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Messages - Epoch

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351
Game Reports / Re: Chapel / Bishop
« on: August 25, 2011, 12:13:43 pm »
The five card deck takes, what, two more turns to go to Colonies, doesn't it?

Bishop, Gold, Silver, Silver, Copper: trash the Copper, play $7 -> Gold.
Bishop, Gold, Gold, Silver, Silver: trash the Silver, play $8 -> Platinum.
Bishop, Platinum, Gold, Gold, Silver: trash the Silver, play $11 -> Colony.

I think it's at least worth exploring the idea that in a Colony game, that's the better play.  I don't know it is, but do we have a lot of reason to think it's not?

352
Yeah, I think the key thing to realize about Bazaar on this board is that while it's ordinarily a mediocre card, Wharf is powerful enough to get you to $5 pretty quickly, which takes away Bazaar's problems.

353
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 24, 2011, 02:11:42 pm »
Indeed. My comment was not so much to go coppersmith instead of bank on a board with both, but rather that coppersmith may be another card that could push me to a village/smithy deck.

Yeah, sorry, I understood, I was just saying that my guess would be that it would perform similarly-but-a-little-worse, so probably not worth it in a Province game, worth it in a Colony game (assuming the dominant alternative strategy is "Big Money").

354
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 24, 2011, 01:21:46 pm »
How does the addition of a coppersmith affect things? I would think that coppersmith would be a good compliment to smithy/village.

Typically smithy/village fails because it spends all it's tempo buying smith/village and all that combo does is draw a bunch of copper. So what if you get a coppersmith or three and turn those coppers you have drawn into serious buying power?

I suspect that Village/Smithy/Market/Coppersmith is a lot like Village/Smithy/Market/Bank, but a little bit worse.  Banks, after all, essentially do the same thing, but don't take Actions to use.

355
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 07:27:55 pm »
I'm not sure if it's your implementation, but this gets DESTROYED by a simple Village/Goons bot I just whipped up.

Interesting!  So probably the Smithies are a net drag.  I didn't try to optimize that bot a whole lot because it was awfully good to start with, but maybe the story here is just "get lots of Goons."  I only tested against BM + 1 Goon.  Maybe BM + 4 Goons would have destroyed it, too.

356
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 07:13:03 pm »
Okay, Village/Smithy/Goons (even without any trashing!) is surprisingly good: it stomps both BM + Smithy and BM + Goons.

Code: [Select]
<player name="Village/Smithy/Goons">
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Goons"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="3.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Goons">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Goons"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Smithy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Smithy"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Village"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Village"/>
</player>

357
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 06:54:13 pm »
@Epoch: I wouldn't try Remodel or Steward because they involve non-trivial decisions that are highly dependent on your strategy and the context of the game (neither of which the simulator is able to grasp)

Yeah, that's what I thought.  Shame, I'd love to try it.  (Don't take that as a knock:  I'm a software engineer, I've got an idea of how hard the simulator was to build, and I think it's completely awesome).

358
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 06:39:19 pm »
The value from village/smithy is that you enable another engine with it.

We may be having a terminology difference here.  What I mean by "not another engine" is that there is no card drawer as good as or better than Smithy, and no source of +2 Action other than Village (except maybe Hamlet?  I'd also potentially accept +2 Actions that don't give card advantage, though I think that's a slightly different question), and none of the "I'm an engine all by myself" cards like Laboratory or Alchemist.

If we want a full list of cards I'm excluding, I think this is pretty exhaustive:

Card Drawers:  No Council Room, Torturer, Rabble, Nobles, Envoy, or Wharf.  Maybe no Courtyard?  Not sure.
+2 Actions:  No Shanty Towns, Native Villages, Walled Villages, Fishing Villages, Mining Villages, Worker's Villages, Hamlets (maybe), Cities, Bazaars, Nobles (again!) or Festivals.
"All By Itself" Engine cards:  No Minions, Laboratories, Alchemists, Hunting Parties, or maybe Scrying Pools.

A variation might be yes to Hamlets and Festivals.

