Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: razorborne on August 18, 2012, 08:27:27 pm
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Blacksmith-$4
Action
+2 cards, +$1
in a recent discussion, it came to my attention that this card does not exist. the only way to simultaneous net cards in hand while gaining $ is Trusty Steed, which is irrelevant to costing discussions. I guessed 4 due to the comparison with Smithy. early game it is probably better in a straight big money deck, since $1 is above the expected value of the average card in your deck, and the lower +card reduces risk of collision, but in exchange it is weaker late when you're looking to buy provinces, since at that point the average card in your deck should be worth more than $1. however, in both those situations, the lower +card actually helps pull it to the center. early, it slows your cycling compared to smithy, making it worse, whereas later it slows it still, making it better, since when you're greening you'd love to wait as long as possible to shuffle those provinces up.
outside of BM, it is probably worse than smithy overall, since it digs less deep, but if you have some extra actions lying around, maybe it's better, since it contributes to your economy without getting in the way of your digging, meaning you don't have to also buy as many treasures as you might have to with smithy.
I'm sure, considering the simple nature of the design, that this is not the first time it's been brought up, but I'm curious what people think. also, I haven't read the full Dark Ages spoiler yet, so maybe this is in there, in which case I'd be curious how close I was.
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I have a card exactly like this but with a plus buy. It's tested, and perfectly balanced, though others think it's OP.
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I think this would probably do fine at $3 too. But I also think that the card itself is kind of redundant. Early it fills basically the same spot as other terminal card drawers, but offers less cycling than most of them for a very small increase in consistency (and nothing else). Later it fills basically the same spot as other terminal card drawers, but offers less drawing with a high decrease in consistency (and nothing else). Sure, in very slim decks you can build an engine with it that nets you some extra $, but you could have just used another terminal card drawer in its place to do exactly the same in a more consistent way (because you simply draw more cards), unless you play without Treasure cards.
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I think it's going to have to cost $4, and it would be on the upper end. Coin is consistently valued more than cards. Consider Wharf vs. Merchant Ship. Wharf ended up getting +Buy, not MS. Coins were more valuable.
This is indeed comparable to Smithy, and it would probably be the stronger option.
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So if we ignore the buy: is Wharf stronger, because it gets you the two cards that may be Actions or Silver or Gold or Platinum or Coppers, or is Merchant ship stronger because it is like a Wharf that always draws two Coppers and doesn't cycle your deck at all?
Smithy might draw you an extra Estate or Copper early (or a Silver if you are lucky). The first one is good for you, because that Estate is now probably in your discard and not in your next hand, the second one is (in this turn) the same as the card discussed here but nets you some additional cycling and the third one is simply better. This card here is slightly more consistent though, because the third card it does not draw is effectively always a Copper.
Later in the game it becomes more and more unlikely that the third card you draw with Smithy is only a Copper and the additional cycling is even better for you (until you start buying Victory cards, and even than the cycling is still good for you in quite a few Kingdoms). This card simply stays the same, it keeps drawing you that fictive copper. Sure, it is less swingy, but it does (compared to Smithy, which always draws 2 cards too when this card does) not swing nearly as high as Smithy does. The only point at which this card is clearly better is imho when you have only have 2 or less cards left to draw, or Rabble left you three Victory cards on top of your deck (and even then you'd often rather draw that third victory card too until very late in the game).
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So if we ignore the buy: is Wharf stronger, because it gets you the two cards that may be Actions or Silver or Gold or Platinum or Coppers, or is Merchant chip stronger because it is like a Wharf that always draws two Coppers and doesn't cycle your deck at all?
Read the secret histories. In testing, Wharf was considered weaker than Merchant Ship, which is why it got +Buy added on.
Also consider: Smithy costs $4. But a terminal Gold is too strong to even create without messing with it in various ways, e.g. Horse Traders, Mandarin.
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So if we ignore the buy: is Wharf stronger, because it gets you the two cards that may be Actions or Silver or Gold or Platinum or Coppers, or is Merchant ship stronger because it is like a Wharf that always draws two Coppers and doesn't cycle your deck at all?
Read the secret histories. In testing, Wharf was considered weaker than Merchant Ship, which is why it got +Buy added on.
Does that really matter how it was considered in testing?
I am pretty sure that dumb BM Wharf beats dumb BM Merchant ship by a good 70% in simulators in Province games and hits quite a bit harder in Colony games, even if you left the buy out. And there are good reasons for this, those which I explained more or less.
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So if we ignore the buy: is Wharf stronger, because it gets you the two cards that may be Actions or Silver or Gold or Platinum or Coppers, or is Merchant ship stronger because it is like a Wharf that always draws two Coppers and doesn't cycle your deck at all?
Read the secret histories. In testing, Wharf was considered weaker than Merchant Ship, which is why it got +Buy added on.
Does that really matter how it was considered in testing?
I am pretty sure that dumb BM Wharf beats dumb BM Merchant ship by a good 70% in simulators in Province games and hits quite a bit harder in Colony games, even if you left the buy out. And there are good reasons for this, those which I explained more or less.
I just did a test and the Optimized Wharf bot beats a Merchant Ship bot that uses the same rules except buys the Ship instead of Wharf 62% of the time. (the simulator does not have an optimized ship bot that I could find.) an optimized wharf bot might do better but I am having some issues with the simulator that make editing strategies very difficult, so optimizing is incredibly obnoxious. however, it's worth nothing that I ran a sample game and the wharf deck only used its buy once, so I do not believe that ability made much of a difference, especially since it used that buy on an estate and the game was won by 12 points. this supports Schlippy's claim that, in BM, card draw is better than money.
