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Messages - Yitzi

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1
Hmm...I may want to experiment some then at some point.

Though it's also possible that, e.g. it's valued high by people who win games the most consistently because a high value on fast trashing usually results in winning games due to fast-trashers being strong cards overall (e.g. Chapel, Steward), and Remake is the exception here...I suppose playing it out is the way to check.

2
I think you might get the information you’re looking for by just using the card? Statistics don’t mean a lot in this game until you see how it actually works in a game. Just play a few games using Remake and either (A) make a point of using it or (B) resolve not to buy it yourself but make a point to play someone who will. That should convince you of its merits pretty quickly?

I don't own the set at the moment, and I think you need a paid account to play beyond the base set online?

3
https://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Fan_Card_Creation_Guide#Myth:_The_Cost_Scale_Is_Linear <- different context but should still work

Do you have an example of a jump from $4 to $3 and a jump from $3 to $4 that shows this nonlinearity without it being due to comparing a card that is particularly strong or weak for its cost (e.g. Witch in 2p)?

4
These are different data sets.

Glicko is a rating system where lots of people supply their opinion on cards (by "duels", i.e. they are given two cards and then say which is better). The "win rate" of the card is the proportion of duels in which Remake emerges victorious.

The images files linked are pulled from game data that is analyzed by various metrics. You might gather from it that Remake is slightly overvalued (or at least, it was pre-Renaissance). However it is quite clear even from here that it is much better than Remodel, especially in the opening (it sits at 53% for both players opening with it to Remodel's 10%).

Ah, so that's the win rate within the Glicko system, not in games.

Though, again, if comparing Remodel vs. Remake in the images, "probability that both players open with it" says how high it's valued, not how good it actually is.  The better statistic is skill-corrected win rate, and that is 47% for a Rebuild opening and 46% for Remake, with Rebuild pulling significantly ahead for non-opening gains...

5
Hmm...this is interesting:

I assumed that the win rate bore out the high ranking of Remake, given that the Glicko at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CaVOd1pgAgmjJHXPM1tVMVnlJOLDZaq8BxjW4I1NI1E/edit?gid=0#gid=0 says it has a win rate of 73%...but the survey at https://photos.onedrive.com/share/4375584A8C199C03!3826?cid=4375584A8C199C03&resId=4375584A8C199C03!3826&authkey=!AIJetp0WiAAmcy4&ithint=album says that the skill-corrected win rate is 41% for being the only player gaining it and 46% for being the only one opening it.  The only 73% to be found there is the percentage of games in which both players gained it...which says more about its perceived strength than its actual strength.

Did someone accidentally copy the wrong statistic into the Glicko "win rate" column?

6
The other question is: If Copper-trashing is so good, why is Moneylender a mid-tier card (not particularly strong, not particularly weak)?  It's basically "trash a Copper from your hand" attached to something that would itself be worth a 4-cost terminal stop card (I'm pretty sure that it's generally accepted that a terminal gold, if it were ever made, would be well-priced at $4).  Yes, it becomes dead if there's no Copper in hand, but by the time that is likely to happen it's already gotten your engine jumpstarted, so that should not compensate for a basically "free" Copper-trashing-from-hand unless Copper-trashing-from-hand is really not that strong after all.

7
The answer to your question is simple: Copper trashing. You misevaluate massively how hood Copper trashimg is. And while e.g. Steward also does the job and later is not dead but a weak engineering piece, you do not mind the 3 Silvers Remake provides as conpensation for the loss of payload.

So maybe that's my question: Why is trashing a Copper from hand so incredibly good, when trashing a Copper from hand and using the remaining $3 to buy a Silver has the same impact on your deck (in terms of deck control and total money in the deck) as not trashing and using $4 to buy a Poacher?

8
Card costs are not linear. There is a huge gap between and and a significant gap between and , while the difference between and is much smaller.

Is it really?  There are definitely some very strong contenders in the category (e.g. Cursers in 2p), but if you look at the *typical* $5 card, I'm not so sure it's above the typical $4 by more than the typical $4 is above the typical $3.  In Vanilla cards especially, it does seem to be a smooth curve.

And I'd actually like to test this in the simulator (say, take a simple Village/Smithy+1 Market and run a Remake-that-only-targets-starting-cards against a Remodel-that-only-targets-Estates) and see how it plays, but I'm not familiar enough with the simulator to know how to do that; maybe someone can help?  (Or maybe I'll ask on the simulator board.)

9
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Strategies for seaside
« on: July 15, 2024, 11:16:39 pm »
Smugglers is weak.

Stronger than Bureaucrat, though.

10
I think most of it is that Remake is not really a Remodel variant, but a trasher. Remodel absolutely sucks at trashing; that's not what you buy it for unless you have no other option. Remodel is a payload card and Remake is a deck control card.