Or, to put the whole thing a different way:  I'm interested in decks which utilize Village/Smithy to draw a very large hand and have lots of Actions, and then plays whatever actions and treasure and such off of having done that.  What I'm trying to exclude is "other ways to draw a very large hand" or "other ways to get lots of Actions," because, of course, we know that there are variations of "other ways to draw a very large hand" which are just in and of themselves strong.

359
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 06:18:17 pm »
I managed to get the Village/Smithy engine deck (with Banks and Markets) to slightly beat (49-47) the BM - Smithy/Bank:

Interesting.  I didn't even think of just straight-up using the money count thing to control the first Province mega-buy.

Since you're here -- is there a point in playing around with Steward or the various Remodel-type cards in the simulator, or does it not know how to play them?

360
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 06:11:35 pm »
It's not your place to be the guy who follows me around looking down your nose at me every time I respond to someone who is being rude to me. It is on you for choosing to derail threads like this time and time again.

You're the one derailing the thread.  I don't know how it is that you read the first post and thought that it was asking for you to respond with one sentence that says, "+buys are nice," but it was an egregious misreading.  When I clarified that I was looking for specifics again, and you again posted generalities, and then chose to get all upset when I repeated for a third time that the thread was about specifics, not one-sentence generalities that everyone here already knows, that was all on you, dude.

361
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 06:04:36 pm »
1. What's that 70/30 based on? Gut instinct or simulator data?

Simulator, albeit not a ton of tweaking the BMU robot.

2. Colony games will definitely help the village/smithy engine.
3. If it's based on sim data, can you post the bots? I'd bet I can tune your Smithy/Bank/BM deck a bit better than you have it.

Sure:

Code: [Select]
<player name="COL - Village/Smithy/Market/Bank">
   <buy name="Colony">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Village"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Smithy"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="3.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Market">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Market"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Bank">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Bank"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Market">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Market"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="3.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Smithy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Smithy"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Village"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Village"/>
</player>

Code: [Select]
<player name="COL - BM + Smithy (+bank)">
   <buy name="Colony"/>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Smithy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Smithy"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Platinum"/>
   <buy name="Bank"/>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
</player>

362
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 06:03:24 pm »
One factor is what is your opponent doing?  On their turns 1-4, did they buy Smithy, Silver, Silver, Gold?  If your opponent isn't going BM and building a cute engine, it gives you more wiggle room to build your own engine.  How many Markets to buy?  Well did your opponent buy 2 or 3 Markets?  Then in that case you can buy 2.

Let us assume that your opponent is a robot who plays Big Money Ultimate + the best single enabling Action card on the table + any kingdom-treasure cards that are helpful, period, no ifs, ands or buts, and you know this before the game starts.

Though I think Remodeling style cards are key... if you can Remodel Copper->Cellar or Estate->Smithy, you are replacing dead cards with cards that help keep the engine going. Sure, you can draw Smithy and no Village... using Cellar or Wharehouse can help you dig for that Village you need to kick off a big turn.

Personally, I'd be kind of surprised if Remodel, alone, was enough to make such an engine work.

And attacks!  If you can build an engine that can play attack cards more reliably (not just Goons) than that draw power and those big turns have a pay off.  If you can play Militia followed by Masquerade, for example, iiitt iizzz NICE, eh?

Though both Militia and Masquerade hurt you, and both are excellent single-action cards for your BMU-robot opponent to use against you (Masquerade more so, I assume).

363
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 05:56:59 pm »
I think there's virtually nothing that's going to make me want to build a deck around village/smithy as an engine. I say virtually nothing because I can't think of anything right now.

Village/Smithy/Market/Bank in a Colony game, with the right buy strategy (which is sort of a pain to create in the simulator but I think is pretty intuitive in real life: build your engine first, as your engine gets going, get 1 Market, buy two Banks, get a couple more Markets for the additional buys and the help to your engine) does really well against Smith + Bank + Big Money in the Colony games.  Like, 70/30 well.

