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[WalrusMcFishSr]

So I was messing around a bit and I came up with this neat formula for the "value" of a Venture:

C(v,N) = (1 + v + N)/(1 + N)

Where C is the "value" obtained *just from venture chaining*
v is the number of Ventures remaining in your deck and discard pile,
and N is the number of non-Venture treasure cards remaining in your deck and discard pile.

This includes the $1 from the starting Venture but *not* the final revealed treasure, so to get the final value you should add d, the treasure density of the non-Venture treasure cards in your deck and discard pile. Note that we don't have to include non-treasures, as we normally would when calculating money density, because everything but treasures is skipped over.

Here's my work:

In Mathematica--

Code: [Select]

In[190]:= Sum[v!/((v - n)! ((g + v)!/((g + v) - n)!)), {n, 0, v}]

Out[190]= (1 + g + v)/(1 + g)
Empirically tested with Python simulations--

Code: [Select]

import random

v=28
N=13
tries=500000

deck=[]
scores=[]

for i in range(tries):
    deck=[1]*v+[0]*N
    random.shuffle(deck)
    going=True
    val=1
    while going:
        card=deck.pop()
        if card:
            val+=1
        else:
            going=False
    scores.append(val)


print float(sum(scores))/len(scores)
           

For example, one run of this code here with v=28 and N=13 gives me 3.000214, which is very close to the predicted value of (1 + 13 + 28)/(1 + 13) = 3. Good luck getting 28 Ventures in your deck.

So the formula seems to work out. Let's look at some selected values:

If you have v=0 and N=whatever, obviously the value will just be 1.

Similarly, if you have v=whatever and N=0, the value will be equal to whatever+1.

What if you have your original 7 Coppers, and 2 Ventures (playing one, one remains in deck). Assuming your only treasure in hand is your Venture:, we'd have v=1, N=7, and C=1.125, which gives 2.125 when you take into account the extra $1 from Copper. Pretty much what you expect--a silver + 1/8 chance of getting gold. And realistically, you might have another one or two of your coppers in hand, so C could be more like 1.14 or 1.16.

What about for more elaborate chaining? Like, for example, let's say we had 5 Ventures. How does that work out for reasonably-thinned decks?

C(5,5) = 1.8333
C(5,4) = 2
C(5,3) = 2.25
C(5,2) = 2.6667
C(5,1) = 3.5

So with 4 coppers left it becomes as good as Gold, and maybe you've got some silvers and stuff too. 5 Ventures (+ the one you played) is kind of a lot though; how about for v=3?

C(3,5) = 1.5
C(3,4) = 1.6
C(3,3) = 1.75
C(3,2) = 2
C(3,1) = 2.5

You can continue to mess around with the function if you want. I was gonna take some derivatives and stuff, but then I was like, nahhhh.

So what's the conclusion of all this? Oh man, I was supposed to come up with a conclusion? I just like math. I know that there are many other considerations with regards to Venture other than its pure dollar value, such as its ability to deal with junkiness and counter certain cards. You guys are better at Dominion than I am--what are the strategic implications of this? Or is it just an amusing diversion?

[dondon151]

I think it is far more useful to view Venture as a Treasure card that augments the value of another Treasure card in your deck by $1.

[ragingduckd]

I think it is far more useful to view Venture as a Treasure card that augments the value of another Treasure card in your deck by $1.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

I don't think it's scumbaggy to post one's opinions--that's what I was after anyway! He does know more than I on the subject.

I think it is far more useful to view Venture as a Treasure card that augments the value of another Treasure card in your deck by $1.

That is true, except for the chaining ability augments that somewhat. Granted, it may be a fairly insignificant effect, or one that rarely matters, but that's why I went through this exercise, to find out!

I also forgot to mention that this formula is very practical for extending Ventures to the real and complex domains. For example, what if you had -4 Ventures and i Coppers in your deck? You would be confident in guessing that you would receive about $-1+2i on average, plus your money density (which I'm not assuming to be positive or real).

[sudgy]

I play my Ventures, giving me 6 + i coins.  I buy a Possession.

[dondon151]

(image)

I don't know if you're being facetious or actually being a douchebag. It really feels like the latter to me.

[pst]

So I was messing around a bit and I came up with this neat formula for the "value" of a Venture:

C(v,N) = (1 + v + N)/(1 + N)

Where C is the "value" obtained *just from venture chaining*
v is the number of Ventures remaining in your deck and discard pile,
and N is the number of non-Venture treasure cards remaining in your deck and discard pile.

Since you only give empiral test, here is a proof by induction as well.

C(v,N) = (1+v+N)/(1+N) is true when v=0, because then it's just (1+N)/(1+N) = 1, the value of that single Venture.

Now assume C(v,N) = (1+v+N)/(1+N). Is it then also true for v+1? That is, is C(v+1, N) =(2+v+N)/(1+N) ?

Well, C(v+1,N) is always at least 1 (the value of the Venture itself), and then with probability (v+1)/(v+1+N) (the probability the next treasure drawn is a new Venture) we add the value with one less Venture, that we already know about. So,

C(v+1,N) = 1 + ((v+1)/(v+1+N)) C(v,N)   =
1 + ((v+1)/(v+1+N)) ((1+v+N)/(1+N)) = 1 + (v+1)/(1+N) = (2+v+N)/(1+N)

So it's true when v = 0, and if it's true for some v, it's also true for v+1; ergo it's true for all natural numbers.

[GwinnR]

I don't know if I understood this all right. But there has to be a difference between the draw and discard pile. For example I play the Venture and I know, the only treasure-card in my draw pile is a Copper. So I know this Venture will draw this Copper; and if there are 9 Ventures in my discard pile or none of them, that makes no difference.
Is this included in your formula?

[popsofctown]

(image)

I don't know if you're being facetious or actually being a douchebag. It really feels like the latter to me.

His five upvoters are douchebags too, by extension.


I really think your one line post was unconstructive and dismissive. 

[pst]

I don't know if I understood this all right. But there has to be a difference between the draw and discard pile. For example I play the Venture and I know, the only treasure-card in my draw pile is a Copper. So I know this Venture will draw this Copper; and if there are 9 Ventures in my discard pile or none of them, that makes no difference.
Is this included in your formula?

It is not. It is meant to give an indication of how much value your Ventures will give in your deck. In a specific situation where you play a single Venture, set N and v according to what's just in your draw deck instead (as long as there is some "terminal treasure" there. (Playing several Ventures will be a bit more complicated.)

[RTT]

And what if you start your venture Chain with an Adventurer 

 

[GwinnR]

And what if you start your venture Chain with an Adventurer 

 

They don't get played directly. You only put them into your hand and then play them in your buy phase.

I don't know if I understood this all right. But there has to be a difference between the draw and discard pile. For example I play the Venture and I know, the only treasure-card in my draw pile is a Copper. So I know this Venture will draw this Copper; and if there are 9 Ventures in my discard pile or none of them, that makes no difference.
Is this included in your formula?

It is not. It is meant to give an indication of how much value your Ventures will give in your deck. In a specific situation where you play a single Venture, set N and v according to what's just in your draw deck instead (as long as there is some "terminal treasure" there. (Playing several Ventures will be a bit more complicated.)

Ok. I think as long as there is one other treasure card in the draw pile, you just take "N" and "v" for the cards in your draw pile.