Trashing an extra card is a huge benefit. A "trash 2 cards" is already a very powerful $3-$4 cost; "trash a card" though, is terrible and rarely worth buying. The ability to trash Coppers safely is also huge. When you Remodel a Copper, you're spending a a card, action, and coin, to remove one Copper, and then either gain an Estate, in which case you shouldn't be Remodeling Coppers, or a spammable $2 cost, which usually does close to nothing.

Okay, it doesn't get $4s early, but the difference between $3 and $4 is really small and again, it's a trasher, not a gainer. Yes, after trashing 2 cards you will rarely buy something, but I will take even 2 Coppers out of my deck over most $3s. I don't think trashing with Remake at all reduces your payload; in the base case you go 3E 7C -> 3 Silver. That's $1 less of economy and 7 less stop cards. Trashing 2 Estates with Remake is equivalent to gaining FOUR Peddlers!

I honestly think $4 "Trash 2 cards" is better than Remodel. When I can do that while keeping my economy up, the card is really good.

"Trash 2 cards" does not seem like a very powerful $3-$4 cost.  It's strictly weaker (by a *lot*) than Chapel (which gives twice the trashing speed at barely any decrease to your ability to do anything else that turn, since a 2 card hand is already pretty useless early on) and than Steward (which gives benefit even once you run out of stuff to trash), and while those are both strong cards at $2 and $3 respectively, I don't think the weaker version would cut it at $3, and definitely not at $4.

The difference between $3 and $4 is also not really small.  Consider Village vs. Worker's Village (same difference as between Poacher when piles won't run out and Market, i.e. $4 and $5), or Poacher vs. Shop or Merchant.  Even Militia vs. Silver.

I would also take 2 Coppers out of my deck over most $3s, but if you're taking 2 Coppers out, then that means you had 4, so you would've been able to buy a $4.  I'd still often take 2 Coppers out over a $4...but it'd be a close thing, not nearly enough to justify the weaker Estate conversion.

You mention 3E 7C->3 Silver...but over the 5 turns and 3 Estate conversions it'd take I would rather turn 3E 7C->7C 4 Smithy 3 Village 1 Worker's Village.  That's $0 less and 11 (!) more deck control, plus a Buy that will come in handy later on.  It does mean a terminal-draw engine, but 11 deck control as compared to 7 is a lot even so.

Basically, I just don't see much value in trashing (in most kingdoms) other than as one way to get deck control...and it seems like the extra deck-building capability with Remodel (mostly from being able to buy something in addition to Remodelling) will (if used on engine pieces) give more deck control than the extra trashing from Remake...

(I also don't see Remodel as purely a payload card; I see it mainly as a slow and limited trasher that also helps you build your deck, doing for Estates what Moneylender does for Copper.)

11
Dominion General Discussion / Trying to understand why Remake is good
« on: July 15, 2024, 10:13:00 pm »
The general consensus (e.g. the Glicko) seems to be that Remake is a good card, far better than Remodel, and the win rate seems to bear this out...but looking at what it does, I am having trouble seeing why.

Yes, it trashes an extra card each time you play it, and can "safely" trash Coppers even with no decent 2s in the kingdom, but that comes at a significant cost to building your engine:
-It turns Estates into 3s, whereas Remodel turns them into 4s.  Often, your engine needs 4s, or needs 5s and 4s provide a good way to achieve this (e.g. a Militia to slow down your opponent in the process, or a Poacher to help bring you up to 5 without adding load to your engine like a Silver would, or a Moneylender to trash Coppers while helping you get those 4-cost engine pieces).
-If you do want 3s, Remake leaves you with a 2-card hand that probably can't get them early on.  Remodel leaves you with a 3-card hand that probably can.
-And, of course, you do need payload both to help you build your engine and then to win the game with it, so more Copper trashing means you'll have to buy more Silvers or other payload cards, which both (usually) cuts into the deck control gains from Copper-trashing and slows down your engine construction.  Not by enough to make removing Coppers from your deck a bad thing, by any means, but enough to reduce its benefit.

For example, let's say you draw your Remake or Remodel once with an Estate and 3 Coppers, and once with 4 Coppers.
The Remake will, over those 3 turns, trash 3 Coppers and turn that Estate into, say, a Silver (because if you're trashing 3 Coppers, you can no longer afford anything above 4 unless you get some more coin in your deck).  It won't be able to buy anything on either of those turns.
The Remodel will turn the Estate into, say, a Smithy, buy a Village on that same turn, and then on the 4-Copper turn buy another engine piece (maybe another Smithy, maybe a Worker's Village, etc.).  It doesn't need to buy Silvers, since without Copper trashing (or with slow and coin-giving Copper trashing such as via Moneylender), drawing the deck will ensure enough coin to keep getting stuff.
So the Remake has reduced the deck size by 2 more (not counting the engine pieces), but the Remodel has 3 extra engine pieces and $1 more of payload.  Most engines should be able to get at least 2 cards of deck control with 3 engine pieces...