Of course, it may be that on that board, there's another strategy which would trump both, but with just those cards, I don't see it.

364
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 05:31:00 pm »
Well... opening Village/Smithy would be much worse than Smithy/Silver and probably worse than Smithy/Nothing.

Though that may be tied up in the fact that BM+Smithy is just better than a Village/Smithy engine.

Trashing would help (particularly Remake, I imagine)... but then again trashing would make most any engine better, and there are plenty of stronger engines than Village/Smithy.

Sure, but...  obviously Village/Smithy is a weak engine.  I know that.  It's fine to posit cards that would help any engine, it's just not fine to change which engine we're talking about.  Like, we'll assume that no better engines are available on the board, otherwise, well, we wouldn't be looking at how to make Village/Smithy work.

So, trashing.  I admit that I'm not sure exactly how handle trashing in a deck like this.  Like, how many Coppers do you trash?  Do you buy Silvers to maintain buying power, or do something like reduce the deck's total buying power to $4 and get a "draw entire deck every turn" and then increase buying power only after you're at that goal?

Apothecary would be very useful in digging through a deck with lots of junk, and help chain your cards in the proper order... but then again filtering your cards would make most any engine better, and there are plenty of stronger engines than Village/Smithy.

Apothecary dropped into the deck would make it better, sure, but when would you actually buy Apothecary to enable Village/Smithy?  I mean, I presume you wouldn't try to create a Village/Smithy/Apothecary/nothing else but treasure and victory cards deck.  So, can you see a kingdom where you'd go Village/Smithy+Apothecary?  If so, what are the other cards in the kingdom?

Wharf would be a good compliment to a deck that requires chaining Villages and Smithies, and provides a +buy... but then again Wharf would make most any engine better, and there are plenty of stronger engines than Village/Smithy.

I suspect that with Wharf on the board, it would be a Village/Wharf engine, not a Village/Smithy engine.

If Goons were on the board with good trashing, I'd might try and chain something together... but if the only +2 actions card is Village and the best card-drawer is Smithy, you'd need a significant number of the villages and enough +buys to get the "massive turn" to occur without making the Goons a mere novelty.

Would you go for Village/Smithy/Goons/Chapel?

365
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 05:19:48 pm »
I don't see how to make village/smithy/market/bank work in a Province game.  Those are all cards with no non-trivial decisions to make, so I believe the simulator should be good with them.  The best I've managed is 42% for the engine versus a big money deck with one smithy and which buys banks at $7 exactly.

Anyone want to take a stab at it?  Here are my files:

Code: [Select]
<player name="Village/Smithy/Market/Bank">
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Village"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Smithy"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="3.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Market">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Market"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Bank">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Bank"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Market">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Market"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="3.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Smithy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Smithy"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Village"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Village"/>
</player>

Code: [Select]
<player name="BM + Smithy (+bank)">
   <buy name="Province"/>
   <buy name="Smithy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Smithy"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Bank"/>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
</player>


EDIT to add:  Village/Smithy/Market/Bank STOMPS Big Money in a Colony game, however.

366
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 04:35:09 pm »
Because building a Village/Smithy engine is usually slow, and you need some way to catch up once it's built. If you don't have multiple buys, you won't have enough turns to catch up. If you don't have huge buying power, you won't have enough money to catch up.

I am very clear on the theory, the question is what is enough?  Perhaps oddly, I can't recall ever having played a game of Dominion where Village/Smithy was on the table.  It seems like the weakest real "engine" deck -- the one that gets you nothing but cards and actions, and not a glut of either, and requires two different cards so it's more susceptible to stalling than, say, Laboratories.

Yes, I know, guys, with an engine you want buys and the ability to put together a mega-turn.  Thanks, I've played a few hundred games of Dominion or so, I have a general concept of how engines work.  But specifics.  How does this, particular, weak engine work?

Not with Worker's Village.  Not with Torturer.  Not with Council Room.  An actual Village/Smithy engine.