[DG]

Unfortunately there are a number of ways of looking at ventures and the chain value isn't necessarily the most useful. You've essentially looked at the potential sequences of treasures and ventures in the deck and counted how many ventures you expect to draw before the first other treasure (TVXXX, VTXXX, VVTXXX, etc). This doesn't take into account the value of those treasures and the number of non-treasure cards in the deck, both of which are important to actually using ventures. It can be more useful to take the value of a venture as 1 + average treasure value of the draw deck (as Dondon said).

There are still plenty of complications since a working Dominion deck has cards both in hand and the discard pile that invalidate any generalized mathematics about the draw deck. I hereby forbid anyone to discuss the farming village effect in this thread since people always misunderstand it and the thread quickly gets full of nonsensical claims and counter claims.

[BadAssMutha]

Neat stuff! However, we all know that Dominion is a game of big turns and small turns, not one of averages. I'd be interested to see a probability distribution over the Venture values instead of just the average value of a Venture. If I play a Venture in a deck that contains of 4 Ventures and no other treasures, I will always get $5 total. If I play Venture in a deck of Venture, Copper, Silver, Gold, I get 3/12 chance of $2, 4/12 of $3, 4/12 of $4, and 1/12 of $5. The distribution of these values says a little more than just the average of $3.25. I'm imagining a situation where you don't want to trigger a reshuffle with Venture, but the $ from it could be enough to end the game in a win. The probability distribution would tell you a lot more about whether it's a good idea or not. In the second example, needing only $3 (just a quarter under the average) gives you a good 75% chance of making it. Needing $4 (a full $0.75 more than the average) still gives you a 41% chance. I did the example by hand, care to figure out the formula for the distribution? I suppose it would require a list of Treasures in the deck, rather than just the number of them, though.

[Witherweaver]

...
It can be more useful to take the value of a venture as 1 + average treasure value of the draw deck (as Dondon said).

But how do you compute that when you have more ventures in the deck?  Don't you also have to consider the possibilities of where the other ventures lie? 

[RTT]

Isn´t a Venture just a Pedler wich is guaranted to draw a treasure card (as long as you have one remaining in your deck) and forcing you to play that treasure.

oh ant it can´t be drawn dead like peddlers can.

[Witherweaver]

Isn´t a Venture just a Pedler wich is guaranted to draw a treasure card (as long as you have one remaining in your deck) and forcing you to play that treasure.

oh ant it can´t be drawn dead like peddlers can.

I prefer to think of it as a Ruined Village that also draws a treasure card, forces you to play that treasure card, and gives +1 coin.  And can't be drawn dead.  And counts as a treasure.

[GwinnR]

Isn´t a Venture just a Pedler wich is guaranted to draw a treasure card (as long as you have one remaining in your deck) and forcing you to play that treasure.

oh ant it can´t be drawn dead like peddlers can.

But it also can't be throned and kinged and it doesn't help for Peddlers and Conspirators. But it can be counterfeited.

But in general, it's just what you said, which of course doesn't tell you anything about the "value" of the Venture.

[DG]

But how do you compute that when you have more ventures in the deck?  Don't you also have to consider the possibilities of where the other ventures lie?

No. If you consider a sequence of treasures in draw deck of copper, silver, venture, venture, you eventually get the same total income from s.v.v.c, c.v.v.s, v.v.s.c, v.c.v.s, etc. You will get 5 coins by playing 2 treasures from hand. The complications come from shuffles, cards in hand, and the farming village effect.

[Witherweaver]

But how do you compute that when you have more ventures in the deck?  Don't you also have to consider the possibilities of where the other ventures lie?

No. If you consider a sequence of treasures in draw deck of copper, silver, venture, venture, you eventually get the same total income from s.v.v.c, c.v.v.s, v.v.s.c, v.c.v.s, etc. You will get 5 coins by playing 2 treasures from hand. The complications come from shuffles, cards in hand, and the farming village effect.

This doesn't seem quite right.  If you have, for instance, V C in hand and S V in deck, then playing Venture and Copper gets you four coins.  Or any ordering where the second venture is last (or three coins when both ventures are last).  Or am I missing what you're saying?

Anyway, my point more was that if you consider the value of venture to be 1+<average treasure value of draw deck>, how do you estimate <average treasure value of draw deck>?  Do you count Ventures in the draw deck as 1?  Shouldn't they instead be 1+<average treasure value of (some perhaps modified) draw deck>? 

[dondon151]

I really think your one line post was unconstructive and dismissive.

I'm sure that posts about Dominion strategy have a reputation for being constructive. No surprise that when I post something that I feel is mildly insightful, I get called out for being a Goko detractor. How is that even relevant, anyway?

[DG]

This doesn't seem quite right.  If you have, for instance, V C in hand and S V in deck, then playing Venture and Copper gets you four coins.  Or any ordering where the second venture is last (or three coins when both ventures are last).  Or am I missing what you're saying?

It is right and you are missing what I'm saying. I did indeed state that cards in hand change the maths and reshuffling changes the maths. We have to look at simple sequences so in a simple example the order of playing treasures doesn't matter as they will all get played before the shuffle and the number of treasures played from hand is always the same.

[Witherweaver]

This doesn't seem quite right.  If you have, for instance, V C in hand and S V in deck, then playing Venture and Copper gets you four coins.  Or any ordering where the second venture is last (or three coins when both ventures are last).  Or am I missing what you're saying?

It is right and you are missing what I'm saying. I did indeed state that cards in hand change the maths and reshuffling changes the maths. We have to look at simple sequences so in a simple example the order of playing treasures doesn't matter as they will all get played before the shuffle and the number of treasures played from hand is always the same.

Ah, I thought you were talking about for a given (arbitrary) hand and not throughout the entire shuffle.

[SCSN]

I really think your one line post was unconstructive and dismissive.

I'm sure that posts about Dominion strategy have a reputation for being constructive. No surprise that when I post something that I feel is mildly insightful, I get called out for being a Goko detractor. How is that even relevant, anyway?

To be honest, alot of your posts have this sort of aloof and dismissive tone that vaguely annoys me, regardless of whether I agree with their actual content.

[Archetype]

(image)

I don't know if you're being facetious or actually being a douchebag. It really feels like the latter to me.

His five upvoters are douchebags too, by extension.

Since it's ragingduckd we're talking about, it's by goko extension.

[DStu]

First, I don't see how playing online has anything to do with this.
Second, I think dondon's post might be a bit short, but I think it's more helpfu than the OP.  The OP might be mathematically correct, but I'm sure it does not calculate an interesting value.
Look at C(5,1)=3.5.   Of course it's true, playing that one Venture will give you $3 on average by Venture chaining.  But the 5th Venture is not worth $3.5,  because playing the 5th Venture will prevent playing (on average) 2.5 other Ventures.  So the value of the 5th Venture is probably C(5,1)-C(4,1), at  least in situations where you can reasonable expect to draw one Venture in hand.  In a cursed deck, that might be different. Then there is also the case when you draw 2 Ventures in hand, where the formula also does not apply because the remaining Ventures has to be shared by the 2 (or more) Ventures in hand.
After all, you end up by "the Venture increases the value of the remaining Treasures by $1 (and increases shuffling of non-Treasures I guess)"

[dondon151]

To be honest, alot of your posts have this sort of aloof and dismissive tone that vaguely annoys me, regardless of whether I agree with their actual content.

That's just a natural consequence of the way that I type, but thanks for being honest. I don't realize this and sometimes I'm typing up posts on my iPad where I don't put extra effort into making posts sound nice.

