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Author Topic: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin  (Read 16906 times)

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danw132

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #25 on: August 27, 2011, 12:23:23 am »
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At the very least, I'm glad this thread spawned "Paralyzed" awareness.
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #26 on: August 30, 2011, 08:06:44 am »
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Yeah. I need to take better notice of each game before I start. I use automatch and usually accept any game without a second thought. So I didn't notice that in the game I started with Paralyzed, all 10 cards were required. I didn't even realise the combo was there until the first time I was hit with it. I decided to see the game out, but I eventually ended it by buying the last few curses.

Now I notice this idiot has won 16/16 games in the past day and gone up 5 levels to level 40. And in almost all of his games, his opponent has resigned, which is what first made me think something was fishy. In fact, he's played 61 games, determined the whole board for all of them, and only lost 5. If he keeps at it, it won't be long until he hits the top of the leaderboard.

Is there anything we can do about this, which is arguably cheating, and definitely against the spirit of the game? One idea is to make it more obvious that the other player has required cards, maybe even mention this combo specifically: "Your opponent has required King's Court, Goons and Masquerade. This is a dangerous combo which can cause you to be locked out of the game. Are you sure you want to play this game?"

I, for one, would support him being booted from Isotropic, and I suspect if he does continue and become the top-ranked player, I wouldn't be alone.
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Mean Mr Mustard

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #27 on: August 30, 2011, 08:19:59 am »
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This guy is obviously a one-trick pony.  I don't think there is really a recourse against him.  He is following the letter of the law as far as the Leaderboard is concerned and because there are too many players that are not aware of what he is doing I do not see him suddenly falling out of the top ranks.

Maybe he will get bored.

 
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #28 on: August 30, 2011, 08:22:47 am »
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Maybe he will get bored.

Well yes, I imagine he will eventually, but if he gets to level 60 first, we still have to live with having him on top.
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Thisisnotasmile

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #29 on: August 30, 2011, 08:35:44 am »
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I'm cool with him leveling up so quickly. When I finally get my turn to be "Paralyzed", I'll get a nice boost to my ranking ;]
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Geronimoo

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #30 on: August 30, 2011, 08:37:03 am »
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Very simple solution to all this: only games that use the default card selection will have an influence on your ranking.
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DG

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #31 on: August 30, 2011, 08:51:49 am »
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At the moment in the top 4 of the council rankings we've got one person who seems to auto-match mostly low ranked opponents, two people who mainly seem to play just one or two opponents (friends maybe?), and one alter-ego (nothing wrong with that either). This does mean however that the top rankings aren't backed up by evidence of good play against other high ranked players in competitive games. In that respect I don't think it's a great worry that someone else is rising up the rankings with some method of choosing matches. I know that my ranking is probably a reasonable rating of my own play and that's all I'm worried about.
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philosophyguy

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #32 on: August 30, 2011, 08:52:59 am »
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Very simple solution to all this: only games that use the default card selection will have an influence on your ranking.

I think this is a great idea. It still allows you to decline the occasional game that randomly features, e.g., Possession, but doesn't allow you to stack the deck with your one-trick pony.
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Captain_Frisk

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #33 on: August 30, 2011, 12:00:15 pm »
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At the moment in the top 4 of the council rankings we've got one person who seems to auto-match mostly low ranked opponents, two people who mainly seem to play just one or two opponents (friends maybe?), and one alter-ego (nothing wrong with that either). This does mean however that the top rankings aren't backed up by evidence of good play against other high ranked players in competitive games. In that respect I don't think it's a great worry that someone else is rising up the rankings with some method of choosing matches. I know that my ranking is probably a reasonable rating of my own play and that's all I'm worried about.

Well, its probably time to come clean, as its taken alot longer than I thought it would, and I don't think i'm going to have the time to finish the job (and Paralyzed may beat me to it).

Conjecture is not actually theories alt (although I did choose the name to throw suspicion at him).  After seeing tat ranked so high above everyone else, I wanted to test the hypothesis that such a high ranking (and ridiculous win %) could be attained by a good, but non-elite player.  I found it hard to believe that tat was really 10 levels better than me (Captain_Frisk is currently lvl 36 I think?), so I wanted to see if I could beat him.  I'm currently 1.5 levels behind, and I'm pretty sure that I will do it eventually.