Okay, so, one combo that guided at least would regard as enough would be village/smithy/market/bank.  Fair enough.  What's the game plan there?  Open Village/Smithy?  Buy no money besides Banks?  What ratio of villages/smithies do you go for?  How many Markets?  How many Banks?



Asking for Bank/Market seems like a high bar.  Anyone think it's doable with less?  How about Coppersmith/Market?

Would you try it with Village/Smithy/Steward/Pawn?  Steward for the trashing early and the money or cards to shore up your engine later.  Pawn as +buy when you want it, a cantrip when you want that, a card/money when you've got extra actions to throw around?  I doubt this would function, but I'm curious.  What about Village/Smithy/Steward/Hamlet?  What if you threw Conspirators into the mix?

Would anyone even remotely try it with terminal +buy?  Salvager, maybe?

What if the board was Village/Smithy/Goons?

367
Dominion General Discussion / Re: What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 03:00:39 pm »
+Buys and some way to get huge buying power out of a huge hand. Ironworks helps too.

Okay, but specifically what?  I mean, if Woodcutter/Village/Smithy is on the board, is that enough to convince you that Village/Smithy is dominant over Big Money + Smithy?  How about Market instead of Woodcutter, arguably a better +buy in this case?

368
Dominion General Discussion / What would make you go Village/Smithy?
« on: August 23, 2011, 01:25:23 pm »
Here's the set up:

1.  It's a Province game.  Village and Smithy are in the kingdom.  You know that Village/Smithy loses to Big Money + 1 Smithy.

a.  What other cards on the board would convince you to go for a Village/Smithy engine over Big Money + 1 Smithy?

b.  What's your general buy strategy to get all of those cards?  When do you start buying Villages?  What proportions do you try to obtain?

And:

2.  Same questions, but a Colony game.



NB:  You can assume other cards, but not a whole other engine.  No, "Torturer, and I'll use Torturer instead of Smithy."  We know Village/Torturer is good.

369
Game Reports / Re: Chapel / Bishop
« on: August 23, 2011, 12:48:15 pm »
Sure, you'll take a Gold instead of a Silver if you happen to hit $6 after you have a Bishop and before you have 2 Silvers in your deck, but it's unlikely to matter.

I'm going to say that I don't think it ever matters, in fact.  I can't even arrange a deck (obviously, by that I mean a Chapel/Bishop deck aiming for the 5 card deck), with perfect shuffle luck, that gets a Province turn 7 this way.  I'm not sure I can even arrange a deck with perfect shuffle luck where the difference between a Gold and a Silver means that it goes from turn 9 to turn 8.

Okay, here's a way it might matter: it's a Colony game, not a Province game, and you end up on the turn you trash your Chapel having Gold/Silver/Chapel/Bishop/Copper, you trash the chapel, getting $7, so your five card deck is Gold/Gold/Bishop/Silver/Copper, trash the Copper, start to go.  Now your opponent gets ahead of you briefly, but they aren't doing a trashing strategy, so their deck is losing buying power with green cards.  You think it's worthwhile to buy non-Provinces to amass victory tokens without ending the game.  Ordinarily, you'd buy and trash Golds for 4 VP each turn if that happened, but in this game you can buy and trash Platinums for 5 VP tokens each turn.

Obviously, not something you should even remotely plan or shoot for.

370
Game Reports / Re: Chapel / Bishop
« on: August 23, 2011, 02:45:11 am »
OK, here's another one then: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201108/22/game-20110822-171917-4a9037cb.html

Let's go through that one:

— guided's turn 1 —
Buy Chapel

— guided's turn 2 —
Nothing

— guided's turn 3 —
Draws C/C/C/C/E
Buys Bishop

— guided's turn 4 —
Draws Chapel/C/C/E/E
Trashes C/C/E/E

State of draw right before end of turn 4 draw: 1 Copper
State of discard pile before reshuffle: 4 Coppers, 1 Estate, 1 Chapel, 1 Bishop
Draw is 4 Coppers, 1 Estate, leaving a draw pile of 1 Copper, 1 Chapel, 1 Bishop -- Chapel and Bishop both miss the shuffle.