[Mic Qsenoch]

People should be rewarded for being concise and direct, not punished.

[SCSN]

People should be rewarded for being concise and direct, not punished.

Conciseness and a modicum of warmth and respect towards others are not mutually exclusive.

[greatexpectations]

Conciseness and a modicum of warmth and respect towards others are not mutually exclusive.

i agree. the scumbag meme was probably unnecessary in this thread.

[dondon151]

Also, one thing that I forgot to mention is that having a Venture is like having negative cards in the deck if all you care about are your Treasure cards. If you have a 16-card deck that includes 2 Ventures and 2 Golds, the Ventures will on average skip 3 cards and play the 4th card (EDIT: I think this is poor math; it's probably supposed to be skipping 4 cards and playing the 5th card), which triggers reshuffles twice as quickly compared to if you had 4 Golds instead. So it plays the other Treasures in your deck more often.

Intuitively, in this example, the Ventures are worth more than a 3rd or 4th Gold, since the Gold "density" in both decks is the same, but each Venture adds $1 of value. Whether this is a good approximation is up for debate because there are things like reshuffling and not always drawing hands with Ventures and stuff. But it's the way that I like to think about Venture: basically a copy of another random Treasure card in your deck that is worth an additional $1.

[Mic Qsenoch]

People should be rewarded for being concise and direct, not punished.

Conciseness and a modicum of warmth and respect towards others are not mutually exclusive.

Seriously read dondon's post again. He isn't being disrespectful, he is just being brief. If you remove the word "far" his original post is completely innocent, but he should be able to say "far" if that's how he feels about it. The main reason it looks out of place is that it is the first response to the OP, if it had come five posts down nobody would have said a thing. He is being attacked through social mechanisms for making a legitimate strategic comment.

[SCSN]

Conciseness and a modicum of warmth and respect towards others are not mutually exclusive.

i agree. the scumbag meme was probably unnecessary in this thread.

Yeah, it was quite the scumbag move!

[Witherweaver]

Conciseness and a modicum of warmth and respect towards others are not mutually exclusive.

i agree. the scumbag meme was probably unnecessary in this thread.

Yeah, it was quite the scumbag move!

Someone metascumbag meme the scumbag meme for many upvotes.

[achmed_sender]

Conciseness and a modicum of warmth and respect towards others are not mutually exclusive.

i agree. the scumbag meme was probably unnecessary in this thread.

Yeah, it was quite the scumbag move!

Someone metascumbag meme the scumbag meme for many upvotes.

No.

EDIT: Someone puts in the "How abut no"-bear for many upvotes 

[DStu]

Conciseness and a modicum of warmth and respect towards others are not mutually exclusive.

i agree. the scumbag meme was probably unnecessary in this thread.

Yeah, it was quite the scumbag move!

Someone metascumbag meme the scumbag meme for many upvotes.

Yo dawg,  I heard you like scumbag memes...

[ragingduckd]

Sorry for being a dick about this, dondon. I don't really think you're a scumbag and I do understand the ipad typing issue.

To be fair, I was really responding more to your past one-liners than to this particular one. Whether intentional or not, many of your posts come across with an abrupt and dismissive tone of authority. Mic Q can get away with that because he's a total badass, but those one-liners feel weirdly disrespectful coming from someone who hasn't played actively since before Dark Ages.

WalrusMcFishSr really went above and beyond here, presenting analysis that insightful, precise, and very novel. I believe this was also his first strategy post. He's a pretty chill guy and not apt to take offense here, but I felt his efforts deserved a more considered response.

[Witherweaver]

Sorry for being a dick about this, dondon. I don't really think you're a scumbag and I do understand the ipad typing issue.

To be fair, I was really responding more to your past one-liners than to this particular one. Whether intentional or not, many of your posts come across with an abrupt and dismissive tone of authority. Mic Q can get away with that because he's a total badass, but those one-liners feel weirdly disrespectful coming from someone who hasn't played actively since before Dark Ages.

WalrusMcFishSr really went above and beyond here, presenting analysis that insightful, precise, and very novel. I believe this was also his first strategy post. He's a pretty chill guy and not apt to take offense here, but I felt his efforts deserved a more considered response.

Though WalrusMcFishSr did actually ask in his post whether this was useful or simply an academic interest.

[SCSN]

People should be rewarded for being concise and direct, not punished.

Conciseness and a modicum of warmth and respect towards others are not mutually exclusive.

Seriously read dondon's post again. He isn't being disrespectful, he is just being brief. If you remove the word "far" his original post is completely innocent, but he should be able to say "far" if that's how he feels about it. The main reason it looks out of place is that it is the first response to the OP, if it had come five posts down nobody would have said a thing. He is being attacked through social mechanisms for making a legitimate strategic comment.

It's not that one post in isolation that inspired the "attack", it just happened to be the trigger for the expression of a growing sentiment that's apparently shared by several people. And I don't see it as an attack, really, but rather as a correction through social mechanisms for repeatedly disregarding (unwittingly, as it turned out) certain implicit social norms.

Such social mechanisms have several important functions, one of them is to bring it to someone's attention that others find a certain kind of behavior undesirable--something of which people are often unaware--so that they actually have the conscious choice of either correcting it or living with the consequences of not doing so.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Mic Q can get away with that because he's a total badass

I wish the dudes stealing my lunch money believed this.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

Ok. I think as long as there is one other treasure card in the draw pile, you just take "N" and "v" for the cards in your draw pile.

Yes, you should modify the value of N and v based on known information. This is just the "purest" form of the formula, such as if you are playing right at the end of a shuffle.

Neat stuff! However, we all know that Dominion is a game of big turns and small turns, not one of averages. I'd be interested to see a probability distribution over the Venture values instead of just the average value of a Venture.

Quite true! Here's some distributions from two of the situations I discussed:

C(5,4):

$1: 44.5146%
$2: 27.7906%
$3: 15.8062%
$4: 7.9334%
$5: 3.1512%
$6: 0.804%

C(3,2):

$1: 40.1802%
$2: 29.8668%
$3: 19.9584%
$4: 9.9946%

...you can interpret that as you will. It's hard to directly compare against a Gold or something because it depends on the way the rest of your deck looks.

Second, I think dondon's post might be a bit short, but I think it's more helpfu than the OP.  The OP might be mathematically correct, but I'm sure it does not calculate an interesting value.
Look at C(5,1)=3.5.   Of course it's true, playing that one Venture will give you $3 on average by Venture chaining.  But the 5th Venture is not worth $3.5,  because playing the 5th Venture will prevent playing (on average) 2.5 other Ventures.

Man you're right. This is not the most strategically helpful article in the world. It's not as if when I'm playing Dominion I'm (consciously) performing advanced combinatorics in my head. Mostly I thought it was an interesting mathematical result, and I wanted to share with you guys.

(lots of squabbling about scumbags and whatnot)

Can't we all just get along???  Who knew this would be such a polarizing topic.

[popsofctown]

I really think your one line post was unconstructive and dismissive.

I'm sure that posts about Dominion strategy have a reputation for being constructive. No surprise that when I post something that I feel is mildly insightful, I get called out for being a Goko detractor. How is that even relevant, anyway?

Aren't you the guy who only played solitaire games on iso?  I don't think I have you confused with someone else, you have only about 300 games played on isotropic. I've played 5k, Mic has played 4k (oof, right in the egoz). No one brought up goko but you.