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That test is inherently flawed if you used an optimized Wharf bot and then just subbed MS in. You also have to consider much more than just BM+X. In any case, human testing trumps simulators by far.
And I point again to Smithy vs. HT, Mandarin.
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That test is inherently flawed if you used an optimized Wharf bot and then just subbed MS in. You also have to consider much more than just BM+X. In any case, human testing trumps simulators by far.
And I point again to Smithy vs. HT, Mandarin.
Mandarin is an unfair comparison, since it has other upsides, as dos Horse Trader. and yes, like I said, I would rather do it with an optimized Ship bot, but one does not exist and due to certain issues with the simulator in regards to macs, making one is out of the question for me right now. however, if you put both on a level playing field and just don't optimize either and just have each deck buy a single copy of the card, the wharfs win 60% of the time, while the ships win 35%, with the wharfs never actually using the buy. if you remove the buy rule, which should help the merchant ship since it has a much lower chance of terminal collision, the wharf actually goes up to 63%, and again never uses the buy. in the sample game, this is because the wharf lets it get up to 6 more quickly than the ship does, meaning it never actually buys a second wharf since it's busy buying gold, while the ship gets stranded at 5 twice, thus picking up a second ship, which, of course, collides, three times over the course of the game. maybe an optimized bot will prove this wrong, because there's some really unobvious trick to optimizing merchant ship, but every mirrored set of programs I can think of seems to favor wharf, and not really use the buy.
also, human testing only beats simulation when there's tough decisions, mainly opponent interaction. it's really easy to simulate most BM strategies because they play robotically.
also, I just checked, but optimized Smithy BM destroys optimized HT BM. non-optimized Mandarin wins 55% against non-optimized Smithy, but like I said, Mandarin has other upsides as well, like courtyarding you out of awkward money distributions. unfortunately, no straight-up terminal gold exists, so I can't test it against that.
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Of course Smithy-BM beats HT-BM -- HT has a bit penalty attached to it because the coin is too strong. ::)
Mandarin's topdecking is actually considered a penalty in most cases! Just look at the new DA card Count -- the first set of options are penalties to balance out the second set of strong effects. And even with that penalty, it still has to cost more than Smithy.
Simulation only lets you test BM+X, but there's a lot more to the game than BM+X.
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Of course Smithy-BM beats HT-BM -- HT has a bit penalty attached to it because the coin is too strong. ::)
Mandarin's topdecking is actually considered a penalty in most cases! Just look at the new DA card Count -- the first set of options are penalties to balance out the second set of strong effects. And even with that penalty, it still has to cost more than Smithy.
Simulation only lets you test BM+X, but there's a lot more to the game than BM+X.
I disagree that topdecking is a downside. for instance, if you have Mandarin-Gold-Silver-Silver-X, that topdecking helps you put a silver in your next hand too. and unless your hand is worth exactly $5 without the mandarin, using every card, it can't hurt your buying power.
I ran some smithy-courtyard comparisons, all of with Courtyard won, although that at times has to do with its cheapness. however, I eventually put together a pure test, which is guaranteed to tell us whether the topdecking is a good or bad thing in BM. I made a bot that buys exactly one of the relevant terminal, and buys that over gold, then forced them to have 4/3 opens, meaning both opened terminal-silver, then ran an ultimate simulation. (10k games) in the end, even with the simulator not necessarily using courtyard perfectly, the courtyard edged out a small victory. (about 2%.) I suspect that the smallness of the difference has a lot to do with how infrequently the terminals show up later in the game, since in the sample game I ran both bots ended with over 40 cards. if I were to up the amount of copies the bot purchased, you might get a better indication, but since the two cost different amounts that gives the courtyard an unfair edge. however, I suspect that, if I had a $4 Courtyard to test that with, I'd find that the courtyard did better when purchasing multiples, since a) putting back has already been demonstrated to give you an edge, and b) putting back helps ease the pain of terminal collision, since if I draw a second courtyard I can bump it to next turn.
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There is a big difference between Courtyard and Mandarin -- Courtyard comes with draw. Topdecking with draw smooths out your hands. Topdecking without it (as in Mandarin's case) is a penalty because it often forces you into awkward situations where you have to put back an Estate or miss your buy. Yes, sometimes it can help, but usually it doesn't. Are you going to argue that Ghost Ship is beneficial?
All of this stuff has already been covered elsewhere in the forums.
Edit:
Here's a bit about Mandarin and topdecking:
Because normally that "top-deck a card" penalty is huge. It's a mistake, I think, to compare it with Courtyard, because Courtyard has a net-cycling effect, speeding you on your way to your new purchases. Using Mandarin is nothing short of inflicting half a Ghost Ship on yourself, normally a brutal thing to do. The best I've got for turning that penalty into a positive is when you're greening: then, the anti-cycling slows the influx of green cards into your actual hands. But it doesn't do it by very much! For each shuffle, you usually only get to play Mandarin once. One play of a Mandarin only has a 20% chance of delaying the reshuffle by a turn (though it may slightly improve the hand that triggers it), and in the meantime it hurts either the hand you play it on or the next one.
On the original topic, I can't find the threads right now but I've seen the discussion come up several times before on whether +coin or +card is worth more. +card is much more valuable on a non-terminal, but it's very close on terminal cards. Nonetheless, official cards consistently show that +coin is worth more in these situations.