— guided's turn 5 —
Buys a Silver

State of draw pile: 1 Copper, 1 Chapel, 1 Bishop
State of discard pile before reshuffle: 4 Coppers, 1 Estate, 1 Silver.
Draw is Chapel, Bishop, Copper x3.
Left in draw pile after reshuffle: 2 Coppers, 1 Estate, 1 Silver

— guided's turn 6 —
Chapels Copper x3
State of draw pile: 2 Coppers, 1 Estate, 1 Silver
Discard pile:  Chapel, Bishop
Draw is: 2 Coppers, 1 Estate, 1 Silver, 1 Bishop -- Chapel misses the shuffle again.

— guided's turn 7 —
Bishops an Estate, buys a Silver.
Draw pile is: 1 Chapel
Discard pile:  2 Coppers, 2 Silvers, Bishop

...and from there, play is predictable and deterministic, as you only need to trash one more Copper, which you're guaranteed to draw with a trasher.  So, yeah, that was a case of the chapel missing two shuffles and the Bishop missing one shuffle -- it's admittedly a case where Chapel/Nothing sucks, but obviously there's a chance for either strategy to miss two shuffles.

Look man, weird pathological cases for Chapel/nothing aren't especially less common than weird pathological cases for Bishop/Chapel.

How do you know?

Missing turn 9 in both cases is very rare (assuming turn 3/4 Chapel). The thing that actually matters is weighing the chance of making turn 8 vs. the extra chance of dropping Chapel to turn 5 with Bishop/Chapel.

I agree that that's the more important issue.

If you're talking about playing one strategy against the other, you need to consider that Bishop/Chapel is likely up a VP chip in the case where both make turn 9, though of course playing one against the other there's the whole other issue of trashing on your opponent's turn that we haven't analyzed at all yet.

I think that in the case of a mirror strategy, Bishop/Chapel is the way to go.  The extra shot at a trash on turn 3/4 probably significantly increases the odds of a turn 8 Province, and getting a turn 9 Province essentially is headed for a draw or a coin-flip based on who Bishoped the most Estates.

371
Game Reports / Re: Chapel / Bishop
« on: August 22, 2011, 06:16:00 pm »
You should nearly guarantee it at turn 9.
Well, icky cases like this pop up and push you out to turn 10: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201108/22/game-20110822-142645-6f762582.html

You misplayed it.  Should have just gone ahead and trashed all three coppers on turn 6, and not bought anything.  Turn 7, you still would have been able to trash a Copper with the Bishop and buy your second Silver that turn.  You'd have been on-track for turn 9 at that point.

And that was all guaranteed.  As of turn 6, your deck was a Bishop, a Chapel, a Silver, and 5 Coppers.  After you trashed three Coppers, it'd be Bishop, Chapel, Silver, 2 Coppers.  There's no way for that deck not to be able to trash a Copper and buy a Silver on turn 7.  Then you'd have gone into Turn 8 with a deck that was Bishop, Chapel, Silver, Silver, Copper -- five cards, so obviously you could trash Chapel and go into the combo.

But the conflict doesn't hurt except to torpedo your chances for turn 8 (which you can't get anyway with Chapel/nothing). You still make turn 9 so long as Chapel doesn't miss a shuffle.

You can miss a turn 9 without Chapel ever missing a shuffle (I can show you how, if you like, but it's kind of complicated and I don't know that it proves much), just by drawing enough "keeper" cards with it every time.  I don't know how likely that is, but it's more likely than with Chapel/Nothing, which guarantees you the ability to trash 4 cards with Chapel if you draw it turn 3 or 4.