Unless your RL playgroup is straight up unemployed, you have less experience using Venture with curses in the mix, which is one of its key use cases, so yeah, your lack of online play is relevant, goko or not.  If OP wants to throw away all the work he's done and play using a one line motto from an expert, then that person needs to definitely be an expert.

[dondon151]

Aren't you the guy who only played solitaire games on iso?  I don't think I have you confused with someone else, you have only about 300 games played on isotropic. I've played 5k, Mic has played 4k (oof, right in the egoz).

If you want to go there, after 5000 games on Iso, you were level 29. After ~250 games on Iso (on an alt account), I was level 43.

No one brought up goko but you.

Pray tell, how do I play Dominion online?

If OP wants to throw away all the work he's done and play using a one line motto from an expert, then that person needs to definitely be an expert.

I wasn't suggesting that. However, I do recall this exact topic being discussed before.

I'm sorry if this sounded nasty, but despite having only logged 5% as many games as you had on Iso (10% if you count both of my accounts), the leaderboard doesn't suggest that I lacked expertise at this game.

[sudgy]

I play my Ventures, giving me 6 + i coins.  I buy a Possession.

Actually, if you were to have potions be imaginary numbers in the equation, would it work well?

[Witherweaver]

I play my Ventures, giving me 6 + i coins.  I buy a Possession.

Actually, if you were to have potions be imaginary numbers in the equation, would it work well?

My gut reaction without thinking about it would be "no", because the geometry of complex numbers is not the same as the geometry of the (coin,potion) construct (of which there isn't really any geometry).

[Mic Qsenoch]

People should be rewarded for being concise and direct, not punished.

Conciseness and a modicum of warmth and respect towards others are not mutually exclusive.

Seriously read dondon's post again. He isn't being disrespectful, he is just being brief. If you remove the word "far" his original post is completely innocent, but he should be able to say "far" if that's how he feels about it. The main reason it looks out of place is that it is the first response to the OP, if it had come five posts down nobody would have said a thing. He is being attacked through social mechanisms for making a legitimate strategic comment.

It's not that one post in isolation that inspired the "attack", it just happened to be the trigger for the expression of a growing sentiment that's apparently shared by several people. And I don't see it as an attack, really, but rather as a correction through social mechanisms for repeatedly disregarding (unwittingly, as it turned out) certain implicit social norms.

Such social mechanisms have several important functions, one of them is to bring it to someone's attention that others find a certain kind of behavior undesirable--something of which people are often unaware--so that they actually have the conscious choice of either correcting it or living with the consequences of not doing so.

I'm probably going to really mess up the whole "concise is good" image with this one.

Social pressures have the effect of making everybody talk the same way, think the same things, accept the opinions of people who have certain social skills. This is probably a good thing in a lot of contexts, but I don't think it helps a discussion of Dominion strategy (or a discussion of any techinal/scientific subject). The problem with the social mechanisms is that people start sounding reasonable/correct based largely on social cues. So if you're a charmer and you're really good at Dominion (i.e. ragingduckd) its works out swell for everyone. But if you aren't a charmer and you're really good at Dominion (dondon in this case) you get the shaft and people ignore you for the wrong reasons. Fortunately, I don't think we have any community members who are charmers but suck at Dominion. But what do we do if, hypothetically, these two disagree on a point of Dominion strategy? A community which relies heavily on social cues will tend to side with ragingduckd, regardless of the strategic value of their positions. I don't want that to happen. The discussion should center around whether the strategic arguments are valid, and not depend on how funny/nice/good looking (avatars of course) the people involved are.

Which is to say, I think the argument "dondon hasn't played with Dark Ages/Guilds much" is a legitimate criticism of his posts about strategy, but "you were kind of mean" is absolutely not.

edit: The other reason the stuff in this thread doesn't sit well with me is that dondon is one of the most prolific advice givers in the Game Reports/Help subforum. He and DG have blown everybody else out of the water in terms of the amount and quality of their help in those threads. He is exactly the kind of poster this community should respect.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

[ragingduckd]

Social pressures have the effect of making everybody talk the same way, think the same things, accept the opinions of people who have certain social skills. This is probably a good thing in a lot of contexts, but I don't think it helps a discussion of Dominion strategy (or a discussion of any techinal/scientific subject). The problem with the social mechanisms is that people start sounding reasonable/correct based largely on social cues. So if you're a charmer and you're really good at Dominion (i.e. ragingduckd) its works out swell for everyone. But if you aren't a charmer and you're really good at Dominion (dondon in this case) you get the shaft and people ignore you for the wrong reasons. Fortunately, I don't think we have any community members who are charmers but suck at Dominion. But what do we do if, hypothetically, these two disagree on a point of Dominion strategy? A community which relies heavily on social cues will tend to side with ragingduckd, regardless of the strategic value of their positions.

What crap. Being charming has nothing to do with whether your ideas about Dominion get accepted. If charm was required, who would ever listen to Wandering Winder? Maybe this is a valid criticism of politics or academia, but here we have the acid test of whether or not your ideas actually win games.

There's also a huge difference between what we like and what we think is correct. WalrusMcFishSr is a nice and funny guy, but nobody is saying that his analysis is therefore better than dondon151's. He's definitely making the forums a more pleasant place to visit though.

As for post length, there's certainly  value in concision, but there's far more value in substance. I value your posts because you have something to say and you say it concisely; WW's irritate me because he has something to say but he takes a whole forum page to say it; and dondon151's are nearly useless because he rarely actually says anything more than "I disagree."

[Watno]

He is exactly the kind of poster this community should respect.

How can one expect to be respected if he doesn't show respect towards others?

[Mic Qsenoch]

Social pressures have the effect of making everybody talk the same way, think the same things, accept the opinions of people who have certain social skills. This is probably a good thing in a lot of contexts, but I don't think it helps a discussion of Dominion strategy (or a discussion of any techinal/scientific subject). The problem with the social mechanisms is that people start sounding reasonable/correct based largely on social cues. So if you're a charmer and you're really good at Dominion (i.e. ragingduckd) its works out swell for everyone. But if you aren't a charmer and you're really good at Dominion (dondon in this case) you get the shaft and people ignore you for the wrong reasons. Fortunately, I don't think we have any community members who are charmers but suck at Dominion. But what do we do if, hypothetically, these two disagree on a point of Dominion strategy? A community which relies heavily on social cues will tend to side with ragingduckd, regardless of the strategic value of their positions.

What crap. Being a charmer nothing to do with getting your ideas about Dominion get accepted. If charm was required, who would ever listen to WW? Maybe this is a valid criticism of politics or academia, but here we have the acid test of whether or not your ideas actually win games.

All communities are somewhat vulnerable to social stuff being too important, but you're definitely right that f.DS isn't suffering from it too much. I'd like it to stay that way. Donald X used to get a lot of community support in discussions just because he created Dominion (which was appropriate for some topics, but not all of them). And even though we do have a great acid test, not everyone relies on it so heavily as the people playing competitively at a high level.

There's also a huge difference between what's polite and what's correct. I don't say that WalrusMcFishSr's opinion was right or that dondon151's was wrong, but certain behaviors makes f.ds a place that people like to visit and others do not.

As for post length, there's certainly  value in concision, but there's even more value in substance. I value your posts because you have something to say and you say it concisely; WW's irritate me because he has something to say but he takes a whole forum page to say it; and dondon151's are nearly useless because he rarely actually says anything more than "I disagree."