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On the original topic, I can't find the threads right now but I've seen the discussion come up several times before on whether +coin or +card is worth more. +card is much more valuable on a non-terminal, but it's very close on terminal cards. Nonetheless, official cards consistently show that +coin is worth more in these situations.
on a terminal, without non-terminals, that makes no sense. I just did a quick test, using the same parameters as before, replacing the smithy/courtyard with moat/conspirator. both moat and conspirator have secondary abilities, but neither are relevant in a game without non-terminals or attacks, so they function here as vanilla +2 cards and +$2. I forced a 4/3 open, meaning they both open Silver-action every time. the Moat won by 11%. which makes a lot of sense: the conspirator is just a silver here, which means the conspirator deck is basically just playing regular big money, and everyone knows big money plus draw beats regular big money.
so why not take that to the logical extreme? does this work at the 3 level? no +$3 terminal with no other abilities exists, but since if you buy only one it functions exactly like a gold, we can just make it one. so what wins? a Big Money bot that opens Smithy Silver, or one that opens Gold-that-costs-$4 Silver? I can't do this by manipulating openings, but Geronimoo's Simulator provides the ability to directly define start state decks, and if I have deck 1 start with Smithy, Silver, 7 Coppers, and 3 Estates, and have deck 2 start with Gold, Silver, 7 Coppers, and 3 Estates, deck 1 wins by 8%. unfortunately, due to the lack of existence of a straight-up vanilla terminal gold, I can't test that possibility, but it seems pretty clear that, if you are only going to buy a single terminal, it should be a smithy over a Terminal-Gold-That-Costs-$4. it's also worth noting that, in Colony games, the single smithy beats the single terminal gold by 27%.
I'd like to do a similar test with a single Mandarin vs. Gold, but for some reason the simulator gives me an error when I try to put Mandarin in the start state.
note, of course, that all of this goes out the window on non-terminals, or on boards with villages. but, as you said, it's generally accepted that +card gets better in those situations.
after this, I'm beginning to convince myself that a terminal gold for $4 would be balanced. I mean, consider Duchess. Duchess indicates that $2 is too much for a vanilla terminal silver. it's generally agreed that +$1 on top of a card is worth about $2-3 (Village-Bazaar, for instance. or the basic treasures) so logically, if a terminal silver for $2 is weak, a terminal gold for $4 should be fine. maybe $5.
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What rules do the simulations even follow? We are not talking about games where you can only buy one terminal. Real games are not like that. "Single terminal" is not a real use case at all. Your Smithy vs. Gold tests make no sense because your Smithy simulator will go on to buy Gold.
I don't know why you're evaluating Duchess as you are. The deck inspection is symmetrical, so that doesn't count against it. The fact that you can get it for free? OK, sure. But $2 is too much for a vanilla +2 cards as well -- see Moat.
Are you looking at existing cards at all? Horse Traders costs $4 and gives +$3, but it comes with a severe penalty. The +Buy doesn't make up for that. Mandarin gives +$3 but has a self-ghost ship penalty (yes, it is a penalty). Harvest can get you to +$3 but it is unreliable (with a slight upside of possibly hitting +$4).
If you actually think that a terminal gold is balanced at $4... man, I don't know what else I can say. But hey, you said "maybe $5" which at least shows that you agree with me -- it is worth more than the terminal +3 cards, which is definitely good at $4 and would be really weak at $5.
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The reason Wharf is better than Merchant Ship is that the next-turn effect is non-terminal draw rather than terminal draw, which is much weaker. So it's not a good comparison of terminal draw vs. coins.
Basically every example of terminal draw vs. coins you can find shows that coins are slightly stronger. Duchess vs. Moat (Moat gets an extra ability; Duchess gets a neutral ability) is the best one.
This card is slightly stronger than Smithy but not so much that it should be $5. $4 is right.
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On the original topic, I can't find the threads right now but I've seen the discussion come up several times before on whether +coin or +card is worth more. +card is much more valuable on a non-terminal, but it's very close on terminal cards. Nonetheless, official cards consistently show that +coin is worth more in these situations.
on a terminal, without non-terminals, that makes no sense.
So...Smithy is better than Laboratory, then?
There's a reason there are a bunch of cards that draw +4 Cards terminally and none that draw even +3 Cards non-terminally (other than Stables, which can whiff and in any case doesn't increase your hand-size by that amount; and Governor, which offers a heavy opponent benefit).
The reason is pretty simple: a non-terminal drawer lets you play action cards you draw. Play a Laboratory, and it's like you started with six cards to begin with. Play a Smithy, and you're done -- time to roll out the Treasure cards. You can finagle extra Actions with Villages, but accumulating the pieces and lining them up has its own costs. With non-terminal draw, you don't have to do that, and therefore it is more powerful. I'm not sure why this is even a question, honestly.
Or maybe it's not a question of +1 Action being better, but +1 Action on +Cards better relative to other Action cards. This is easy to illustrate: Take a vanilla +2 Cards card. It's maybe worth $1, right? Because it's not as good as Moat. You could probably even charge $0 for it, because I think I'd rather have Copper, but never mind: let's call it $1. Now add +1 Action onto it. That's a Laboratory. Solid $5 card. We had to jump up $4 units of cost just to keep the game balanced.
Now take a Woodcutter. Add +1 Action onto it. What do you get? Not even a Festival. You can add two extra Actions and still only jump up $2 in cost. Clearly, adding extra Actions onto Woodcutter is a whole lot less of a deal than adding extra Actions onto a vanilla +2 Cards.