Example of a deck play that would miss turn 9 with Bishop/Chapel, without Chapel ever missing a shuffle:

Turn 1:  $4: Bishop
Turn 2:  $3: Chapel
Turn 3:  Bishop/Chapel/Estate/Cx2: trash Estate/Cx2 (total opening cards left: 5 Coppers, 2 Estates)
Turn 4:  Cx3/Ex2: Buy Silver
Turn 5: Draw C/C, Reshuffle deck consisting of: (Cx3, Ex2, Silver, Bishop, Chapel).  Draw: Silver, Bishop, Chapel.  Chapel 2xC
Turn 6:  Cx3/Ex2: Buy Silver
Reshuffle deck consisting of Cx3, Ex2, Silver x2, Bishop, Chapel
Turn 7:  Draw: Silverx2, Bishop, Chapel, Estate.  Bishop Estate.
Turn 8:  Draw Cx3, E, reshuffle deck consisting of (Silver x2, Bishop, Chapel).  Draw Silver.  Do nothing.
Turn 9:  Draw Bishop, Chapel, Silver, reshuffle deck consisting of (Silver, Cx3, E).  Draw C, E.  Trash C, E.
Turn 10:  Draw Cx2, reshuffle deck consisting of (Silver x2, Bishop, Chapel).  Draw Chapel, Silver, Silver.  Trash C.
Turn 11:  Finally have deck of Bishop/Chapel/Silver x2/Copper, enter combo.  Buy first Province turn 12.

That's obviously ridiculously unlucky, conflicting tons of keeper cards every time.  And it's also very, very slow.  But I don't know how much the various combinations of conflicts that take you past turn 9 are.  They're more likely than with Chapel/Nothing.

I guess I prioritize a higher chance of hitting turn 9 and lower chance of going turn 10 or later higher than a minority chance of hitting turn 8.  I'm not sure that Chapel/Nothing reduces your odds of going turn 10 or later, but my intuition is that it does.

Of course, all of this analysis ignores opponents using Bishop, which is an interesting case.  It probably makes Bishop/Chapel better, since you may "make up" a lost trash off your opponent's turn even if you have a conflict.

372
Game Reports / Re: Chapel / Bishop
« on: August 22, 2011, 05:01:55 pm »
I am really not seeing how Chapel/nothing is supposed to work. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I cannot get the golden deck by turn 8, and I often don't get it by turn 9.

You should nearly guarantee it at turn 9.  You're right, though, I misspoke, you don't get it by turn 8, since you need to buy four final cards and you have four "dead" turns (buy Chapel, buy nothing, trash and buy nothing x2).  I got to thinking of the turn where you trash your Chapel as the "first combo turn," but you don't actually buy a Province on that turn.

Here's a typical game log:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201108/22/game-20110822-140002-1a4d9691.html

The only reason you should miss turn 9 is if you get the 1/11 Chapel-on-turn-5 draw or a C/C/E/E/E draw on turn 3 or 4.  And in the case of the C/C/E/E/E, you do get your first Province turn 10 instead -- you just missed a buy, not any trashing.

So, for a Bishop/Chapel opening, you have a 30.3% chance of a conflict (according to: http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/03/09/basic-opening-probabilities/).  In which case the Bishop actually hurt you over going Chapel/Nothing (since you get one fewer card trashed with no benefit).  You also have a 1/6 chance of getting a Chapel on turn 5, compared to the 1/11 chance with Chapel/Nothing.

In return, you have a chance for one better turn of tempo.

373
Game Reports / Re: Chapel / Bishop
« on: August 22, 2011, 04:22:40 pm »
Have you actually contemplated the mechanics of building the golden 5-card deck with this strategy? There is no benefit in early Gold, and the Gold buy is an absolute gimme: Bishop/Chapel/Silver/Silver/Copper is the typical 5-card deck at turn 7 or 8. If you already have 2 Silvers and you get $6 in your buy phase before you're down to 4 cards, you should literally pass on your buy phase. Buying an extra card (even a Gold) will only wreck your tempo.

I just played several solitaire games and about 25% of the time, I had difficulty buying the Gold.  Multiple times on opening Silver/Chapel, I got to Bishop the Chapel->buying first Province on turn 8, full combo (ie, trash the Province, buy the Province) turn 9.  Without giving my opponent any trashes in the early game.

