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Author Topic: Musings about Taxman  (Read 33144 times)

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jomini

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Re: Musings about Taxman
« Reply #50 on: March 11, 2015, 12:57:17 am »
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Counterfeit is always strong too, about as much as Remake is always strong.  I think you are right about Taxman+Venture, but Titandrake is pointing out small synergies the same way you were with Counterfeit+Venture (minus the Copper trashing synergy, which was already given before you joined that thread). 

But man, I have no desire to get into all that again.  I just thought the similarities in discussion were funny.

Yep, he just doesn't call them small, which I did from the beginning for a reason.

Quote
You don't sacrifice anything if you gain a venture on top of the deck. There is no 'sifting' from playing a venture, only cycling, and the quality of the draw deck remains unchanged. There is some extra shuffle/deck control from the choice of gaining a venture or gold on top of the deck. (all assuming you have a venture in hand).
This is false. To get to Venture you had to start with Silver in hand (ignoring edge cases with Loan or Quarry). TmanSVent gives you 2 + 1 + Next treasure for cash without playing Tman. Playing Tman -> 1 + 1 + Next treasure.

Objectively, having a Venture in hand does not obviate the penalty to current hand of Tman. Barring real edge cases, Tman is only a net gain to your current hand when you have no terminal treasures to draw off Venture chains. Barring that, at best Tman breaks even in cash.

And yes, Venture sifts in a limited fashion - i.e. the green and action cards in your deck are statistically less likely to ever be in your hand and preventing the play of treasures.

In most decks, this isn't that much or that good - you normally want actions, to play them often, and the sifting out of green is balanced by the sifting out of actions. However, if you a Venture dominant board (e.g. colonies, limited trash, Rabble), then skipping your actions may be minimally an issue.

Take the simple case - an 8 Venture deck with 8 Green. I will have all 8 Ventures in play each hand while I will have only 2.5 greens. Or take another fun thought experiment. I have a Prince of Spice Merchants. Each hand I begin with a single Venture on deck top. Every turn I will play all the cards I want to play.

I mean this is like saying Hunting Party doesn't sift, it just cycles. Yet somehow if I have over draw in a Hp deck or in a Venture deck I somehow manage to consistently leave a discard pile full of dross.

You can quibble about some useless semantics of what "sifting" is, but Venture decks (where Venture is the dominant card in the deck) do everything you want from a Sifting deck (skip the dross and play the cards that let you buy a colony).

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DG

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Re: Musings about Taxman
« Reply #51 on: March 11, 2015, 08:05:36 am »
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Go back and read the long discussion of venture maths again before you post anything else. I'm afraid you've got the wrong interpretations and we can't be working it all out again in this thread.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2015, 08:11:33 am by DG »
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jomini

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Re: Musings about Taxman
« Reply #52 on: March 11, 2015, 11:35:06 am »
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DG:

My arguments are still the same from those old threads:
1. Venture has a sifting effect when played strategically with deck tracking and considering the reshuffle (which the extended thread there never dealt with).
2. The threads were about "does venture sift for the NEXT hand". I am here asserting, as noted by blueblimp way back when, is does venture sift THIS turn.

I continue to understand that a naive play of Venture does not change deck distribution for the rest of the shuffle.

However, if you look at the rate at which you play things, Venture decreases the frequency with which you play actions (i.e. it is < 1 per shuffle), the frequency with which you "play" green decreases (i.e. the number of times each green card ends up in your hand goes down per shuffle), the frequency with you play treasures stays the same (i.e. once per reshuffle); the rate of shuffles increases. You can call this dynamic whatever you will, but it does happen.

Again the extreme case is instructive. 8 Ventures with 20 cards (3 action, 9 green). On average, you will draw through your entire deck each turn. You will play each of 8 Ventures on average. You will play .75 actions per turn. Effectively, you are sifting for your treasures and past green/actions.

This is why Taxman has more limited value for Venture. On a given shuffle your chances of seeing Taxman, at all, are <1 and decrease with an increasing number of Ventures. Taxman, by having to go through Silver rather than just deleting a copper for some bonus does not increase the expected draw value of Venture as quickly. If Venture is dominant, I'm just not seeing all that many alternative copper trashers that aren't much better. A Venture bought THIS turn is worth a good bit more than a Venture bought next turn if Ventures will be contested (and dominant).

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DG

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Re: Musings about Taxman
« Reply #53 on: March 11, 2015, 12:49:03 pm »
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No you're still wrong I'm afraid. The ventures do not change the frequency that actions are drawn in hand. The cards in hand are always drawn from the same distribution, end of story (ignoring cards in play during a shuffle). All the venture 'sifting' benefits improve the current hand (compared to market, say). You might play less actions before a shuffle but you shuffle more often. Count it for yourself with cards or simulations before you argue any further.

I'm not going to get drawn into this further, this my last post on the matter.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2015, 12:58:22 pm by DG »
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pacovf

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Re: Musings about Taxman
« Reply #54 on: March 11, 2015, 01:23:11 pm »
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DG, you are basically saying the same thing jomini is, with different words.
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werothegreat

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Re: Musings about Taxman
« Reply #55 on: March 11, 2015, 05:30:07 pm »
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DG, you are basically saying the same thing jomini is, with different words.

The problem is that jomini takes so long to say anything, it's hard to tell exactly what he's saying sometimes.  Maybe try to summarize more?
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Flip5ide

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Re: Musings about Taxman
« Reply #56 on: March 12, 2015, 04:41:48 am »
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It's amazing with Fools Gold. And probably nice with Courtyard, as you may use your weak turns to get some.

I would add comparisons to Beaurocrat, and, obviously, mine.

How does it compare with yours?

Mine is better.

It depends on the board.

Taxman has the attack which can hurt your opponent while hurting your own turn while Mine makes your turn slightly better.

Joke






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