You can perform this similar thought exercise on lots of other cards and come up with much the same result.
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Optimized wharf bot:
<player name="WharfWW"
author="WanderingWinder"
description="The optimized Wharf strategy that buys no other actions.">
<type name="BigMoney"/>
<type name="TwoPlayer"/>
<type name="Bot"/>
<type name="Optimized"/>
<type name="UserCreated"/>
<type name="Province"/>
<type name="SingleCard"/>
<buy name="Duchy">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
<operator type="equalTo" />
<right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
</condition>
<condition>
<left type="countVP"/>
<operator type="smallerThan" />
<right type="countMAXOpponentVP"/>
</condition>
<condition>
<left type="countVP"/>
<operator type="greaterOrEqualThan" />
<right type="countMAXOpponentVP"/>
<extra_operation type="minus" attribute="3.0" />
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Province">
<condition>
<left type="getTotalMoney"/>
<operator type="greaterThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="16.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Duchy">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Estate">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Wharf">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Wharf"/>
<operator type="smallerThan" />
<right type="countCardTypeInDeck" attribute="Treasure"/>
<extra_operation type="divideBy" attribute="8.0" />
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Gold"/>
<buy name="Wharf">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Wharf"/>
<operator type="smallerThan" />
<right type="countCardTypeInDeck" attribute="Treasure"/>
<extra_operation type="divideBy" attribute="4.0" />
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Duchy">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Silver"/>
<buy name="Estate">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
</player>
Optimised Merchant Ship bot:
<player name="Merchant Ship WW"
author="WanderingWinder"
description="The optimized Merchant Ship bot which buys no other actions">
<type name="BigMoney"/>
<type name="TwoPlayer"/>
<type name="Bot"/>
<type name="Optimized"/>
<type name="UserCreated"/>
<type name="Province"/>
<type name="SingleCard"/>
<buy name="Duchy">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
<operator type="equalTo" />
<right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
</condition>
<condition>
<left type="countVP"/>
<operator type="smallerThan" />
<right type="countMAXOpponentVP"/>
</condition>
<condition>
<left type="countVP"/>
<operator type="greaterThan" />
<right type="countMAXOpponentVP"/>
<extra_operation type="minus" attribute="3.0" />
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Province">
<condition>
<left type="getTotalMoney"/>
<operator type="greaterThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="13.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Province">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Merchant_Ship"/>
<operator type="greaterThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Duchy">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Estate">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Merchant_Ship">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Merchant_Ship"/>
<operator type="smallerThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Gold"/>
<buy name="Duchy">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Merchant_Ship">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Merchant_Ship"/>
<operator type="smallerThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Duchy">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Merchant_Ship">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Merchant_Ship"/>
<operator type="smallerThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="3.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Duchy">
<condition>
<left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
<operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
<buy name="Silver"/>
<buy name="Estate">
<condition>
<left type="gainsNeededToEndGame"/>
<operator type="smallerThan" />
<right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
</condition>
</buy>
</player>
Have fun.
PS Wharf is a LOT better than merchant ship. Dunno how much of that is the buy.
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There's a reason there are a bunch of cards that draw +4 Cards terminally and none that draw even +3 Cards non-terminally (other than Stables, which can whiff and in any case doesn't increase your hand-size by that amount; and Governor, which offers a heavy opponent benefit).
Menagerie can be +3 Cards, +1 Action, but is harder to set up than Stables. It's also very strong when it works.
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PS Wharf is a LOT better than merchant ship. Dunno how much of that is the buy.
My guess is, not much. How often do BMU+X bots actually buy more than one thing, even when they get a +Buy? They need to rack up 11 coin to buy Province + Silver.
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PS Wharf is a LOT better than merchant ship. Dunno how much of that is the buy.
My guess is, not much. How often do BMU+X bots actually buy more than one thing, even when they get a +Buy? They need to rack up 11 coin to buy Province + Silver.
Wharf BM actually enables Wharf + Silver, Gold + Silver, and occasionally Province + Silver turns fairly often. And sometimes if the Duchy dancing goes on a long time extra Coppers are nice too.
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On the original topic, I can't find the threads right now but I've seen the discussion come up several times before on whether +coin or +card is worth more. +card is much more valuable on a non-terminal, but it's very close on terminal cards. Nonetheless, official cards consistently show that +coin is worth more in these situations.
on a terminal, without non-terminals, that makes no sense.
So...Smithy is better than Laboratory, then?
what? laboratory is terminal now?
look at it this way: if no way to gain extra actions exists, then the value of a +cards terminal is exactly equal to the amount of $ you can produce with those cards from treasures. the value of a +$ terminal is exactly equal to the $ it gives. so if the average value of a card in your deck is $1 or higher, then drawing is as good or better.
now, as we all know, in order to buy a province with a random hand of 5 you need an average card value of 1.6, which is much higher than one. if your deck is worth an average of 1.6 outside the smithy, playing smithy will be the same as playing a terminal that gives you +$4.8, much better than +$3. even after the first reshuffle in a Smithy-Silver opening, the average non-smithy card in your deck is worth about $.8, so opening that over a hypothetical terminal gold costs you only $.6 in expected immediate return.