Dondon made a couple of worthless "I disagree" posts in the WW ranking thread, people challenged him on it, and in at least one case he responded with a more substantial argument. That is perfect, that is the way it should work. Respond to the posts which are worthless, don't cast him as a "scumbag" in a thread where his post actually has some content. Most of his posts have genuinely useful content, just by skimming his recent post history I can see that most are brief, but make a clear point.

I don't think you committed some great crime, or whatever. None of this is a huge deal, the meme is funny, I just think it discourages posts from a good poster.

[ragingduckd]

...

All good points. Perhaps I've acquired a bias about dondon's posts. I'll try to weigh them more carefully in the future.

[dondon151]

dondon151's are nearly useless because he rarely actually says anything more than "I disagree."

I don't personally think that disagreeing without giving a reason is nearly useless. It should provoke you to think, "well, why?" As for the statements in WW's power rankings thread, for example:

In either case, you aren't going to use these as primary villages all that often.

This is almost certainly not true.

Look, I remember using Hamlet quite often as a primary village. I don't need to provide a reasoning why. I just know that I have.

Now how 'bout some Venture math?

[AdamH]

If charm was required, who would ever listen to Wandering Winder?

*waves hand like a fanboy*

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OOH OOH OOH PICK ME!!!!!!

[popsofctown]

Aren't you the guy who only played solitaire games on iso?  I don't think I have you confused with someone else, you have only about 300 games played on isotropic. I've played 5k, Mic has played 4k (oof, right in the egoz).

If you want to go there, after 5000 games on Iso, you were level 29. After ~250 games on Iso (on an alt account), I was level 43.

No one brought up goko but you.

Pray tell, how do I play Dominion online?

If OP wants to throw away all the work he's done and play using a one line motto from an expert, then that person needs to definitely be an expert.

I wasn't suggesting that. However, I do recall this exact topic being discussed before.

I'm sorry if this sounded nasty, but despite having only logged 5% as many games as you had on Iso (10% if you count both of my accounts), the leaderboard doesn't suggest that I lacked expertise at this game.

I am not volunteering my expertise at all.  I thought pulling a random 40+ player's games played and making a self-deprecating remark would be enough to make that clear.  I'm just defending "you don't play online" as being a relevant in regards to whether you have enough expertise to say something like "just delete your formula and add 1 to a treasure in your deck".  I'm just arguing it's relevant, I don't actually think it is that big a deal.  Really the number of games played you need to make oneliners like that is about 100,000; but pointing out how a lack of online play puts you even farther from that was icing for the meme.

[PSGarak]

dondon151's are nearly useless because he rarely actually says anything more than "I disagree."

I don't personally think that disagreeing without giving a reason is nearly useless. It should provoke you to think, "well, why?"

This isn't freshman English class, where the teacher tries to ask leading questions to challenge you to formulate an opinion. This is a place where we are mutually experienced and have well-formed opinions already. We trade those opinions with each other, for the benefit of learning from each other. Knowing your thought process or perspective or experience benefits me (for example, your experience with Hamlets does provide value).

Knowing only that you disagree with someone provides no value to anyone reading. I could try and figure out your thought process on my own, but a) you could just tell me b) if I were capable of putting together a credible disagreement on my own, I would have done so already when I read the post you disagreed with. I'm a critical reader, I judge what I read. To say that your unaugmented disagreement adds value, implies that without your intervention it would not have occurred to me that someone might be wrong on the internet.

Not that you have an obligation to spend your time edifying me. But if you're already spending your time typing, a disagreement of opinions provides little value.

[eHalcyon]

He is exactly the kind of poster this community should respect.

How can one expect to be respected if he doesn't show respect towards others?

To be concise: memes, scout jokes, and it depends on the board.

[ftl]

I approve of the title change, btw. Well played.

[dondon151]

Knowing your thought process or perspective or experience benefits me (for example, your experience with Hamlets does provide value).

A fair point, but "my experience disagrees with yours" isn't any more valuable than "I disagree."

[WanderingWinder]

If charm was required, who would ever listen to Wandering Winder?

This kind of thing (the meme as well) is significantly worse than the other things going around here.
What's less charming, someone who's a huge windbag, or someone who calls everyone else a **** for being too long or short or whatever?
I don't know if charm is the word I would use, but something like civility is definitely something which is perhaps not 'required' in a technical sense, but more than that in a human one. Have some respect for other people as people.
It isn't mean to disagree with someone. It's an entirely different can of worms to attack them personally (by calling them stupid, or saying they're lacking in some character trait, what have you). Generally, it's nice to bring evidence, but this isn't really the point. "You're stupid and I can prove it," or "You're a jerk and I can prove it" are both worse than "Your idea is wrong" or "Your comment was uncivil", even if there is evidence in the former case and no evidence in the latter.

If you can't take being disagreed with, you should be seeking help about that, because lots of people are going to disagree with you. You also shouldn't be on internet forums. However, there is nothing which gives yo right to attack or insult another person, regardless of whether they are right or wrong, nice or mean, etc.

tl;dr Hate the sin (you can even call it out sometimes), not the sinner


And no, I'm not perfect here either.

As for post length, there's certainly  value in concision, but there's far more value in substance. I value your posts because you have something to say and you say it concisely; WW's irritate me because he has something to say but he takes a whole forum page to say it; and dondon151's are nearly useless because he rarely actually says anything more than "I disagree."

I like a lot of Mic Q's posts. I like a lot of dondon's posts, too, though there are times where I wish he would elaborate. Indeed, though, they are far from useless even when he is largely saying he disagrees, and he most often does give more than this. And as for mine... go look at my last 100 posts and your last 100 posts and see who goes on longer about points on average.

[ragingduckd]

If charm was required, who would ever listen to Wandering Winder?

This kind of thing (the meme as well) is significantly worse than the other things going around here.
What's less charming, someone who's a huge windbag, or someone who calls everyone else a **** for being too long or short or whatever?

You're quite right, WW. My apologies.

[Robz888]

Hey all. So, I have some thoughts on this. As is often the case, I think everyone has an understandable point, but is somewhat wrong--as is often the case in arguments!

I do understand the sentiment behind duck's post. While jokes and one-liners are fun, and we should definitely have them, we don't want to disincentivize serious Dominion analysis (I know, I know, says the guy who gets rich off Scout memes). And a one-liner, slightly dismissive in tone, as the first post after the analysis... well, it's just a tad off-putting. Not deliberately of course. Again, as is often the case, dondon seems to not have realized it could be taken that way, and didn't mean to be dismissive. I think if it had not been the first reply, or if it had been prefaced with "nice work, but..." and then followed with a  it would have come off totally different. Which is not to say, "This is how you must post" at ALL, just like an example.

So, while I understand why duck was perturbed, I do think his meme is a bit of an overreaction to that, and could create additional hurt feelings. So, too, his throwaway line about WW. And again, if I'm taking duck's sentiment here and giving the more polite version, I think he's saying that WW tends to come off authoritatively. I think many of us--most of us?--believe this authority is considerably well earned. I do also believe that WW is actually incredibly humble... if you watch his videos, he is quick to point out flaws in his own strategy and doesn't automatially attirbute his losses to shuffle luck. He also doesn't rage when he gets bad luck. Really, I do think he's a brilliant and classy Dominion player. But, you know, everyone can come off at times less polished than they intend to, because it's the internet, so while I understand what might cause duck to say this, I do think he went too far But, hey, he apologized--great.