I fully support changes to the leaderboard system to encourage real competition at the top of the leaderboard, vs. playing an alternate form of dominion to climb those last 10 spots.

tat - I would love to play you as Captain_Frisk a few times just to see how bad you destroy me.
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guided

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #34 on: August 30, 2011, 12:31:41 pm »
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So... are you gaming the rankings by cherry-picking boards? or have you found some legitimate flaw in how TrueSkill is calculated?
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chwhite

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #35 on: August 30, 2011, 12:38:59 pm »
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Tat actually challenged me once, and won largely due to some clever Scout play which I just completely missed since I tend to auto-ignore Scout most of the time.  (Nobles and Tactician were on the board along with some other stuff which I forget right now; I tried to race to a quick five provinces basically just using Tactician, but his/her slower Scout/Nobles engine caught up in the end.)  I don't know if he/she deserves to be #1, but tat did strike me as legitimately a high-level player.
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DStu

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #36 on: August 30, 2011, 12:42:59 pm »
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Tat actually challenged me once, and won largely due to some clever Scout play which I just completely missed since I tend to auto-ignore Scout most of the time.  (Nobles and Tactician were on the board along with some other stuff which I forget right now; I tried to race to a quick five provinces basically just using Tactician, but his/her slower Scout/Nobles engine caught up in the end.)  I don't know if he/she deserves to be #1, but tat did strike me as legitimately a high-level player.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110822-204710-cfc32c5f.html probably
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Captain_Frisk

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #37 on: August 30, 2011, 12:52:25 pm »
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So... are you gaming the rankings by cherry-picking boards? or have you found some legitimate flaw in how TrueSkill is calculated?

You can see my restrictions from the councilroom game logs... not nearly as offensive as what Paralyzed is doing, which really just seems unfair.  My goal was to in general make the game more skill based by removing high variance cards.  The 2nd thing that I did was try to exploit the relatively large skill jump that occurs between "ooh shiny action cards" and "maybe I should buy more silver".  The dumb strategy of Single <card> + Big Money will win an alarming % of time against even expert level players.  It might only be 30%, but thats enough to hold you back from climbing over rank 40.

Look at the record for this player: http://councilroom.com/player?player=moneybot
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chwhite

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #38 on: August 30, 2011, 01:11:01 pm »
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Tat actually challenged me once, and won largely due to some clever Scout play which I just completely missed since I tend to auto-ignore Scout most of the time.  (Nobles and Tactician were on the board along with some other stuff which I forget right now; I tried to race to a quick five provinces basically just using Tactician, but his/her slower Scout/Nobles engine caught up in the end.)  I don't know if he/she deserves to be #1, but tat did strike me as legitimately a high-level player.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110822-204710-cfc32c5f.html probably

Yeah, that's it.  Forgot it was a Colony game.
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Captain_Frisk

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #39 on: August 30, 2011, 01:11:31 pm »
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Tat actually challenged me once, and won largely due to some clever Scout play which I just completely missed since I tend to auto-ignore Scout most of the time.  (Nobles and Tactician were on the board along with some other stuff which I forget right now; I tried to race to a quick five provinces basically just using Tactician, but his/her slower Scout/Nobles engine caught up in the end.)  I don't know if he/she deserves to be #1, but tat did strike me as legitimately a high-level player.

I don't doubt that he/she is a legit high level player.  The question is... is is thegap between tat (lvl 48) and me (lvl 36) the same as between me and a lvl 24?  Man would I like to learn those tricks.  I'm pretty confident that I'm not the 3rd best active player, but that's what the leaderboard says.

 
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guided

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #40 on: August 30, 2011, 01:48:23 pm »
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Ah, yes. In the past at least (before restrictions were advertised when you proposed a game), most of the names at the top end of the board clearly were requiring Colony for their games, if you looked at their Popular Buys stats. Which is fine if they love playing with Colonies, but it means their ranking is essentially meaningless. I believe theory used to play with no Alchemy (because it was more fun for him), which again is fine but it also influences the rankings.