or we can look at the average value of the rest of your deck needed to buy a province. with terminal gold, (Which I'm gonna call Profiteer from now on) you have 4 other cards to pick up that money from, but you only need $5. so you need $5/4 per card, or $1.25. whereas, with Smithy, you have 7 cards to work with, but you need $8. so you need $8/7 per card, or $1.14. hence Smithy can get provinces faster because it doesn't need as strong a deck. or we can look at how much quickly they can enable gold, since that's a pretty huge deal. BM is all about snowballing up, so early gold is important and if Profiteer can get it faster then there's something to be said for it even if Smithy is better later. so for Profiteer we have 4 other cards and need $3. so we need an average of $3/4, or $.75 per card. not hard to do. however, Smithy gets 7 cards to work with and need $6. that's $6/7. that's $.85. so in that case, early in the game, again we find that Profiteer is better than Smithy.
but if we consult the province numbers above, we realize that it doesn't matter that much, since the Smithy deck doesn't need to get going as fast as the Profiteer does. it can fall a bit behind, picking up a silver while Profiteer gets a gold, because it doesn't need to be nearly as strong to get provinces.
also, the comparisons of +card to +$ terminals like Wharf-Merchant Ship are inherently flawed because the +card ones are usually way better. Wharf-Ship is a somewhat flawed comparison anyway in that, as has been pointed out, the second half of wharf is actually non-terminal, and as has been discussed, +cards on non-terminals is a lot better. but the Moat-Duchess comparison is also flawed, in that you're completely ignoring duchess's ability to be acquired, for free, with no spent buy. of course it's gonna have a weaker ability than moat, because you can just pick it up for free whenever you buy a duchy. the horse trader comparison is also flawed because it has a) the +buy thing, which is not as irrelevant as you claim, and b) the reaction, which is pretty useful in its own right. the mandarin also reracks your money (which is at least $5) when you buy it. all of these cards have upsides that you're completely ignoring to make your comparisons. upsides that are often relevant. unfortunately, due to a lack of actual direct comparisons, there is no direct way to test unless someone who knows more about programming than me can, for instance, set up a game with Steward where one bot always chooses +$2 and one always chooses +2 cards.
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On the original topic, I can't find the threads right now but I've seen the discussion come up several times before on whether +coin or +card is worth more. +card is much more valuable on a non-terminal, but it's very close on terminal cards. Nonetheless, official cards consistently show that +coin is worth more in these situations.
on a terminal, without non-terminals, that makes no sense.
So...Smithy is better than Laboratory, then?
what? laboratory is terminal now?
I think I just misunderstood what you were saying. So never mind that comment. (There's also a spot in your post where you attribute something to me that someone else said, but never mind that either.)
Anyway, this discussion is way off track from what the original question was, which was how should +Cards vs. +$ be costed. Obviously there are situations where +Card is more valuable than +$. In fact, if you can't build your deck to that point, you're probably losing, unless you're doing an alt-VP rush.
But it is a myth that power level is exactly reflected by the pricing structure. Pricing is also used to separate early game cards from late game cards, to control how easy it is to rush the card in question, to constraint the possible openings, etc.
It is pretty indisputable that the official cards price +$ higher than terminal +Cards, regardless of which one you think is more powerful more often.
Cases in point:
* Wharf vs. Merchant Ship - Wharf gets the +Buy despite that it's more powerful anyway; because the +Cards got valued less costwise.
* Moat vs. Duchess - true, Duchess is sometimes for free.
* Torturer/Rabble/Margrave vs. Mandarin/Count (extra effects on +3 Cards at $5 are huge; extra effects on +$3 at $5 are smaller and often penalties).
* Smithy vs. ...well, do you think a pure terminal +$3 card would cost $4? Not a chance.
I can posit a reason for this: If you build a deck with +Cards, you have to also build up an economy, whereas +$ is your economy and would lead to more boring games that if you couldn't build drawing engines more readily.
But regardless of the reason, and regardless of the actual power difference, with regard to the OP it would be correct to regard +$1 as slightly more costly as +1 Card on a terminal.
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If the +$1 is so much better, how comes my card tested perfectly fine at $4?
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On the original topic, I can't find the threads right now but I've seen the discussion come up several times before on whether +coin or +card is worth more. +card is much more valuable on a non-terminal, but it's very close on terminal cards. Nonetheless, official cards consistently show that +coin is worth more in these situations.
on a terminal, without non-terminals, that makes no sense.
So...Smithy is better than Laboratory, then?
what? laboratory is terminal now?
I think I just misunderstood what you were saying. So never mind that comment. (There's also a spot in your post where you attribute something to me that someone else said, but never mind that either.)
Anyway, this discussion is way off track from what the original question was, which was how should +Cards vs. +$ be costed. Obviously there are situations where +Card is more valuable than +$. In fact, if you can't build your deck to that point, you're probably losing, unless you're doing an alt-VP rush.
But it is a myth that power level is exactly reflected by the pricing structure. Pricing is also used to separate early game cards from late game cards, to control how easy it is to rush the card in question, to constraint the possible openings, etc.
It is pretty indisputable that the official cards price +$ higher than terminal +Cards, regardless of which one you think is more powerful more often.
Cases in point:
* Wharf vs. Merchant Ship - Wharf gets the +Buy despite that it's more powerful anyway; because the +Cards got valued less costwise.
* Moat vs. Duchess - true, Duchess is sometimes for free.
* Torturer/Rabble/Margrave vs. Mandarin/Count (extra effects on +3 Cards at $5 are huge; extra effects on +$3 at $5 are smaller and often penalties).
* Smithy vs. ...well, do you think a pure terminal +$3 card would cost $4? Not a chance.
I can posit a reason for this: If you build a deck with +Cards, you have to also build up an economy, whereas +$ is your economy and would lead to more boring games that if you couldn't build drawing engines more readily.