I am a moderator of the Forum Games sub-forum, and I think a lot of the lessons we've learned playing mafia with civility are applicable here. I even wrote a Civility Pledge, which I invite everyone to check out: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7695.0

The most important thing--and this is important here, and for all forum interactions--is to assume the best intentions of the other person. That's it. If you do that, hopefully, you can stop yourself from escalating, either inadvertently or deliberately.

I think these discussions are worthwhile to have--arguing on the internet is much different than real life, because tone is so hard to convey. And we've never met each other, we can't learn from each other's social cues. Like Eevee, for instance, I have met. We hung out for a few days earlier this year. So, when he PMs me, "You are so wrong about Adventurer, it's not that bad!" I can answer back, "Eevee, are all Finnish so misguided, or just the Electric-types?" and it's not offensive because we have this real life knowledge of each other. With people you've never met, more caution is necessary, and again, assume the best intentions of the other person.

[Kirian]

So if you're a charmer and you're really good at Dominion (i.e. ragingduckd) its works out swell for everyone. But if you aren't a charmer and you're really good at Dominion (dondon in this case) you get the shaft and people ignore you for the wrong reasons. Fortunately, I don't think we have any community members who are charmers but suck at Dominion. But what do we do if, hypothetically, these two disagree on a point of Dominion strategy?

Hey now, you forgot the fourth category, people with no charm and who suck at Dominion.  Like that Kirian asshole.

[popsofctown]

I think WW is charming.

We need some more charmers that suck at Dominion though.  For variety's sake.  Some poor guy that thinks his Stables+Coppersmith deck is good.  And you just hate to tell him it's not.

[Witherweaver]

So what is the formula for the politeness factor (or charm) of a poster based on thread size, use of memes, tone, and transparency of thought process behind the post?

[Polk5440]

The most important thing--and this is important here, and for all forum interactions--is to assume the best intentions of the other person. That's it. If you do that, hopefully, you can stop yourself from escalating, either inadvertently or deliberately.

"Assume the best intentions" is a good rule -- especially on a forum where text cannot be given tone or intent as readily as speech.

But I'm also for calling out uncivil discourse, too (and have done so on this forum -- maybe also a little too harshly sometimes). Civility norms are good for a community, but they do cut both ways.

I'm just glad this thread cooled down; I was afraid it was on the verge of heading to RSP and taking that nice little induction proof with it!

[ragingduckd]

And again, if I'm taking duck's sentiment here and giving the more polite version, I think he's saying that WW tends to come off authoritatively.

Man, what a terrible post that was. No, I neither think that WW comes off as authoritative, nor would it bug me if he did... he is an authority here. I named WW only as a counter-example to Mic Q's argument, since WW gets his ideas accepted by having good ideas rather than by pandering to the crowd.

I phrased that argument very poorly and without considering WW's feelings at all. I don't know how I persuaded myself that my post wouldn't offend, but I didn't actually mean WW any offense.

[Powerman]

[ashersky]

3 pages into this and no "Decline of Civility...etc." mention yet?

[Archetype]

Decline of Civility...etc.

[sudgy]

I think WW is charming.

We need some more charmers that suck at Dominion though.  For variety's sake.  Some poor guy that thinks his Stables+Coppersmith deck is good.  And you just hate to tell him it's not.

Hey, some of the people at the forum games that don't play dominion would count.

[GwinnR]

[Dsell]

And then regenerates into something positive and helpful. Lemons, lemonade, etc.

[popsofctown]

And then regenerates into something positive and helpful. Lemons, lemonade, etc.

You still have to tap it and remove it from combat, it won't be very helpful until next turn.

[Awaclus]

I like dondon's style. Just saying.

[Witherweaver]

[Kirian]

Awww, it's like an ABC after-school special.

You young'uns may have to go look that up.  *grumble mumble get off my lawn*

[DStu]

Man you're right. This is not the most strategically helpful article in the world. It's not as if when I'm playing Dominion I'm (consciously) performing advanced combinatorics in my head. Mostly I thought it was an interesting mathematical result, and I wanted to share with you guys.

I knew I shouldn't had commented in this thread because my defense dor dondon would come out more as an attack on you than an actual defense.  I did it anyway, sorry for this.

/leave thread

edit:

OK, seems like it would be worth to read page 3 after all...

[Wingnut]

What I learned from this thread:

Many of us are jerks sometimes
We can all hash our differences out
The result is usually some memes
And I still can't understand any basic mathematical equations or anything of the sort

[meandering mercury]

This is now off-topic because it's on-topic, but the original "authoritative one-liner":

I think it is far more useful to view Venture as a Treasure card that augments the value of another Treasure card in your deck by $1.

... is misleading when it comes to chaining and is the point of the OP. If you break down the equation and add in the + d, then it's:

value of venture = $1 + $d + $v/(1+N)

$1: this is the $1 you get from playing the venture
$d: this is the value of an average, non-venture Treasure card. So far, this is dondon's point.
$v/(1+N): this is (approximately) the ratio of venture to non-venture treasures in your deck and is the value of chaining. There's a +1 in the denominator so it's not quite the ratio.

In other words, if you have as many Ventures as non-Venture treasure cards (plus one), your Venture will get you, on average, $2 + the average Treasure card. If your Venture:other treasure ratio is 2:1, then it's about $3 + the average Treasure card. Thinking of ventures as being "1 + ratio of venture to non-venture" might be informative if you're trying to decide between e.g. buying a gold or buying a venture in the mid-game.

OK, back to your regularly scheduled programming ...

[dondon151]

This is now off-topic because it's on-topic, but the original "authoritative one-liner":

... is misleading when it comes to chaining and is the point of the OP. If you break down the equation and add in the + d, then it's:

You're definitely correct mathematically. However, Venture can augment the value of another Venture by $1, and each Venture only adds $1 by itself. I think, though, that my original point wasn't supposed to be concerned with the average "value" of Venture at all (but of course it sounds a little ambiguous).

[Polk5440]

Well, I guess to be really clear,

value of venture = $1 + $d + $v/(1+N)

is the expected coin of PLAYING a Venture from your hand given you have v other Ventures in your deck and discard pile, N non-venture treasures in your deck and discard pile, and know nothing about what's in your deck and discard pile other than the constant average value of non-venture treasures, d.

[WanderingWinder]

You can go through the average value of playing a venture (if you want to - and I did this a couple years ago - it's sorta nifty and you want to use induction; induction is definitely your friend here), you can. But generally, in terms of gameplay, what is the decision you are making? Well, venture vs gold is a pretty significant one - basically take the gold for a long time. And venture chaining is important.

And then you get to weird edge cases of 'but what about what I have in my hand and/or running out of treasures' and 'but what about special treasures' that just make the whole exercise less fun. So, the other side degenerate case where all or virtually all your treasures are ventures is also not hard to understand, and the in-between stuff usually doesn't make much difference. So it's sort of a cool math problem, but as for Dominion decision-making, dondon's point is generally right, and getting more precise on this would take time probably better spent elsewhere.

Anyway, if you want to do it, induction my friend.

[dondon151]

Well, venture vs gold is a pretty significant one - basically take the gold for a long time.

Wait, really? I mean, it depends on whether there is Copper trashing and several other factors, but I usually go by taking only 1 Gold over Ventures.

