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[Fabian]

Fabian beats Volkmar 4-0

Game 1 Fabian 33 - 21 Volkmar
It seems we've both done our research here, as we both open pretty confidently with (what I think is) pretty good choices. We both buy Worker's Village over Lab/Vault/Counting House in the early game when we hit $5, for instance. Our draws lead to me getting Golems but no Apothecaries, while he gets lots of Apothecaries but no Golems, and I feel ok about my chances of a megaturn, but obviously the game can go very fast. In the end, I do get my combo going on turn 13, and with $33 and three buys I can comfortably buy the last 3 Provinces. This game highlights what I really dislike about playing pre-determined sets (I've ranted about this before, I'm sure), as while the kingdom is very cool with some great synergy and potential for fun stuff etc, it's all ruined by the possibility/opportunity to prepare. I think we both had a very clear idea of what worked on this board as a result of reading game logs and thoughts from good players (and maybe some solitaire games, maybe even some simulating?), and it takes away most of the skill of Dominion, in my opinion. I didn't play Dominion this game, I followed my predetermined buy rules and just kinda hoped the draws would line up properly (which they more or less did, so I won). Rant over.

Game 2 Fabian 30 - 29 Volkmar
Jack/Lookout opening for both of us, with various other action cards to follow. The game is again over in 13 turns, looking good for Volkmar who has the tie-breaker when he buys the penultimate Province, but I can Tournament myself a Duchy on my last turn and buy the last Province for a one point victory. Very quick game, very close game.

Game 3 Fabian 63 - 45 Volkmar
Silver/Trader for Volkmar and Silver/Cutpurse for me. I feel Trader is probably a bit slow here, as while it leads to a better deck, the more important matter is quickly reaching $6 for Gold and Goons on this board, imo. I grab a few Gold before Goons, as I want to avoid early terminal collisons, and the $2 from Goons won't contribute as much in the early/mid game, imo. At this point I feel this game will turn into a pretty drawn out slugfest with Goons flying everywhere, and being able to get to $6 and later $8 more easily while constantly being Goons'ed is, I feel, more important than a few extra VP chips in the midgame from earlier Goons. What ends up happening is I'm able to buy 6 Provinces over the course of the game, which coupled with various other VP sources ends up in a pretty comfortable win.

Game 4 Fabian 26 - 25 Volkmar
Mountebank board with Trader. He opens Silver/Baron, which I think is reasonable, and then draws Estate Estate Estate Copper Copper on turn 3. Very harsh. I go Silver/Feast, looking to get a one-off Mountebank while loading up on a few Traders and money. Things work out nicely as I get a 4Copper/Feast hand on turn 4 and quickly get the components I want shuffled into my deck. From there, we mostly buy money and Traders, and perform various shenanigans with our Traders. Sometimes our Mountebanks hit, sometimes they give out lots of Silvers. In the end it's looking like a draw when Volkmar buys the penultimate Province and leads by $6, but the Mountebank I have for my next turn doesn't collide with Trader or Curse, and I can buy the last Province with a one point lead instead of drawing the game. Very close.

Overall they were fun matches, and I enjoyed playing you Volkmar. Thanks for the games and good luck in the future!

[RisingJaguar]

Game 1 Fabian 33 - 21 Volkmar
It seems we've both done our research here, as we both open pretty confidently with (what I think is) pretty good choices. We both buy Worker's Village over Lab/Vault/Counting House in the early game when we hit $5, for instance. Our draws lead to me getting Golems but no Apothecaries, while he gets lots of Apothecaries but no Golems, and I feel ok about my chances of a megaturn, but obviously the game can go very fast. In the end, I do get my combo going on turn 13, and with $33 and three buys I can comfortably buy the last 3 Provinces. This game highlights what I really dislike about playing pre-determined sets (I've ranted about this before, I'm sure), as while the kingdom is very cool with some great synergy and potential for fun stuff etc, it's all ruined by the possibility/opportunity to prepare. I think we both had a very clear idea of what worked on this board as a result of reading game logs and thoughts from good players (and maybe some solitaire games, maybe even some simulating?), and it takes away most of the skill of Dominion, in my opinion. I didn't play Dominion this game, I followed my predetermined buy rules and just kinda hoped the draws would line up properly (which they more or less did, so I won). Rant over.

Re: Rant.

As much as I agree with you, that the a good majority of skill (and why I love it) is the ability to devise a plan on the spot, and be able to alter it as need be.  This whole thing takes a lot of it away, as not only do you get to play solitaire games and what not but you see what others play and say. 

With that said, I think the kingdoms have been interesting enough that different ideas can prevail as shown by the different winning ideas so far.  It's something we definitely don't get to exercise often (aside from simulations).  Actually, essentially it's one person's simulation/buy order vs. another which does take away from the spirit, but is something new for us to try.

Side note: has there ever been a simulator competition?

[DG]

Side note: has there ever been a simulator competition?

Yes but there's typically someone who posts up a very good script very quickly and it kills off the contest. I've got another idea in mind but it will fall to the same problem.