The VP chips can matter (in many cases where the opponent gets 3 Provinces),

Uh, name one!  In the case where your opponent get 3 Provinces, they've got 18 VP in Provinces, maybe +3 VP in Estates, for 21 VP.  You have 25 VP in tokens from your 5 trashed Provinces.  Where, precisely, are they picking up the extra 4 VP that make it essential for you to pick up one or two more VP?  They're sneaking an extra Duchy + Estate buy into this incredible fast-tempo deck?  Did they do a Bishop-trash, allowing you additional tempo in the early game?  Did they Bishop a Gold in the late game, and still manage to guarantee themselves a Province each turn to keep up with your 5/3 split?

but more importantly trashing an extra card can give you an extra turn of tempo.

...I think that the proper opening is actually Chapel/Nothing.  Gets you the tempo of the extra Bishop trash without worrying about conflicts, reducing the chances that Chapel comes turn 5, and unless you get the unlucky $2 hand turn 3/4, you should be able to buy the Silver/Silver/Bishop turns 3 or 4/5/6.

In fact, I think that you literally guarantee your first Province buy on turn 8 with Chapel/Nothing unless you get a C/C/E/E/E hand on turn 3 or 4.  In which case I think that you guarantee your first Province buy on turn 9.

EDIT:  Duh.  Of course it doesn't guarantee any such thing if your Chapel comes turn 5.  But that's a 1/11 chance instead of a 1/6 chance.

374
Game Reports / Re: Chapel / Bishop
« on: August 22, 2011, 03:36:51 pm »
You only need 2 Silvers, and there is no difficulty in getting them.

Sure, but there's difficulty in getting the Gold, and having the Silvers earlier makes it easier to pick up the Gold (the Silvers having $1 or $2 better buying power than the Bishop, of course).

Silver/Chapel collision is not any more damaging than Silver/Bishop collision with this strategy. The Silver opening has no upside that the Bishop opening does not have, and the Bishop opening has the additional upside of trashing an extra card for a VP chip or two.

Sure the Silver opening has an upside that the Bishop one doesn't:  better buying power earlier, and less opponent trashing.  Okay, there's only one difficult buy you're trying to make (Gold), but you don't want to have to pass on trashing a Copper because it would take you below the total deck buying power necessary to buy a Gold.

And I don't think that getting one or two extra VP chips should ever be relevant in this deck.  I mean, what's the circumstance where that could be relevant?

If you get to your five card deck, you should be guaranteed a victory (just on Provinces) unless he has already bought one or more Provinces and has such a deck that can continue to match your guaranteed one Province per turn until the end of the game, in which case you're essentially guaranteed a loss.  Like, seriously, what's the circumstance where you might be missing 2 VP, and in which you can't just buy a Gold and trash that in the end-game for an extra 4 VP?  This is a game that is won or lost in 4, 5, or 6 VP chunks, not 1-2 VP chunks.

375
Game Reports / Re: Chapel / Bishop
« on: August 22, 2011, 03:21:49 pm »
After a bunch more playtesting: Turn 8 or 9 for the first Province buy (to form the golden 5-card deck) is nearly guaranteed so long as you get Chapel on turn 3 or 4, with turn 8 being quite common actually. If Chapel falls to turn 5 you're absolutely screwed - I've found no satisfactory way to compensate for that mischance. You can basically switch to Bishop + Big Money (ending up with several Provinces and several Golds in your deck, only trashing a Province when it allows you to immediately buy another one) but prospects are quite dim.

Why, in Bishop + Big Money, would you only trash a Province if it allows you to immediately buy another one?  I understand that the 1 VP penalty for trashing a Province can bite you, but if you're fairly early in the game, I'd trash a Province for better hands with the hope of buying more Provinces (or even Duchies) and so not end with a 4-4 Province split.

This is why play rules in the simulator would be awesome.  I think there would be a ton of value in seeing what the optimal Bishop trashing strategy in BM-Bishop was.  I don't know what the optimal strategy is -- and I suspect it's fairly complex -- but I doubt that "only trash a Province if that gets you to $8" is it.

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