Anybody have little tricks that they use to count cards during the game? I'm pretty good at keeping track of the victory card count in a 2 player game, but that's the easy stuff.
What I'm interested in is a way to keep track of the per card value of your deck. I tried a +/- system that sort of works but that is hard to keep track of. The rules are pretty basic and the math is distorted, but it can give a rough approximation of deck value:
Each card starts with a -1
For each +cash, you give a +1
For each +card, you give a +1 (because it means the card replaces itself)
Thus, the opening deck starts as a -3 (3 estates = -3; 7 coppers = -7+7 = 0)
If you were to buy silvers on your first 3 turns then the deck would then be a 0, which essentially means that your average card value is 1 (3 estates = -3; 7 coppers = -7+7 = 0; 3 silvers = -3+6 = +3)
If you were to buy villages on your first 3 turns then the deck would still be a -3 (3 estates = -3; 7 coppers = -7+7 = 0; 3 villages = -3+3 = 0)
If you were to buy saboteurs on your first 3 turns then the deck would be a -6 (3 estates = -3; 7 coppers = -7+7 = 0; 3 saboteurs = -3)
To figure out the average card value of your deck, you divide the +/- difference from zero by the total number of cards in your deck and add 1. (so the above examples would be 0.7, 1.0, .77 and .54)
The problem with this approach is that it's not complicated enough to be truly accurate, and it's not easy enough to be executable on the fly.
Another weakness is that +cards shouldn't really count as a +1 because its effect is not linear (+cards is more valuable the more monetarily valuable your deck already is).