now, the best data we have is on individual cards and opening pairs. However, in this data, the context is removed. Being able to show players the circumstances when a more powerful card is actually less powerful than an alternative would be an excellent tool for getting intermediate players more excited about Dominion strategy.

Players can propose boards, and in some thematic way, that could be a contest in and of itself. (Say, for example, challenge players to design boards that will have the lowest winning scores). For a small proportion of players, the most enjoyable aspect of the game is coming up with interesting and/or twisted boards. However, that aspect is nearly absent (or not reinforced) online.

Continuing from the previous point, the Boards may not be typical and that is when the most interesting things occur. To a large degree one of my biggest concerns is that many of the Dominion games played online use random boards. To many, that might seem perfect- random means anything can happen, anything goes. However, oxymoronically, randomness is also very predictable. On a random Dominion board "with high probability" you will have a Kingdom cards with cost $5, and one with cost $3. And also, "with high probability" a money strategy is reasonable. And further, in a 2-player game, "with high probability" Thief, Workshop, and Counting House are bad buys, and Montebank and Witch are excellent buys, and so on and so forth. It would be interesting to challenge players with boards where the roles above are reversed: Thief, Workshop, and Counting House are good buys and/or the Montebank and Witch are poor buys.
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Thisisnotasmile

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #46 on: July 14, 2011, 04:26:15 am »
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Note: I'm going off topic too.

Two, there is a practical limit to the number of conventions you can usefully play, for the simple reason that every artificial bid you use is a natural bid you can't use.  If you play with the Gerber Convention (where bidding 4 clubs when clubs has not previously been mentioned by the partnership does NOT mean clubs but asks the question, "Shall we try for a slam or grand slam?"), then you are no longer able to use 4 clubs as a natural bid, and, should the occasion arise when you would have wanted it to be natural, you are stuck trying to figure out how to cope with the inability to do so.  But it's a good convention, because it allows you to do something you often want to do at the expense of something you rarely want to do.  But the number of worthwhile trade-offs you can make like this are limited:  You need most of the possible bids to be natural bids, unless your convention is arbitrarily silly, like "clubs mean diamonds and diamonds mean clubs".

I'm not a bridge player because I've always assumed Bridge is just a basic trumps game with some bidding system that I can't be bothered to learn because I'm lazy and also because I know how to play trumps games without bidding systems. Anyhow, the discussion in this topic has interested me and I might look into learning Bridge properly in the future. Something I don't quite understand though, is related to the above quote:

If you have to explain to your opponents what your bid means, if they were to ask, and you must write down for them before you even start the game exactly what your bids mean, why would you need to do this? Why substitute "4 Clubs" for "Should we go for a Grand Slam?" when you can keep "4 Clubs" meaning "4 Clubs", and if you want to know whether you should go for a Grand Slam or not, say "Should we go for a Grand Slam?". After all, your opponent's know what the "4 Clubs" bid means, and if they don't they can ask and you have to tell them. Why have these bidding systems when you can't use them to do anything that you couldn't do with the English language?
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guided

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #47 on: July 14, 2011, 07:20:15 am »
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Why substitute "4 Clubs" for "Should we go for a Grand Slam?" when you can keep "4 Clubs" meaning "4 Clubs", and if you want to know whether you should go for a Grand Slam or not, say "Should we go for a Grand Slam?".
Because you aren't allowed to discuss your hand directly. You must only communicate about your hand through the bidding system, and the meaning of any bid* should be known from your publicly disclosed system. When your opponents ask your partner what a bid means, your partner tells them what they understand it to mean from your bidding system. You don't get to bid willy-nilly, then explain each bid on the fly however you want.

The reason the opponents may ask for clarification on any bid is that the "convention card" you must supply to them is only a shorthand summary of the system, and complex bidding sequences may not necessarily be obvious in meaning just from looking at the card.

*except a psych bid that will equally deceive your partner
« Last Edit: July 14, 2011, 07:23:27 am by guided »
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rinkworks

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #48 on: July 14, 2011, 11:26:11 am »
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I'm not a bridge player because I've always assumed Bridge is just a basic trumps game with some bidding system that I can't be bothered to learn because I'm lazy and also because I know how to play trumps games without bidding systems.

guided already answered your question, but I thought I'd mention that the other thing that makes Bridge different from other trumps games, besides the bidding system, is the dummy.  Basically when the bidding is over and the first card to the first trick is played by the opposition, one member of the partnership who won the bid is denoted the dummy.  The dummy lays down his entire hand and sits the rest of the hand out.  The other member of the partnership plays from both hands.

The level of intrigue that arises on both sides -- on the part of the player who must now play from and coordinate between two separate hands -- and on the part of the opposition -- now having significant knowledge about some of the cards out against them and where they are -- totally changes the game from any other trump game I know of.  (Maybe others have this property as well that I don't know about.)
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guided

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Re: Duplicate Dominion, An Idea For Competitive Dominion
« Reply #49 on: July 14, 2011, 11:59:54 am »
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Bridge is the most complex and challenging of the popular trick-taking games by about a factor of two ;D It's in a whole different league of depth and strategy from, say, Spades or Euchre. The one and only downside of Bridge, if you ask me, is that it requires an enormous (and ongoing!) commitment to learning and careful study if you want to play well. And indeed, even if your satisfied being a rank amateur the game doesn't become particularly rewarding until you put a lot of effort into learning the (extensive) basics of bidding and card play.

If I want to play a partnership card game with people who aren't interested in getting really serious about study, Tichu and Sheepshead are my go-tos. Also great games, just not remotely the same level of depth so they're much easier to learn to play with some base level of competence.
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