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1151

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Blooki's Puzzle #3 - 3's a crowd? Who says?

« on: July 28, 2011, 11:02:12 pm »

Apparently, we all forgot that it is actually better to replace the embargos by treasures if possible.

So the better solution would beuse cellar as your third action!

Details:

setup: Bank, Embargo, MV, Cellar, Scrying Pool, Counting House, Mint, Young Witch, black market (with a full BM deck), Contraband, Royal Seal.
The BM deck with the extra CH, SP, etc, should have enough action cards, more than 29 gold+39 silver+8 plat+9 contraband+9 royal seal+1 Talisman+1 Loan+1 HoP+1 Quarry=98 cards.

Start with 4*Plat+Scrying.
Scrying to get 9* embrago, 9*mv, CH, cellar, 94*actions, Venture.
MV to draw 9* banks. cellar to draw the 98 treasures. Venture to draw 8*Venture+last Bank.
Total=(12*5+29*3+39*2+59*1+9*1+9*3+9*2+3+(12+29+39+59+9+9+4)*10+55+36)=2042!


Edit: Forgot Harem. Also the Mint...

The new total would be 2049.

1152

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Blooki's Puzzle #3 - 3's a crowd? Who says?

« on: July 28, 2011, 09:35:12 pm »

Ah. I am really stupid.

Just use CR to draw 4 Platinums. The piles running out are copper and MV. Choosing Copper or Venture to run out should be the same. So the answer is 5*9+1*60+1*9+10*(9+60+9)+55+38-5=982!?

EDIT:

and apparently Bank also runs out. lol. 982-10-1=971.
Indeed sometimes one cannot cure one's own stupidity.

1153

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Blooki's Puzzle #3 - 3's a crowd? Who says?

« on: July 28, 2011, 08:57:41 pm »

Bingo! Man, you're good at these. I need to make them harder.

And part B is ridiculous because of Bank.

IMHO it is much harder to make puzzles than solving them . Great job!

When I asked about the unplayed treasures, I have thought about Banks. Then I forgot about it when I thought about Mint. Then I recalled it, just before you give the hint. lol

1154

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Blooki's Puzzle #3 - 3's a crowd? Who says?

« on: July 28, 2011, 08:25:43 pm »

Ouch. I know your trick now. Clever.

Now I know part C. KC+CR+any +buy. Play 10 Contrabands and then buy Mint. 1+4+10-1=14 buys left!


EDIT: I guess I roughly have it. Scrying pool to pull 10 MV+9 Embargo+Adventurer+CH+Venture. Originally have 4 Platinums. 10 MVs draw 10 banks. Adventurer pull another 2 platinums. Venture pulls 8 Ventures+1 Platinum. Total=5*7+1*60+1*9+(7+60+9)*10+55+38=957! Oops, did I get it wrong somewhere?

1155

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Blooki's Puzzle #3 - 3's a crowd? Who says?

« on: July 28, 2011, 07:42:32 pm »

I have to give up on part B... your number is too absurd.

While I can improve my solution using counting house or scrying pool, it in no way approaches the number you posted.

Let me double check that the +coin is the number when you only have 3 cards in play. i.e., treasure in your hand does not count.

It appears for me to be impossible, as your number is so large that there must be some setup-size limited effect with a single play of the card (unless it trashes itself). As far as I can see, the above two cards are the only examples.

1156

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Blooki's Puzzle #3 - 3's a crowd? Who says?

« on: July 28, 2011, 06:54:05 pm »

A: I think you are correct.

EDIT: thought of something better.

B: 10 MV+9 embargo+KC+Salvager+Vault, with opponent played KC*6 CR*10, your hand start with 9 horse traders, and you reveal them under opponents attack. You have 5+30+2+9-12-3=31 cards in hand when you play the vault, you salvage your colony in hand. Total=20+18+33+31=102 coins.

1157

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Blooki's Puzzle #1 - Sad Saboteur

« on: July 28, 2011, 03:52:35 pm »

How about this?

Our villain is so nice that he actually played a black market, putting 2 quarries down. He played a princess after that. Our hero has tons of KC and Goons but for some reason failed to even gain one VP token before this turn. (It is possible, as you can scrying pool all the goons and play other cards.)

1158

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Blooki's Puzzle #2 - Confused Swindler

« on: July 28, 2011, 03:34:20 pm »

because he/she reveals an watchtower?

Seriously, still thinking.

Or this?
That guy opened chapel-mint. And he reduced his deck to less than 5 cards in his third turn.

I was trying to come up with something that involves the moat player, so that having a moat becomes a constraint. Haven't found anything along that line though.

1159

Game Reports / Re: Dear My Opponent: I am Sorry

« on: July 28, 2011, 02:24:43 pm »

One game from a long time ago: KC-Saboteur-ambassador-pirate ship stuff. I forgot what was the card that tied them together, but I am at a point where I can feed my opponent 6 coppers a turn, pirate 3, and sabotage 3 times. The game went to a point where the card he bought was immediately sabotaged and he could almost never draw it in hand, while my pirate ships grew to $10 or something.