And in the midgame, Remake fares even worse.  A classic midgame Remodel move might be trashing a $3 to get a $5, whereas a Remake might trash a $3 for a $4 and a $4 for a $5...basically the same, except that it means that now you also sent a $4 from your hand to your discard, which is obviously a downside.

Late-game, Remake provides good pile control...but Remodel can mill the Provinces, and can turn Gold into them, so it seems that Remodel should have the advantage then too.

So how, in a typical kingdom, is Remake better than Remodel?  (There will be cases where Remodel is better, such as if you're trying to build a draw-to-X engine and absolutely need to get rid of those Coppers, but I'd think those shouldn't be common enough to have a major impact on overall strength.)

12
Rules Questions / Lighthouse and duration attacks
« on: May 08, 2024, 09:26:12 pm »
Here's the scenario:
I play Lighthouse.
On the next turn, my opponent (for simplicity, it's a 2p game) plays Corsair.
On my next turn, I play an Outpost, so I get another turn.

Question 1: Do I ignore the Corsair on my first turn after it's played, even though the Lighthouse has "expired"?  Answer seems to me to be a pretty clear yes; it's official (even on the wiki page for Lighthouse) that the Lighthouse needs to be in play when the attack card is played in order to be effect, and this would just be the flip side of that.
Question 2: Do I ignore the Corsair on my second turn after it's played?  Still seems like a pretty clear yes, by the same token.
Question 3, and this is where it gets interesting: When do I discard the Lighthouse from play?  Does protecting me from the Corsair count as "something to do" on the second turn after the Corsair is played, causing the Lighthouse (as a Duration card) to stay in play, or has it already "done" everything when the Corsair was played, meaning that it's discarded at the end of the turn it gives the second coin (i.e. the first turn after the Corsair is played)?

13
Some of the stronger ones include Bridge, Bridge Troll, Inventor, Highway, Horn of Plenty, Groundskeeper, Collection, Merchant Guild and Outpost for example, but even Conspirator is a lot stronger than Vassal.

Most of those, powerful as they are (at least in large groups; a single Bridge is usually not that impressive), require an extra village and an extra draw for each payload card.  Depending on the deck, Vassal may only need extra terminal space and draw for every second or third vassal, or even less.  They also all cost more than Vassal.

That's really the thing about Vassal: It's not a super-powerful payload card, but it's (assuming terminal space is at least reasonably available) a mid-tier one at a low-tier cost, meaning that you can ramp up extremely quickly once you've got an engine going (assuming your engine comes with enough +Buy to take advantage of the low cost).

14
So it's not so much that vassal is strong overall, but that it's very kingdom-dependent?  In a kingdom with strong trashing, plenty of +action, and plenty of extra buys you'd be getting anyway (e.g. market is the only decent $5), it's super-strong (can go from a $6 engine to a $16 in 2 turns), but if things aren't set up just right for it, it's quite weak?

Kind of, but the best case is more like mid-tier than super-strong, and the basic case is more like useless or actively harmful than quite weak.

It is worth noting that the base game doesn't really have any actually good engine payload, so in base only games, Vassal is more often worth buying just because you're desperate for anything at all and Vassal is something.

Ah, maybe that's it.  What is the superior engine payload you'd get in expansions?

15
Dominion General Discussion / Re: no idea how to play this kingdom
« on: February 02, 2024, 04:26:44 pm »
I fired up the simulator to solve this. Best strategy is Double Witch + 1 Moat. Open Silver/Moat or Witch/Moat. Buy the first Witch over Gold. Then just get Money.
Adding Poacher(s) is terrible, plummeting the win rate to 41%.
Adding Markets drops the win rate by 1%.

Interestingly in a 4-player game the optimal strategies change. If 3 players play Witch you should not buy Witch, just Moats. If 2 players play Witch then they win against 2 Moat players. And 1 Witch crushes 3 Moat players.

Because the more witches there are that other players don't have, the more your moats will block.  With enough moats, you'll get fewer curses from the witches other players play than the players with witches will.

16
Dominion General Discussion / Re: no idea how to play this kingdom
« on: February 02, 2024, 04:25:14 pm »
Yeah, there's no engine on that one. Big Money with two Witches might be competitive, or maybe there's some sort of Good Stuff Deck with a bunch of Markets and one Witch, and maybe a Cellar or two.

Wouldn’t you always buy Poacher over Silver on $4?

Not necessarily.  If someone gets Witch, it won't be long until Poacher has to discard...and even before, a deck with a bunch of curses gets significantly less benefit from that +1 card, so the extra coin may be better.