But regardless of the reason, and regardless of the actual power difference, with regard to the OP it would be correct to regard +$1 as slightly more costly as +1 Card on a terminal.
like I said, I'm not convinced that a terminal gold couldn't cost $4, but other than that I pretty much agree. it's pretty clear that the official cards are priced as if +$1 is better than +1 card on terminals. that much is absolutely and undeniably true. however, it's worth noting that, in pretty much every example of this, the +cards options wind up much better. (on a board with Torturer and Mandarin, which are you going for first?) your theory (that games with strong +$ terminals will be more boring than ones with strong +cards terminals) is probably correct.
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If the +$1 is so much better, how comes my card tested perfectly fine at $4?
Well, how much has it been tested and in whose opinion is it balanced? You said that others think it is OP. :P
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If the +$1 is so much better, how comes my card tested perfectly fine at $4?
Well, how much has it been tested and in whose opinion is it balanced? You said that others think it is OP. :P
It's my opinion it's balanced. I've tested it in about 35 games, some particularly selected to make it a good card. Honestly, it's not that great. Better than Smithy, but not that great.
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PS Wharf is a LOT better than merchant ship. Dunno how much of that is the buy.
Fairly easy to try out in the simulator (except that the bot won't be optimized anymore). Let's call Wharf-without-buy "Woof", and get WoofWW by replacing Wharf by Woof in WharfWW. Numbers are from a single Ultimate Simulation, which should be accurate to <1%.
| Merchant Ship WW | WoofWW | WharfWW |
| Merchant Ship WW | | 40% vs 48% | 27% vs 69% |
| WoofWW | | | 30% vs 64% |
| WharfWW | | | |
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I think it's going to have to cost $4, and it would be on the upper end. Coin is consistently valued more than cards. Consider Wharf vs. Merchant Ship. Wharf ended up getting +Buy, not MS. Coins were more valuable.
This is indeed comparable to Smithy, and it would probably be the stronger option.
I think it's very dangerous to generalise as 'coins are more valuable than cards', or whatever. Firstly, pricing is not linear - a mix between two cards is not necessarily of intermediate value - it could be much better, or it could be much worse. Pricing should be considered in terms of what the impact this card might have on the game. A terminal gold needs to be pricy, because golds are important for getting more golds and $5s, and indeed provinces. A terminal copper, however, would be virtually worthless. In addition, the difference between $4 and $3 is generally not about which is 'better', but rather which is more dangerous to have en masse to start with.
Smithy has to be at $4, because tons of smithies at $3 will easily allow a player to chain them up and draw their entire deck. The increase from +2 cards to +3 cards is that big a deal. Without the possibility of the large chain, a smithy could easily be priced at $3 without changing its power substantially in a BM-Smithy strategy. Reducing the card draw even weakly like with courtyard drops the price all the way down to $2 (which admittedly is a bit underpriced). Consider also Stables, which compared to laboratory effectively forces you to trade usually a $1, sometimes more, for 1 additional card, at the risk of being a dead card in the hand. And yet Stables is usually a superior card to laboratory!
I think the proposed card would be reasonable at $3. What it actually is, to my mind, is basically one of the pawn options with an extra card. And that extra card is usually not going to let you chain up more cards, except in very rare cases. In BM type strategies it'll perform fairly equally at $3 and $4, I expect, and I don't think the increased ease of setting up an engine is going to make it too powerful at $3, so why make it especially difficult?
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So I want to chime in and agree that things are not linear. 1 card just replaces itself. 2 cards is basically netting you 1 card. 3 cards is essentially 100% better than 2 cards. 4 Cards is basically 200% better than 2, but only a 50% bump over 3. But you have to also realize that there's some difference as well. If I am drawing 6, this is hardly worse than 7 for BM, but still might be for an engine (though not much). If I draw 1001, this is never better than 1000, really, because you might as well just say to draw your deck.
And then you have to consider opportunity costs. Giving you cash money is less of an opportunity cost to big money than giving cards is. And perhaps more importantly, with terminals, you can actually buy a lot more terminals if they don't have big draw on them than you can if they do, because there's much less collision risk. And you also have to look at how pricing works. 5s don't need to be 5 because they are so much better than 4s, but because it is a lot easier to load up on 4s early in the game than it is to do with 5s. In the middle-game, there's almost no difference, you can get either one relatively at will.
So like, a terminal gold isn't OP at 4 because it's going to be better than smithy in, say, the late middlegame, but because it is too easy and good to buy 2-3 of them very quickly.
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I agree that it's not linear. My original point was simply that official cards are generally priced such that coins are more valued than cards.
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If the +$1 is so much better, how comes my card tested perfectly fine at $4?
First of all, it's not "so" much better. I believe my exact words were "sliiiightly better."
Second, most of the issue with your card, IIRC, was the +Buy. +Buy often goes unused, and if it IS unused, then basically the functionality you got out of the card was way closer to balanced. When you really need that +Buy, however, it's a different story, albeit probably not overly conspicuously so even then.
Second, while playtesting is the most important tool you've got for card pricing, it can be super deceptive. Here's a recent post (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2665.msg90837#msg90837) about a card it took me, quite literally, somewhere around 20 games before I realized that my first, second, and third impressions were incorrect. For all I know I'm still wrong. The difference with your card, though, is that it's a pure vanilla card with a plenitude of other vanilla cards to make comparisons with, so one can be more confident.