1160

Dominion Articles / Re: I don't know what this thread has turned into (was Making it to Level 42 -Lvl 5)

« on: July 28, 2011, 12:48:20 pm »

It seems I didn't state the timing rule I have in mind clear enough. You have (say) 3 seconds per move (play an action, buy a card, etc); only after the 3 seconds the timer starts to tick. This way I think 10-minute total thinking time is fair. 

1161

Dominion Articles / Re: I don't know what this thread has turned into (was Making it to Level 42 -Lvl 5)

« on: July 28, 2011, 12:12:33 pm »

It seems lots of people care about the ranking. So... why don't we have a more serious one? Since there is already this auto-match function, I don't think it requires a lot of modification. Rules may be something like this:

(i) you don't get to choose your opponent. The system chooses one player randomly, with a higher probability toward one with similar levels: (say a Gaussian distribution, with standard deviation 10 levels) once selected you cannot decline.
(ii) you can only play the same opponent, say 2 times a day.
(iii) you may ban say up to 5 cards, but you may not select cards.
(iv) 3 seconds after every move, there is a clock counting. For each move there is a max, say 3 mins to think, and 10 mins total for a game. (Mainly exist to prevent from dragging opponents, since you cannot decline them)

Does this sound fair?

1162

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Thought exercise: nerfs and buffs

« on: July 27, 2011, 02:54:28 am »

Yes I've read that one. But I am speaking on my own experience, instead of just taking the words for granted.

Also, it is conceivable to be too slow in the base set, which heavily inclines towards BM+x. I believe if you are to run a treasure heavy strategy a trash-3 chapel is not going to help much. However, in action heavy setups, I can even accept slow trashes from steward. I don't see how a trash-3 chapel can be so much worse than a multi-but-trash-only-two steward. And it costs less.

1163

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: The negatives

« on: July 27, 2011, 01:59:21 am »

Well, one reason is for fun. A card with negative price, negative value, and negative VP!

On the mechanics side, while it usually does not matter, it anti-synergizes with venture or adventurer. It sometimes becomes a decision whether you want to play it before HoP.

Also, the card you suggested should just be a Curse, since there is no function when it is played as a treasure. Also the +1 buy is necessary, or the +$4 you get when buying it is usually not going to be very useful.

Note that you can empty the pile of the negatives any time you want, because you get +1 buy whenever you buy one. It is almost never a good idea to do so, however.

The biggest use for the card, I think, is to overcome some bad draws. It's like, okay, I can take a hit by having one more useless card in my deck, but let me have some extra money to spend this turn. I would imagine there are lots of interesting strategies around this card. For example, how about a turn 3 possession?

1164

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: The negatives

« on: July 26, 2011, 08:31:12 pm »

For the Province, yes. But how about that when you are 3 points behind and there is only one Province left and you only have $6 in hand?

Or in turn 3, suppose you draw 2+P with Familiar the only potion-cost card on board. Do you want to take one of them and a Familiar?

Actually I have to nerf this card with the last line. Otherwise with 5-2 I will gladly open a Forge. Maybe even 4-3.

1165

Variants and Fan Cards / The negatives

« on: July 26, 2011, 07:43:57 pm »

This idea just came to me. I think it is a very nice card and has lots of uses! Some parameters can be further tuned though.

The negatives  Treasure/Victory

cost: -2
value: -1
VP: -2

When you buy this card, +1 buy. This card cannot be trashed in the buy phase.
When you trash this card, gain a curse.

1166

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Thought exercise: nerfs and buffs

« on: July 26, 2011, 07:14:15 pm »

Chapel: actually I don't think a trash-3 chapel will be unplayable. Just think of those games where you draw the chapel with silver or not drawing it until turn 5. Against a not-chapeling opponent, not all is lost.

Alchemy: the only part that annoys me so much is in a setup with Familiar and no other cursing card. You must open potion, even when you know you will be screwed when you draw 2+P. Sometimes a similar situation exists for Alchemists.

1167

Dominion Articles / Re: Making it to Level 42: Level 5- Money Makes Your Deck Go 'Round (Delayed)

« on: July 26, 2011, 12:37:00 pm »

For me it definitely seems harder to bloat your rank by playing random opponents. My personal high (lv 42) comes in when I played more with higher ranked players. When I play with automatch, like I almost always do nowadays, I stuck at lv 38-39.

It's hard to imagine there is a strategy which benefits more at playing noobs, unless one chooses the setup purposefully. It is nevertheless possible that playing noobs does not distinguish between certain skills and some players can benefit from that. It is hard to think one can just top the chart by doing this though.

1168

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Vineyard and University Cost Without Potion

« on: July 24, 2011, 11:11:27 pm »

I would probably let Vineyard be a $5 card and same for the University.

I think it is okay for the University to gain themselves. At $6 I feel it is overpriced mainly due to the fact that they can then usually be bought after the second shuffle and the gaining ability is quite a bit weakened. Note that 2+P is almost guaranteed in your second shuffle.