Even if you don't think Colony games tend to be lower-variance with respect to skill differences, requiring Colony means you're going to get really good at a class of games that normal players only see a small fraction of the time, and then play only those types of games, almost always against opponents who aren't especially practiced at them. The difference between requiring Colony and what Paralyzed is doing is only one of degree: It's just that he is very practiced at KC/Masquerade pin games (a very small subset of boards) instead of Colony games (a larger subset).

Forbidding requirements for ranked games helps, but it doesn't stop people from rejecting boards they think they will be more likely to lose. If one views the maintenance of unbiased rankings as a paramount concern, then there should be a separate class of game where no requirements are allowed and the board is not revealed until after all players have accepted the game, and only this class of game should count for the leaderboard. My own approach is to just not worry too much about the leaderboard and trust that my own TrueSkill rating is pretty accurate: I simply do not play rated games with requirements, nor reject a rated game (ever) based on the board, nor play with people who have demonstrated that they will reject games based on the board.

I find it's most fun for me when I have to adapt to any and every card and combination the randomizer might throw at me. If other people have more fun playing with (non-abusive) requirements I'm not going to begrudge them their leaderboard position.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2011, 02:09:31 pm by guided »
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Captain_Frisk

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #41 on: August 30, 2011, 02:03:55 pm »
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Forbidding requirements for ranked games helps, but it doesn't stop people from rejecting boards they think they will be more likely to lose. If one views the maintenance of unbiased rankings as a paramount concern, then there should be a separate class of game where no requirements are allowed and the board is not revealed until after all players have accepted the game, and only this class of game should count for the leaderboard. My own approach is to just not worry too much about the leaderboard and trust that my own TrueSkill rating is pretty accurate: I simply do not play rated games with requirements, nor reject a rated game (ever) based on the board, nor play with people who have demonstrated that they will reject games based on the board.

Captain Frisk followed the same general guidelines... although I've found that by requiring colony, i'm really enjoying the game alot more.  The extra 2 turns to really get an engine going is so much more fun than the "build a deck that buys 3-4 provinces and then stutters doing duchy dances until the game ends".

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guided

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #42 on: August 30, 2011, 02:09:59 pm »
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I think it's kinda funny that you forbid Tournament for this experiment. I mean, I understand a lot of people think it's some silly circus card, but man, it's my single highest "Win Rate given avail" so I've never agreed with the contingent that finds it to be high-variance.

(moving this edit to a new post since it got ninja'd by the guy it was written for ;))
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DG

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #43 on: August 30, 2011, 02:27:38 pm »
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Quote
I don't doubt that he/she is a legit high level player.  The question is... is is thegap between tat (lvl 48) and me (lvl 36) the same as between me and a lvl 24?  Man would I like to learn those tricks.

Having looked back at a few of Tat's games a while back I think were well played, consistently well played. As in that match against chwhite, they usually had strong engines that took a long time to build and against better players that style of play would be weaker. Better players wouldn't let you buy 8 hunting parties for example. Having looked back at a few Conjecture games too, I'd guess that Tat was playing at a more consistent level (or quite often when I would have varied from Tat's play I wouldn't have achieved better results) and generally only lost when an opponent used strong attacks. There isn't that much to learn though when some of the opponent's purchases just make you want to groan. Where are these opponents and why don't they play me more often!

It's patently obvious than people can beat the ranking system if they want to, isn't it? What's the surprise?

Quote
I find it's most fun for me when I have to adapt to any and every card and combination the randomizer might throw at me. If other people have more fun playing with (non-abusive) requirements I'm not going to begrudge them their leaderboard position.

Agreed.


Edit - I didn't mean better than chwhite, I meant better than low level automatch opponents :)
« Last Edit: August 30, 2011, 06:48:47 pm by DG »
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hoff

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #44 on: August 30, 2011, 02:48:11 pm »
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So... are you gaming the rankings by cherry-picking boards? or have you found some legitimate flaw in how TrueSkill is calculated?

You can see my restrictions from the councilroom game logs... not nearly as offensive as what Paralyzed is doing, which really just seems unfair.  My goal was to in general make the game more skill based by removing high variance cards.  The 2nd thing that I did was try to exploit the relatively large skill jump that occurs between "ooh shiny action cards" and "maybe I should buy more silver".  The dumb strategy of Single <card> + Big Money will win an alarming % of time against even expert level players.  It might only be 30%, but thats enough to hold you back from climbing over rank 40.