[Watno]

Well, when optimizing average value, you want venture over gold once you have more gold than copper.

[dondon151]

Well, when optimizing average value, you want venture over gold once you have more gold than copper.

I feel like this is not necessarily true. Already having Ventures in your deck increases the average value of further Ventures, plus you have an effectively smaller deck. If you simulate BMU with Colonies, a bot that buys only Ventures at $6 absolutely crushes a bot that doesn't buy any Ventures (~73-21), even though according to you, one would pretty much never want a Venture at all in such a deck. I can't claim that the bots were optimized, but it shouldn't matter for the purpose of this argument.

Venture is relatively worthless in Province games, though, where hitting $8 is easy enough, unless you can couple it with +buy. The problem is that it also skips the vast majority of cards that give +buy.

EDIT: Scratch that last part. BMU Venture-only beats normal BMU by a fair margin as well (~51-40). Clearly average value isn't the metric that you want to optimize when buying your first Venture.

[WanderingWinder]

Well, when optimizing average value, you want venture over gold once you have more gold than copper.

I feel like this is not necessarily true. Already having Ventures in your deck increases the average value of further Ventures, plus you have an effectively smaller deck. If you simulate BMU with Colonies, a bot that buys only Ventures at $6 absolutely crushes a bot that doesn't buy any Ventures, even though according to you, one would pretty much never want a Venture at all in such a deck. I can't claim that the bots were optimized, but it shouldn't matter for the purpose of this argument.

Venture is relatively worthless in Province games, though, where hitting $8 is easy enough, unless you can couple it with +buy. The problem is that it also skips the vast majority of cards that give +buy.

For your first venture, only looking at expected value (i.e. average), then golds +platina/3 = coppers is the break even point. If you already have ventures, that shifts toward needing fewer golds than otherwise, as there is the chance of hitting the other ventures, etc. The important point with the colony games is that this is also only taking into account the right now (and not factoring in cycling, though cycling is less important). So, you can anticipate at some point later on that you will get platinum, so while venture may not be the best for my next shuffle, it might be for the rest of the game. Nevertheless, I think you still tend to take a gold or two there to help you hit your platina. Not that you are playing for many treasures in your colony-gaining deck anyway...

[PSGarak]

Thing is, Venture self-synergizes. It's value is superlinear in the number of Ventures you have (the second Venture is worth more than the first), which makes it non-convex and therefore not amenable to strictly local optimization. Maybe right now buying a single Venture is not as good as buying a single Gold, but buying 4 Ventures is better than buying 1 Gold & 3 Ventures. So you need to incorporate the value added to future Venture purchases into the current purchase decision.

But touching on something else Dondon said, I rate Venture on a given board more by the ability to trash copper than the ability to gain other coin. Not only does it add average value, it also puts in a better value floor.

[WanderingWinder]

Thing is, Venture self-synergizes. It's value is superlinear in the number of Ventures you have (the second Venture is worth more than the first), which makes it non-convex and therefore not amenable to strictly local optimization. Maybe right now buying a single Venture is not as good as buying a single Gold, but buying 4 Ventures is better than buying 1 Gold & 3 Ventures. So you need to incorporate the value added to future Venture purchases into the current purchase decision.

But touching on something else Dondon said, I rate Venture on a given board more by the ability to trash copper than the ability to gain other coin. Not only does it add average value, it also puts in a better value floor.

Well, 'it will be better later' is a concern indeed, BUT if the period of the game which is better for me coming up is longer than the later period where going venture is better, it's not worth it, not to mention that better deck now helps you get better deck later, generally, and you need to make sure the game goes long enough you can meaningfully get to that magic venture number. So, this comes in sometimes, but not very often - the greedy algorithm is not such a bad approximation, usually, of what you want to do.


Of course, there are edge cases.

[dondon151]

So, this comes in sometimes, but not very often - the greedy algorithm is not such a bad approximation, usually, of what you want to do.

If BM-Venture beats BMU, doesn't this suggest the exact opposite?

[eHalcyon]

So, this comes in sometimes, but not very often - the greedy algorithm is not such a bad approximation, usually, of what you want to do.

If BM-Venture beats BMU, doesn't this suggest the exact opposite?

Not necessarily.  What are the buy rules for BM-Venture?  In this setup, Venture is always better than Silver (with some reshuffle control edge cases I guess).  Even if BM-Venture always buys Venture over Gold, that could just be an indication that even though Gold > Venture, it makes up for it because Venture >> Silver.

What you actually need to test is BM-Venture without Gold vs. BM-Venture with Gold (probably with different versions that eventually favour Venture over Gold after some threshold).

[dondon151]

BM-Venture has the same exact buy rules as BMU, only replace Gold with Venture. So it buys zero Golds.

EDIT: Oh, I see what you mean by the Venture vs. Silver thing.

[eHalcyon]

BM-Venture has the same exact buy rules as BMU, only replace Gold with Venture. So it buys zero Golds.

Yeah, so that doesn't necessarily say that you should prefer Venture over Gold.

[meandering mercury]

You're definitely correct mathematically. However, Venture can augment the value of another Venture by $1, and each Venture only adds $1 by itself. I think, though, that my original point wasn't supposed to be concerned with the average "value" of Venture at all (but of course it sounds a little ambiguous).

Well, venture vs gold is a pretty significant one - basically take the gold for a long time.

Wait, really? I mean, it depends on whether there is Copper trashing and several other factors, but I usually go by taking only 1 Gold over Ventures.

I feel like this is not necessarily true. Already having Ventures in your deck increases the average value of further Ventures, plus you have an effectively smaller deck. If you simulate BMU with Colonies, a bot that buys only Ventures at $6 absolutely crushes a bot that doesn't buy any Ventures (~73-21), even though according to you, one would pretty much never want a Venture at all in such a deck. I can't claim that the bots were optimized, but it shouldn't matter for the purpose of this argument.

Venture is relatively worthless in Province games, though, where hitting $8 is easy enough, unless you can couple it with +buy. The problem is that it also skips the vast majority of cards that give +buy.

EDIT: Scratch that last part. BMU Venture-only beats normal BMU by a fair margin as well (~51-40). Clearly average value isn't the metric that you want to optimize when buying your first Venture.

See, this is the sort of thing that the math helps you address concretely. The idea of Venture adding $1 to the average Treasure is extremely useful, but what exactly is the value of the Venture chain? Your intuition breaks down, and then your experience tells you the wrong thing.

This is why the math is helpful: you should *definitely* prefer Gold to Venture.

The value of the venture is

$1 + $d + $v/(1+N)

Let's say you go with your proposed 1 gold, then ventures, strategy. Let's say, generously, that you have 7 silvers in your deck. Then d = 1.4.

Now you start buying ventures because even though short-term it's bad, you believe that long-term you'll get nice pretty chains. How many ventures do you have to get before your venture (chain) does better than the gold? In order to get the total value above $3, you need v/(1+N) > 0.6, and with (7 coppers + 7 silvers + 1 gold) = 15 cards, you need to get 9 Ventures. You could get fewer silvers, but then d goes down. You could get more silvers to improve d, but then N goes up.

Yes, reshuffling and cycling helps a bit, but the more important effect is that, as WW points out, the Gold provides more value now. The Venture provides more value later ... but the math says, does it really? The Venture provides more value when you get 9 Ventures; are you really going to get 9 Ventures in the game?