17
So it's not so much that vassal is strong overall, but that it's very kingdom-dependent?  In a kingdom with strong trashing, plenty of +action, and plenty of extra buys you'd be getting anyway (e.g. market is the only decent $5), it's super-strong (can go from a $6 engine to a $16 in 2 turns), but if things aren't set up just right for it, it's quite weak?

(Oh, and another way I've eliminated the gambling risk in one game is with Library; I drew my junk, set aside all but one of my vassals, and then just triggered the vassal chain.  Again, though, that's not something you can do in every kingdom.)

18
Vassal is far less reliable than Conspirator. You also seriously misevaluate terminal Silver, no way you would ever pay $3 for such junk.

I would say that Vassal is differently unreliable than the Conspirator.  Conspirator is basically all-or-nothing; once you've got it going, it goes indefinitely, but if you don't you've got a dead turn.  Vassal is easier to get up to a 5 or 10% chance of hitting than Conspirator is, harder to get up to an 80-90% chance, easier to get up to 100% but that won't last unless you have a way to turn $ into VP without adding greens to your deck, and can take the occasional miss more easily.

No, no way I would pay $3 for a terminal silver, that's true.  (Well, unless I had a lot of VP-on-buy effects).  I could get a regular silver for that value, of course I wouldn't pay $3 for a terminal silver, and I never said I would.

But if I had it in my deck for some reason and hit it with a sentry?  It would be a very non-obvious call whether to trash it or not.  And if I only had $2 and it was that or nothing...again, a non-obvious call.
And that means that it may very well be viable as the low end of a $3 card.
I constantly overvalue Vassal, I want it to always work.But terminal space is limited and Vassal gambles with that valuable resource.
So I totally disagree, Vassal is virtually always inferior to Conspirator.

Well, that's really the question: How limited is terminal space?

If you can get an extra terminal space for the price of a silver, that doesn't really seem that limited.  Especially since getting one village for every 2 or 3 vassals will probably be enough in many engines.

I mean...it's definitely a resource, but one that seems to be costed as significantly cheaper than cards (the upside to your gamble).

19
Vassal is far less reliable than Conspirator. You also seriously misevaluate terminal Silver, no way you would ever pay $3 for such junk.

I would say that Vassal is differently unreliable than the Conspirator.  Conspirator is basically all-or-nothing; once you've got it going, it goes indefinitely, but if you don't you've got a dead turn.  Vassal is easier to get up to a 5 or 10% chance of hitting than Conspirator is, harder to get up to an 80-90% chance, easier to get up to 100% but that won't last unless you have a way to turn $ into VP without adding greens to your deck, and can take the occasional miss more easily.

No, no way I would pay $3 for a terminal silver, that's true.  (Well, unless I had a lot of VP-on-buy effects).  I could get a regular silver for that value, of course I wouldn't pay $3 for a terminal silver, and I never said I would.

But if I had it in my deck for some reason and hit it with a sentry?  It would be a very non-obvious call whether to trash it or not.  And if I only had $2 and it was that or nothing...again, a non-obvious call.
And that means that it may very well be viable as the low end of a $3 card.

20
Wait, if you only have a few cantrips and haven't trashed yet (at least not enough to make vassal reasonably reliable), how are you making sure that your conspirator shows up with 2 cantrips rather than a bunch of coppers and estates?

Your experience seems pretty on-par, though it's not horrible at first (I'd usually rather have it than a copper), then becomes awesome until you start greening, then is still pretty good for its cost as long as you've got a few extra villages and not too many greens (or have other ways to make sure you get a long vassal chain in your discard, such as cellar or library, which makes it stay awesome).

21
When Vassal hits, it's basically a double peddler.  When it misses, it's a terminal silver.
Assuming an engine with an average cost for +action, a terminal silver is basically worthless but not harmful; it's essentially the same as getting a silver (cost 3) instead of a village (cost 3).  A double peddler is twice as good as a peddler (generally assumed to be balanced at cost 4).  So one might expect that Vassal, which can be a value of 0 peddlers or of 2, should also be cost 4.

And, sure enough, Conspirator has a very similar behavior and does cost 4.

If we look at Vassal vs. Conspirator, they each have advantages and disadvantages.  Conspirator can reach a 100% chance of hitting (though with good trashing Vassal can come pretty close), but Vassal has some chance of hitting even before your engine really starts going.  Conspirator can be played "safely" if you've got cantrips but no villages (playing a vassal without playing a village first can end your turn prematurely), but Vassal can be drawn in a hand with only terminal actions and still have a decent chance of not stalling your engine (a hand with 2 smithies and 3 conspirators is going nowhere; 2 smithies and 3 vassals still has a decent chance).

So why is it that Conspirator costs 4, whereas Vassal costs only 3?  3 is pretty cheap, there's often nothing cheaper worth getting.

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