Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Simulation => Topic started by: Sparafucile on October 02, 2013, 06:52:04 pm
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I played an interesting game the other day, and got me thinking, how much difference do the shelters really make? Well, with this combination of cards, it really isnt better than big money with a 53% win rate. With shelters, it has a 89% win rate. Quite the difference. Lets take a closer look what's going on:
The cards for the combo are Armory, Conspirator, Forager and Great hall.
The strategy is simple. Open Armory to gain cards, and forager to trash cards. Gain great halls and conspirators in a 1:1 ratio until you have enough money to buy provinces.
The interesting thing is how this strategy performs with shelters and without shelters:
89.1% win rate again Big money with shelters
53.9% win rate again Big money with estates
Lets take a closer look at each shelter and what effect is having.
Hovel
If we pretend that the hovel card does not have a reaction - i.e. it can no longer trash itself on gaining a victory. That brings the win rate down to 74%. That's 15% win rate just for the reaction!
Necropolis
The default strategy actually attempts to keep the necroplis. The +2 actions are good for starting off the conspirator chain, which we like. It also allows us to play the armory for conspirator, top decking it, and then still have actiosn left to draw it for play this turn. If we trash the necropolis after the overgrown estate, then the win rate goes down to 83%.
Overgrown estate
The +1 card from trashing this card is very minimal. 1% difference in win rate.
Opportunity cost of points vs Shelters
One of the benefits of estates over shelters is they have victory points. If our combo is trashing the starting estates, that gives big money a 3 point lead that must be overcome. A shelter game typically favors the trashing engine. If we pretend the shelters each worth 1 point, the win rate for the combo is down to 83%.
In summary:
- 15% comes from hovel
- 1% comes from overgrown estate
- 5% comes from necropolis
- 5% comes from opportunity cost of victory points
So there you have it. The hovel reaction actually had the largest impact on win rate. They are not addiditive effects, in combination this produces 36% win rate difference for this strategy.
The above analysis is for only one strategy, your mileage will vary. This set of cards is particularly sensitive to the bonus trashing from hovel. Dont ignore the impact of shelters!
Here's the code for the strategy:
private static CardPickByPriority PurchaseOrder()
{
return new CardPickByPriority(
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Armory>(gameState => CountAllOwned<CardTypes.Armory>(gameState) < 1),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Forager>(gameState => CountAllOwned<CardTypes.Forager>(gameState) < 1),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Province>(),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Duchy>(gameState => CountOfPile<CardTypes.Province>(gameState) <= 1),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Estate>(gameState => CountOfPile<CardTypes.Province>(gameState) == 0),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.GreatHall>(gameState => gameState.players.CurrentPlayer.AvailableBuys > 1 && gameState.players.CurrentPlayer.AvailableCoins == 6),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.GreatHall>(gameState => gameState.players.CurrentPlayer.Hand.HasCard<CardTypes.Hovel>()),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.GreatHall>(gameState => CountAllOwned<CardTypes.GreatHall>(gameState) < CountAllOwned<CardTypes.Conspirator>(gameState)),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Conspirator>(),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.GreatHall>());
}
private static CardPickByPriority ActionOrder()
{
return new CardPickByPriority(
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Necropolis>(),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Armory>(gameState => gameState.players.CurrentPlayer.AvailableActions > 0),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.GreatHall>(),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Conspirator>(gameState => gameState.players.CurrentPlayer.CountCardsPlayedThisTurn >= 2),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Forager>(gameState => HasCardFromInHand(TrashOrder(), gameState)),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Conspirator>(),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Armory>());
}
private static CardPickByPriority TrashOrder()
{
return new CardPickByPriority(
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.OvergrownEstate>(),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Estate>(),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Necropolis>(),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Copper>(),
CardAcceptance.For<CardTypes.Hovel>());
}
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I expect a second Forager to improve the strategy by quite a bit.
Gain great halls and conspirators in a 1:1 ratio until you have enough money to buy provinces.