Certainly you can drown in equations and there is no substitute to real, in-game experience. But the real experience is misleading because *your* experience mainly tells you, Venture is good, buy Venture, remember those awesome Venture chains; you don't realize that without trashing, the Venture chains you remembered fondly will just fizzle compared to gold until you get, like, all 10 Ventures, at which point the game is long over.

A corollary to these results is that in a Colony game without trashing, the reason why Ventures do better than Gold is not because of Venture chains. In order to get an extra $1 out of Venture chains, you need to buy more Ventures than are available in the stack. The reason why Ventures do better than Gold is primarily because of the chance that they'll run into a lucky platinum. (plus, as pointed out, one bot can buy venture at $5, and the other can't)

[GeoLib]

From simulation.
BMU that buys opportunistic ventures on 5 (above duchy if prov<=6 and silver) = BMU+V
BMU that buys venture over gold = BMV
BMU that buys X golds then venture over gold = BMV+XG

In a province game:
BMU+V beats BMU 63/29
BMU+V beats BMV 58% to 32%
BMU+V beats BMV+1G 52/38
BMU+V beats BMV+2G 47/42
BMU+V beats BMV+3G 46/43
BMU+V and BMV+4G essentially tie with 45/45 as do BMU+V and BMV+5G although the edge tips from BMU+V to BMV+5G in the fractions of a percent
In an "ultimate" simulation BMV+6-8G beats BMU+V 45/44 and then it tips back to BMU+V against BMV+9G. This seems like basically noise. I guess that one game where the bot buys 10 golds rather than a venture because it keeps hitting 6 is too much. Regardless, it seems pretty clear that in this set-up you want a lot of golds.

With colonies:
BMU+V crushes BMU 75/22
but BMV beats BMU+V 50/46
BMV+1G beats BMU+V 50/45
BMV+2G beats BMU+V 51/44
BMV+3G beats BMU+V 50/46

So it looks like for BMU colony games you want 2 golds before going for venture

[DG]

Did you optimize the coin threshhold for buying victory cards in the BMU style bots? The default big money bots buy provinces with 18 coins in the deck so if we buy ventures (2 coins) instead of gold (3 coins) we need more turns buying coins before buying provinces.

[timchen]

Basically one can think of the formula this way:

Think about the remaining deck containing v ventures and N other treasure. The N treasures divide v ventures into N+1 clusters. the average number of ventures in each cluster is therefore v/(N+1). The ventures you draw by playing a venture is just the first cluster.

One corollary of thinking this way is that if you have 2 ventures in hand, the "extra" expectation value of the two ventures via venture chaining is just 2v/(N+1). Of course v is smaller in this case as you have 1 more venture in hand.

One reason I found dondon's comment dismissive is that the comment that venture is just a random treasure with +$1 is basically just what's printed on the card. Sure it is phrased in a different way so it appears people might have to think about it, but it actually contains less information than the original post. From this short comment one cannot infer directly how effective is venture chaining. And as we see dondon actually overestimates the effectiveness of that.

So, while being terse is not guilty in itself, why don't people think about the things in OP that he doesn't know first? (instead of, you know, posting some comment berating the original post without really knowing its content.)

[GeoLib]

Did you optimize the coin threshhold for buying victory cards in the BMU style bots? The default big money bots buy provinces with 18 coins in the deck so if we buy ventures (2 coins) instead of gold (3 coins) we need more turns buying coins before buying provinces.

Oh good call. I didn't. I just took BMU and added a venture buy. Does anyone know the value the simulator counts venture as. My guess would be $1, not $2 because that's how much it adds to the total treasure value (when all treasures are played).

[dondon151]

And as we see dondon actually overestimates the effectiveness of that.

Uh, not true. Look up several posts. My conclusion (that Venture is relatively worthless in Province games) mostly agrees with GeoLib's simulation.

And then I erroneously revised it based on a bad simulation, but I blame that on me making a bad simulation, not on overestimating Venture.

[GeoLib]

Is there a better way to optimize the coin threshold other than just trying a whole bunch of them?

[WanderingWinder]

why don't people think about the things in OP that he doesn't know first?

Probably because it's impossible to know what someone else does or does not know.

[Witherweaver]

why don't people think about the things in OP that he doesn't know first?

Probably because it's impossible to know what someone else does or does not know.

You can't know that!

[GendoIkari]

Conciseness and a modicum of warmth and respect towards others are not mutually exclusive.

i agree. the scumbag meme was probably unnecessary in this thread.

Yeah, it was quite the scumbag move!

Someone metascumbag meme the scumbag meme for many upvotes.

No.

EDIT: Someone puts in the "How abut no"-bear for many upvotes 

[DG]

My conclusion (that Venture is relatively worthless in Province games) mostly agrees with GeoLib's simulation.

We can simulate labs, markets, and cartographers as well if you like and they will look even more worthless. Those are decent cards and ventures are generally better in treasure games.

[GeoLib]

I think the conclusion to draw from the simulation is more along the lines of "venture isn't better than gold in province games without a way to trash copper." Which... isn't that surprising really.

[timchen]

why don't people think about the things in OP that he doesn't know first?

Probably because it's impossible to know what someone else does or does not know.

What I meant to say was "Why don't people first think about the things in the OP that himself doesn't know about?"

Yes one may not know whether others know the things you are going to talk about, but one can certainly at least try to notice something that himself does not know about, especially if it is written in the open post. And the dismissiveness really just comes from this "refusal to read and think about something yourself do not really know."

That being said, I quite like this sentiment. A really serious issue I encounter when I write papers.

@dondon: I am sorry if I misread or misunderstand, but I somehow saw you said somewhere that you usually get one gold then ventures. That's where my comment is from.

[WanderingWinder]

why don't people think about the things in OP that he doesn't know first?

Probably because it's impossible to know what someone else does or does not know.

What I meant to say was "Why don't people first think about the things in the OP that himself doesn't know about?"

Yes one may not know whether others know the things you are going to talk about, but one can certainly at least try to notice something that himself does not know about, especially if it is written in the open post. And the dismissiveness really just comes from this "refusal to read and think about something yourself do not really know."

That being said, I quite like this sentiment. A really serious issue I encounter when I write papers.

@dondon: I am sorry if I misread or misunderstand, but I somehow saw you said somewhere that you usually get one gold then ventures. That's where my comment is from.

I do quite understand your sentiment and generally agree - BUT, I, for instance, hadn't actually thought of Venture in quite the way dondon posted. (Indeed, what I would have described as the straightforward thing that venture does is give $1 and draw a treasure; adding $1 to the value of a treasure is perhaps a subtle difference, but I think it's quite an interesting one). Or when someone first said it was a peddler variant - this is just as much 'printed on the card', but I really hadn't thought of it that way at all until someone said it. So the larger point is that what seems obvious to one person doesn't necessarily seem obvious to another. And generally, I think it is better to give more things, even if they seem obvious, than less, if we have to risk erring on one side or the other. Of course, this is merely my opinion.
Anyhow, there's also nothing wrong with suggesting that someone is over-thinking a problem, either.

[blueblimp]

I'm not sure it's even accurate-enough-to-be-useful to think of Venture as upgrading a treasure by $1. An additional benefit of Venture is to increase the chance of drawing a treasure in hand. For example, if you have 10 Ventures and 1 Platinum, that's way different than having a single treasure worth $15, because with the former deck you're likely to play all your treasure every turn even if you greened a fair bit, and with the latter deck you really aren't.