Third, the wrong price on a card isn't necessarily going to break the game, or if it does sometimes it will do that in really subtle ways. Donald has said in the past that Throne Room works perfectly fine at $3, except that it became just a little too easy to stock up on them with extra buys. I believe he's said similar things about Village, too. Village is balanced at $2 -- in fact, it wouldn't break the game outright at $0 -- but the ease at which you can rush the stack with extra buys creates a less interesting game.
Where I'm going with this is that I think your card probably does usually create a roughly balanced game at $3 or $4 -- that is, it isn't game-warpingly strong just because getting copies of them are more accessible in the early-game -- but in situations where, say, rushing the pile is profitable (e.g., when Villages are plentiful) and in particular when you can use all the abilities of the card including its +Buy, then you may find you have a problem. Because price DOES have ramifications in terms of (1) how fast can you build up an engine, and (2) functionality relative to the other vanilla cards in the game.
These two points are related, because the right combination of vanilla bonuses leads to an engine, and if your vanilla card doesn't fit with the price settings of the other vanilla cards, then you've got a gameplay imbalance relative to the other vanilla cards. Of which there are plenty, all basically flawlessly costed in sync with one another.
Let's say you had a fan card called "Blacksmith." It gives "+3 Cards" and that's it. It costs $3. Is it broken? Probably not, actually. It's obviously costed wrong, but on a great many boards it'll be perfectly fine. On some, though, you'll notice it's just a little too easy to get that drawing engine up and running, and/or you'll notice it's just so much better than other $3 cards that you'll be buying it above other $3 cards way more often than its probably ideal for the game. It'll still come down to a judgment call. But that's not to say that one judgment isn't better than another.
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I think it's very dangerous to generalise as 'coins are more valuable than cards', or whatever.
I would think, in general, coin is indeed more valuable than cards (not something ridiculous like +$1 is always more useful than +20 Cards, but +$ is usually of higher priority than +Cards).
Ultimately players don't gain Provinces by reaching a specific hand size, they use cards that give coin (or else they do really weird things like playing 4 Highways and using Workshop to fetch one (but even Highways are giving coin value in some way)). Buying Silvers and Golds (and maybe whatever other Treasures or non-terminal coin sources are available) will increase the average coin value per card in your deck, but Smithies do not.
Players will eventually want Smithies, of course, to make better use of their deck as a whole instead of gambling on every new hand giving $8. I think though, a player would be far more doomed if he ignored Golds than if he ignored Smithies (and yes Gold is more expensive than Smithy, but one gives +$3, the other gives +3 Cards, I would think there's a good reason why one costs more than the other). I don't want to make it sound like I am endorsing BM as a foolproof strategy, just that having 100 cards in hand coming out to $7 somehow, is probably not as useful as a 3 card hand of Duchess and 2 Golds.
Now regarding Blacksmith... yeah I could probably see it as being pretty nice at $3, and maybe not as nice at $4. Early game without taking into account the card bought on the other starting turn, drawing 2 cards means you either get CC, or CE, or EE. Drawing CC makes Blacksmith better than Silver. Drawing CE makes it as good as a Silver and gets a dead card out of your next hand. Drawing EE mean you likely won't deal with them for your next hand and you have $4 anyway (due to a hand of CCCEB). It would be interesting if Blacksmith offered +$2 and +1 Card instead, that would probably be worth it at $4.
Also I am a self-professed village idiot, so I think I have some personal experience in understanding how +$ can be more valuable than +Cards =\
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I think it's very dangerous to generalise as 'coins are more valuable than cards', or whatever.
I would think, in general, coin is indeed more valuable than cards (not something ridiculous like +$1 is always more useful than +20 Cards, but +$ is usually of higher priority than +Cards).
Ultimately players don't gain Provinces by reaching a specific hand size, they use cards that give coin (or else they do really weird things like playing 4 Highways and using Workshop to fetch one (but even Highways are giving coin value in some way)). Buying Silvers and Golds (and maybe whatever other Treasures or non-terminal coin sources are available) will increase the average coin value per card in your deck, but Smithies do not.
Players will eventually want Smithies, of course, to make better use of their deck as a whole instead of gambling on every new hand giving $8. I think though, a player would be far more doomed if he ignored Golds than if he ignored Smithies (and yes Gold is more expensive than Smithy, but one gives +$3, the other gives +3 Cards, I would think there's a good reason why one costs more than the other). I don't want to make it sound like I am endorsing BM as a foolproof strategy, just that having 100 cards in hand coming out to $7 somehow, is probably not as useful as a 3 card hand of Duchess and 2 Golds.
Now regarding Blacksmith... yeah I could probably see it as being pretty nice at $3, and maybe not as nice at $4. Early game without taking into account the card bought on the other starting turn, drawing 2 cards means you either get CC, or CE, or EE. Drawing CC makes Blacksmith better than Silver. Drawing CE makes it as good as a Silver and gets a dead card out of your next hand. Drawing EE mean you likely won't deal with them for your next hand and you have $4 anyway (due to a hand of CCCEB). It would be interesting if Blacksmith offered +$2 and +1 Card instead, that would probably be worth it at $4.
Also I am a self-professed village idiot, so I think I have some personal experience in understanding how +$ can be more valuable than +Cards =\
Again though, my point is that I oppose the general statement. You can't swap out a +1 card into a +$1 and say, oh, coin is better than cards, because that generalisation doesn't apply.