I'd say you want to keep building until you can double Province. This longer building combined with the faster trashing from a second Forager, will almost certainly cause the Hovel to be trashed long before you're buying your first Province, so I don't expect Hovel's reaction to end up mattering at all.
The +2 actions are the only +2 actions on the board, allowing playing of armory and forager.
Forager is non-terminal, so you can play it and then play your Armory afterwards regardless of whether you have Necropolis in hand, though I'd still keep Necropolis, especially if I'm planning to get 7-8 Conspirators.
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Hovel to be trashed long before you're buying your first Province, so I don't expect Hovel's reaction to end up mattering at all.
The reaction is triggered on a very early great hall buy. That's a key part of the strategy! Buy end of turn 4 you have probably trashed 2 cards. One to forager, and one by purchasing great hall.
Just tried your suggestions.
Buying a second forager (opening Armory, forager, forager) and holding out for the first double province buy causes the win rate to go to 39%.
Holding out for a double province buy, but using a single forager is a 75% win rate.
Double forager, but picking up provinces whenever possible is a 63% win rate.
Single forager, and pick up province whenever possible is the highest win rate. My intuition was similar to yours in real life. When i played this game for real, I went single forager, but held out for a double province buy - because that felt cooler. Turns out that picking up the province ASAP is a little better vs big money.
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I was really surprised by your results but trying it out in solitaire convinced me that they are right.
A second Forager will clean your deck faster but makes you also run out fuel quickly, so once you actually start generating lots of coins, it isn't easy to also always get +buy. And since you really don't want to spend $9 with one buy on a single Conspirator or Great hall, you're more or less forced to go for single Province turns. $16 and 2-buys is just really hard to get with this set of cards, let alone getting it reliably a few turns in a row.
I'm wondering what the minimal additions would need to be to make building up to double Provinces better. Probably Lab and Hunting party. What about Advisor or Vagrant, which can draw Great Halls?
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89.1% win rate again Big money with shelters
53.9% win rate again Big money with estates
This is unbelievable. Have you found similar results for other matchups?
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Have you found similar results for other matchups?
In my experience playing dominion, not yet. That's what inspired this post :)
Though I havent been looking out for it either. I think what makes this strategy unique is that:
1) It's not very strong in the first place. By that, I mean it may beat big money, but not by a land slide, probably just a few points. Maybe difference of winning the province split.
2) It can benefit from the hovel more than most due to the great hall synergy.
3) It has trashing that is integral, but not trash for benefit.
I did just run a simulation where I compared BigMoney with a mirror match modified in one slight way. The opponent buys a great hall as soon as possible if a hovel is in hand. The single-great-hall buying strategy wins 64% of the time. (Buying a single estate instead of a great-hall actually makes it lose with a 40% win rate).
My rule of thumb now is, if great-hall is on the board, by hovel as soon as possible.
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My rule of thumb now is, if great-hall is on the board, by hovel as soon as possible.
I don't think this is a very good rule of thumb unless one of two conditions are met:
1) You have or want cards that benefit from Great Hall's attributes (Conspirator, Peddler, Crossroads... Scout).
2) You have $3 and Hovel and you don't want Silver anyway.
The fact that BM prefers GH over Silver when Hovel is in hand doesn't indicate for your rule of thumb. First, you haven't tested this with a BM+X mirror yet (my hypothesis is that the effect should be diminished). Second, when you're building an engine, choosing to spend >$3 to trash a card instead of buying an engine piece could noticeably set you back.
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Yay for Hovel!
I love it when weak looking things make a big difference.
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excellent article. This bit doesn't seem right, forager being non-terminal and all.
Necropolis
The default strategy actually attempts to keep the necroplis. The +2 actions are the only +2 actions on the board, allowing playing of armory and forager.
the part about activating consp is still true tho.
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Edge case: play Armory gaining a Conspirator, play Forager trashing Overgrown Estate, and then play the Conspirator.
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Well, more importantly: play armory, then play forager without having to trash armory. (Though you could trash necropolis)
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This bit doesn't seem right, forager being non-terminal and all
Good point. Guess I wasn't thinking when I wrote that. I will update and remove that part.