[Fabian]

Can't you just post a kingdom, let people make their bot in private, PM them to whoever is doing the contest, and have a round robin tournament with all the bots (each bot plays each other bot with random starting hands, random starting positions and 100k (or more) games), and the bot with the highest win% across all matches wins?

For a "good" tournament, it would mean people needed to add buy rules that were conditioned on the opponents deck though, which is maybe not doable with the simulator right now? In any case, it sounds like a kinda fun idea.

[RisingJaguar]

Can't you just post a kingdom, let people make their bot in private, PM them to whoever is doing the contest, and have a round robin tournament with all the bots (each bot plays each other bot with random starting hands, random starting positions and 100k (or more) games), and the bot with the highest win% across all matches wins?

For a "good" tournament, it would mean people needed to add buy rules that were conditioned on the opponents deck though, which is maybe not doable with the simulator right now? In any case, it sounds like a kinda fun idea.

Yeah I was thinking of something like this.  Except there becomes real problems when the decks have interaction (ie. attacks and what not).  If it was a straight BM game (or less/none buy orders relating to opponent), I can see it being easy to do that kind of a game though.  Then there's the idea if its just one v. one? or do people get to tweak it, I think its better at one game only since its based on 10,000 games.  The other side makes it a weird for a rocks-paper-scissors i suppose.

Round Robin sounds actually very fair too.  Actually that sounds very very practical.  Or even sets of Round Robins (ie. 4s, 8s at a time or something)

I suck at simulators, but I'd love to see it happen. 

[Geronimoo]

The fixed set is very interesting and my first instinct that Tunnel is too slow seems to be correct. But do you consider it solved already, Fabian? Or might there still be tweaks? Like a second Coppersmith for an even bigger mega-turn or not going for a mega-mega-turn might be better (so you don't need so many Worker's Villages).

[Fabian]

Completely solved, well definitely not (of course). The exact correct strategy will be super dependant on your and your opponent's draws, too (as with all kingdoms). My initial feeling with going for mega-mega-turns is that you need to get lots of Golems, and fewer Apothecaries, for that to work. I feel like a double Coppersmith deck which aims for one or two turns of 4+ Province buys is going to be too slow against a more "normally paced" engine deck here, whereas on a Colony board I'd probably guess it's the other way around.

I do feel like a "smaller" engine (very roughly, I'd define that as an Apothecary type deck which aims to reliably buy 1 Province a turn once it's set up) isn't very good here compared to the medium engine (a deck capable of buying double Province and possibly more, basically the deck I got in my match). Being able to start greening slightly earlier but with a less powerful deck probably wouldn't work out for the small engine, as the engine decks' strengths grow exponentially, and three turns of single Province buying could easily be eclipsed by two turns of 2/3 Province buying by the more powerful engine deck (which, now that I think about it, is pretty much what happened in my game, although obviously it's not Volkmar's fault his draws don't let him buy Golems).

I also feel the big engine deck (second Coppersmith, more Worker's Villages (for more Coppers in early/midgame and more Provinces in lategame)) is too slow because, while the engine still grows exponentially, the time it would take to set up probably would be too much in a Province game, and there simply might not be enough points left available once a super engine kicks in.

Overall I feel like aiming for exactly one Coppersmith and exactly one Counting House and exactly one Chancellor is probably best if you can manage to get Golems, since playing lots of Golems in a turn will allow you to easily play those combo pieces. The deck consisting primarily of Apothecaries might just have to settle for (primarily) single Province turns though, except for the lucky turn here and there when it happens to draw Coppersmith naturally.

I haven't mentioned non-engines (let's say Vault/Tunnel BMesqe type stuff), since I think it doesn't stand a chance against anything on this board.

[theory]

Side note: has there ever been a simulator competition?

Yes but there's typically someone who posts up a very good script very quickly and it kills off the contest. I've got another idea in mind but it will fall to the same problem.

I considered doing something like this where the goal is not just to have the best winniing %age against BM, but to be able to have the best winning %age against the current bot.

So in other words, each week, you'd release a kingdom, and have two competitions: one where people tried to have the highest winning %age against predetermined strategy (probably BMU or DoubleJack), and a "ladder" that crowned any script that beat the current titleholder at least 50% (with the initial titleholder also being BMU).

I don't know how many people are interested in doing simulator stuff, however, but this could be a pretty neat idea.  (And in some ways, this would be "Platonic" Dominion.)

[lespeutere]

I tried (not in the match, but single player) to involve vault but not in a combo with tunnel:
I would've liked to draw lots of coppers with apothecaries, discard them all with vault, get them all back into my hand with counting house and play >= 2 coppersmiths. You get like 50$. Throw in some WVs and you're done.
My problem was to set up this engine and it felt heavily luck dependent. Maybe that's just because I sucked at building the engine. Or it really takes too long for a province game.

3 provinces in turn 16 and 18 each:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/14/game-20120214-033135-0a496bd2.html

[Mean Mr Mustard]

Apologies folks, I have been unavailable the last couple of days.  What is going on with 2. Olneyce vs. shark_bait?

[shark_bait]

We played a while ago.  The games should be posted earlier in the thread.  Olneyce won 4-2.