On the other side, in a setup where it is unwise to get 10+ action cards to your deck, you should probably never bother Vineyard. Making them cost less does not change this. However, in the case where you can easily add extra actions to your deck, Vineyard can easily reach 4 or 5 VP. $5 would probably be on the cheap side, if you compare it to Fairgrounds.

1169

General Discussion / Re: Math Nerds...

« on: July 23, 2011, 05:08:16 am »

http://timchen1017.wordpress.com/2011/07/23/murmur-between-papers-%E9%96%92%E8%81%8A%E7%B7%B4%E7%AD%86/

A lengthy blog post I just wrote to prove that I am a nerd. Frankly speaking I would be very surprised that anyone can finish reading it... It also happens to only have very very marginal connection to Dominion.

1170

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Must-Buy Cards?

« on: July 22, 2011, 03:58:37 pm »

The island is a good opener when there is no other trashing available. Think this way: with light trashing, a single trash is the same as having a lab in your deck! It is true that it only works one shuffle later and behaves worse than a curse for the immediate shuffle (since you need an action to get rid of it); nevertheless you get 2 VP out from it and it only costs $4.

1171

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Village/Smithy: A thought experiment

« on: July 19, 2011, 12:07:35 am »

Maybe not, but you usually want some pretty near-term benefits to buying a card, and the longer you have to wait, the better the reward ought to be. Chapel makes your deck much better very soon after you buy it. Villages in a deck with smithies do no such thing; you will need some kind of huge reward from a third card (goons for example) in order for it to be worth it.  Is monument a good enough reward? Probably not.

Well, sure you can try to think this way, but I don't think it is the most fruitful approach. Usually I would think in terms of what my deck should be when the engine sort-of completed. For (an again old) example, if the kingdom cards are just Village, Smithy, and Remodel, I am quite certain the opening should be village+remodel. This would be quite hard to explain in terms of short-term gains. I think this kind of statement always depends on the setup; after all the winning condition is to have the most VP only when the game ends. Any claim about how a mid game state assumes a certain way of building up the deck, which may not always be the case. Indeed, if you do the silver test for your buy every turn, what you wind up with would always be some BM+x strategy.

1172

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Village/Smithy: A thought experiment

« on: July 18, 2011, 03:32:23 pm »

While the end result is correct, the reasoning clearly isn't.

Note that there is entirely no reason why your buy has to optimize your current deck. One of the key advances to a better player, I assume, is to consider both things: how a buy affect your deck immediately and how it will be a role in the deck you are building up to.

Or for an example, strictly following this logic opening chapel won't do any good. The starting deck only gets worse, in terms of buying power, with that extra chapel.

1173

Other Games / Re: What other games are as good as Dominion?

« on: July 18, 2011, 12:56:27 pm »

Power grid is actually an easy game to gang up in some sense. I remember a while a go I have played some 3-player games on BSW with my girl friend and some random player. You can imagine how we block the third guy in the initial stage of the game!

Also although not really a ganging up situation, I found it fairly often that a player who fails to win can decide who will win the game.

1174

Other Games / Re: Bridge

« on: July 18, 2011, 12:46:19 pm »

For the question in the OP, I think it is good to note that the nature of the two games mentioned are inherently different.

For Texas Hold'em, the technical difficulty of the game stopped after the chances are calculated. It is difficult for human being to calculate those on the fly, but a table can be made.

On the other hand, there is no absolute best strategy at how you place your bet, besides some really bad moves which are just against the odds. To win the game more often than not, depends more on reading your opponents.

If you compare Bridge to Texas Hold'em, the technical difficulty is a lot higher. However, the "reading your opponents" part is significantly reduced, especially when there is some skill difference between the two sides on the technical part of the game. Comparing Spades and Bridge is a different question though. The two games are so similar in nature that I could say that bridge is the more interesting game in almost every aspect.

I'd like to say that luck is not that greatly reduced in duplicated situations, however. Sure, you don't get punished by holding bad cards, but that is probably the only luck factor cured by playing duplicate. In a pairs game, even this luck factor is not completely thrown away. Let me provide a very simple example of luck in a duplicate situation: suppose you are declarer, in the trump suit you have AQJxx in dummy vs. Txxxx in hand (total of 10 cards.) What should you play from your hand? Without any other information the correct play (or the percentage play) is to play to the Queen (unless the King drops from the left hand opponent of course) which will succeed 50% of the time. But roughly 1/8 of the time this play will lose to a novice who just play from the highest card he has.
 

1175

Dominion Articles / Re: Dominion 101: The Village

« on: July 16, 2011, 05:56:10 pm »

Interesting, as I found the most common situation where village is desired is that when deck thinning is possible. Without deck thinning village is usually marginal unless in highly uncommon setups(ie, village+smithy+remodel). That is, u only get a village in mid game when you have $3-$4 but not interested in yet another silver.