Comparing Golds to Smithies is just not enough. (let's not forget that Golds don't require actions to play, multiple golds in hand are awesome, while multiple smithies with no villages are terrible, etc.) You need to think about what roles this card is going to fit into, as a strategy. And in general, a +3 card drawer is going a enable a heck of a lot more strategies than a +2 card drawer, and that +$1 is going to seem like scant consolation a lot of the time because you failed to land the other half of the engine you were looking for or whatever and ended up with a lame-ass $7 hand. Just look at the whole array of cards out there that enable you to trash coppers (thus swapping a future copper for some other card), or which let you swap out a copper for another card (cellar, stable), and how cards which add coppers to your deck are effectively punishing you (Cache, Ill Gotten Gains, Mountebank, Ambassador). Blacksmith is basically a smithy combined with a feature that does the reverse - it turns out of the three cards you drew into a virtual copper. That's not very good.
As it's proposed, it just falls between two stools - it's not a power cash giver, because if you are reliant on that $1 to push you over the edge you'd be crazy. And it doesn't draw enough to easily enable chains of cards.
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I think it's very dangerous to generalise as 'coins are more valuable than cards', or whatever.
I would think, in general, coin is indeed more valuable than cards (not something ridiculous like +$1 is always more useful than +20 Cards, but +$ is usually of higher priority than +Cards).
Ultimately players don't gain Provinces by reaching a specific hand size, they use cards that give coin (or else they do really weird things like playing 4 Highways and using Workshop to fetch one (but even Highways are giving coin value in some way)). Buying Silvers and Golds (and maybe whatever other Treasures or non-terminal coin sources are available) will increase the average coin value per card in your deck, but Smithies do not.
Players will eventually want Smithies, of course, to make better use of their deck as a whole instead of gambling on every new hand giving $8. I think though, a player would be far more doomed if he ignored Golds than if he ignored Smithies (and yes Gold is more expensive than Smithy, but one gives +$3, the other gives +3 Cards, I would think there's a good reason why one costs more than the other). I don't want to make it sound like I am endorsing BM as a foolproof strategy, just that having 100 cards in hand coming out to $7 somehow, is probably not as useful as a 3 card hand of Duchess and 2 Golds.
Now regarding Blacksmith... yeah I could probably see it as being pretty nice at $3, and maybe not as nice at $4. Early game without taking into account the card bought on the other starting turn, drawing 2 cards means you either get CC, or CE, or EE. Drawing CC makes Blacksmith better than Silver. Drawing CE makes it as good as a Silver and gets a dead card out of your next hand. Drawing EE mean you likely won't deal with them for your next hand and you have $4 anyway (due to a hand of CCCEB). It would be interesting if Blacksmith offered +$2 and +1 Card instead, that would probably be worth it at $4.
Also I am a self-professed village idiot, so I think I have some personal experience in understanding how +$ can be more valuable than +Cards =\
Again though, my point is that I oppose the general statement. You can't swap out a +1 card into a +$1 and say, oh, coin is better than cards, because that generalisation doesn't apply.
Comparing Golds to Smithies is just not enough. (let's not forget that Golds don't require actions to play, multiple golds in hand are awesome, while multiple smithies with no villages are terrible, etc.) You need to think about what roles this card is going to fit into, as a strategy. And in general, a +3 card drawer is going a enable a heck of a lot more strategies than a +2 card drawer, and that +$1 is going to seem like scant consolation a lot of the time because you failed to land the other half of the engine you were looking for or whatever and ended up with a lame-ass $7 hand. Just look at the whole array of cards out there that enable you to trash coppers (thus swapping a future copper for some other card), or which let you swap out a copper for another card (cellar, stable), and how cards which add coppers to your deck are effectively punishing you (Cache, Ill Gotten Gains, Mountebank, Ambassador). Blacksmith is basically a smithy combined with a feature that does the reverse - it turns out of the three cards you drew into a virtual copper. That's not very good.
As it's proposed, it just falls between two stools - it's not a power cash giver, because if you are reliant on that $1 to push you over the edge you'd be crazy. And it doesn't draw enough to easily enable chains of cards.
Hmm, well I admit in my analysis that Blacksmith is probably nice at $3 and maybe not right at $4. Having only 1 of something is usually not good enough. But swapping +2 Cards for +$2 from Smithy to Blacksmith would make it much stronger, and I would think that +1 Card, +$2 is good at $4 and better than the current iteration. Does this seem problematic? My only point was that, considering +$X vs +X Cards, +$X is probably better to have in almost any strategy, and so in general 'coins are more valuable than cards'. I'll admit this was a point that I made separately from the valuation of Blacksmith itself (which is why I quoted a very specific part of your post), so I'm sorry if I misunderstood or did not make my position clear.
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There is finally an effect that does this sort of thing. Mercenary, as weird as it is. I don't know what that tells us.
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Wharf BM actually enables Wharf + Silver, Gold + Silver, and occasionally Province + Silver turns fairly often.
But the bot will buy Province rather than Wharf+Silver or Gold+Silver, won't it?
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Wharf BM actually enables Wharf + Silver, Gold + Silver, and occasionally Province + Silver turns fairly often.
But the bot will buy Province rather than Wharf+Silver or Gold+Silver, won't it?
Not necessarily. The bot posted earlier in the thread won't buy a Province unless your total treasure value (in deck) is greater than $16. So if you draw $8-9 early in the game then the bot might make a Wharf+Silver or Gold+Silver purchase. At least I think it will, I haven't really used the simulator much. I also can't speak to how often this actually comes up with those particular buy rules.
My comment was more a general note that the plus buy on Wharf can be useful even in big money games, not really about the simulators.