Nice experiment. "The board most likely to induce mistakes by your opponent" is an interesting exercise.

Look at the record for this player: http://councilroom.com/player?player=moneybot

Ha, that experiment is my friend! He even made a twitter account for it: http://twitter.com/#!/d_moneybot

I begged him to change the name to something less obvious than "moneybot," so that an opponent who believes him can't take advantage of his strategy from turn 1, but it hasn't really slowed moneybot down. :-)
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Captain_Frisk

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #45 on: August 30, 2011, 04:18:34 pm »
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Nice experiment. "The board most likely to induce mistakes by your opponent" is an interesting exercise.
I think Paralyze has this one cornered!

Ha, that experiment is my friend! He even made a twitter account for it: http://twitter.com/#!/d_moneybot

I begged him to change the name to something less obvious than "moneybot," so that an opponent who believes him can't take advantage of his strategy from turn 1, but it hasn't really slowed moneybot down. :-)

I'm so sad that this is a human following bot rules, instead of someone who actually unleashed a bot on isotropic.
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Captain_Frisk

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #46 on: August 30, 2011, 05:05:08 pm »
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I think it's kinda funny that you forbid Tournament for this experiment. I mean, I understand a lot of people think it's some silly circus card, but man, it's my single highest "Win Rate given avail" so I've never agreed with the contingent that finds it to be high-variance.

(moving this edit to a new post since it got ninja'd by the guy it was written for ;))

This was probably an over-reaction.  I lost at least one game in which i had more tournaments AND more provinces, but my opponent hit the combo first, and then proceeded to go prize crazy for the rest of the game.  I actually intend to require tournament for a while (not sure if as _Frisk or conjecture) to learn how to play with it properly after avoiding it for so long.

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Arya Stark

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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #47 on: September 02, 2011, 06:47:59 pm »
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Conjecture is not actually theories alt (although I did choose the name to throw suspicion at him). 

I knew it was you! Theory doesn't chat that much
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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #48 on: October 23, 2011, 03:22:04 am »
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I just tried my very very hardest to throw away a KC-KC-Goons-Masquerade pin.

I was quite excited when Isotropic randomly presented me with this opportunity

The main thing that stuffed me up here was Caravan, in two ways: I would trash his hand, but he would get more cards from his Caravans, and I would stupidly let too many KCs get tied up with my Caravans.
Another thing was me trying to hold on to more cards than I needed. Once I had all the ingredients, I should have aggressively trashed down to the bare essentials. At one point, if I had only trashed a Copper instead of keeping it in case he played Masquerade, I would have begun the rest-of-game pin much earlier.

Anyway, my opponent got 4 Colonies and we had about even VP chips. But because I took so long and wasn't buying anything, he built up a 10ish VP chip lead in addition to his Colonies. He then started to empty the piles and got the Caravans and Masquerades gone, and the Secret Chambers down to 1. But then his deck was gone, so he couldn't buy the last one. He had started buying Coppers, realising I couldn't win if I kept up what I was doing. Soon enough he realised that buying Curses was much better, so he started doing that.

Anyway, I bought a second Goons. He bought a Copper. He only needed one more to buy the last SC. But I played both my Goons, and bought a Colony, then the last 6 Curses for a net result of +1 VP each, and won 33-28.

I was quite annoyed at how poorly I did this, but pleased that I managed to pull out a win at the end. Although, there was at least once when he could have ended the game with a win by buying the last SC.
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Re: Goons/KC/Masq-Hand Deletion/Infinite Pin
« Reply #49 on: November 07, 2011, 04:02:31 pm »
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I got to pull it off today for the first time. The setup was random. I fell behind after four dead KCs in a row, my opponent buying one or two Colonies every turn with now only 4 Colonies left. I grabbed some Labs to help the deck cycling, but my only chance was this devilish combo. After accelerated trashing with more than one Masquerade, the torture started.
It is really unpleasant, even for me. I can't really do anything but feel bad, since I can't buy useful cards for obvious reasons.

@Jimmmmm: Your report is way more stylish with the threat of a three-pile-ending, the VP-token race, the curse buys and the nice finish.
« Last Edit: November 07, 2011, 04:04:52 pm by def »
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