Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[hhelibebcnofnena]

This thread seems to have turned into a discussion on the actual meaning of strictly better, and segura brought up the example of Mining Village, which would be strictly better than Village at the same cost. This got me thinking about what can actually make a card strictly better (in a purely pedantic context) than another card. Here is the list I came up with:


"Strictly better effects" (not counting Possession):

- Adding a choice (such as Mining Village)
- Adding a vanilla bonus other than +Cards* (+Cards are not strictly better in draw to x engines, or if you don't want to trigger a reshuffle) +Buy
- Adding +Coffers, +Villagers, + or +
- Replacing + with +Coffers or Replacing +Actions with +Villagers
- Adding VP value to a card which is already a Victory card
- Any ability adding any other "strictly better ability" to another card (such as non +Cards Adventures tokens)

Effects which would be "strictly better effects" if you removed one or two specific cards from the game:
- Adding + (Storyteller), +Actions (Storyteller or Diadem)
- Adding +Coffers (Swashbuckler) or Replacing + with +Coffers (Black Market and Swashbuckler)

Can anyone come up with something not on the list so far?

[GendoIkari]

Adding both +Action and + can cause the same issues as adding +Cards, when combined with Diadem and Storyteller.

Replacing with Coffers doesn't work because of Black Market.

Also, see here for a long discussion dealing with all of this: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11280.0.

[hhelibebcnofnena]

Adding both +Action and + can cause the same issues as adding +Cards, when combined with Diadem and Storyteller.

Replacing with Coffers doesn't work because of Black Market.

Also, see here for a long discussion dealing with all of this: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11280.0.

+Buy can be converted into + via Priest+Watchtower, so I guess +Buy doesn't count either?

[GendoIkari]

Adding both +Action and + can cause the same issues as adding +Cards, when combined with Diadem and Storyteller.

Replacing with Coffers doesn't work because of Black Market.

Also, see here for a long discussion dealing with all of this: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11280.0.

+Buy can be converted into + via Priest+Watchtower, so I guess +Buy doesn't count either?

No, at least for now no card ever forces you to use any buy you have available. Storyteller forces you to use all your , and Diadem forces you to convert all your Actions to . Nothing forces you to use any buys just because you have them.

[hhelibebcnofnena]

Okay, I added a section for "almost strictly better": an effect which would be a "strictly better effect" if you removed one card from the game. So + and +Actions can go into that section, as can replacing + with +Coffers.

[Gubump]

If only one card is preventing something from being strictly better, I think you can go ahead and call it strictly better. Otherwise, there would be no such thing as strictly better thanks to Possession.

[GendoIkari]

If only one card is preventing something from being strictly better, I think you can go ahead and call it strictly better. Otherwise, there would be no such thing as strictly better thanks to Possession.

In the other thread, people in general decided to call Possession as a "universal edge case" to be ignored; along with cost and name. Because if you don't choose to ignore those 3 things, then it's trivially true that no card in Dominion is strictly better than any other card.

The existence of Storyteller is different than the existence of Possession, because Possession makes every single card being discussed not strictly better. Storyteller's existence still allows for some things to be strictly better.

[faust]

Can anyone come up with something not on the list so far?

- Adding "you win"
- Adding "your opponent takes Miserable/Twice Miserable/Deluded"
- Adding "take the Horn/Lost in the Woods"

[trivialknot]

Coffers can be bad if you want to play Swashbuckler without getting the treasure chest.

[GendoIkari]

- Adding "your opponent takes Miserable/Twice Miserable/Deluded"

There's probably 3-4 player scenarios where this actually doesn't work....


There is 1 Province left.

You have 1 point, opponent A has 0 points, opponent B has 6 points. Opponent A has a Lighthouse in play. Opponent A was start player. You can't afford to buy any points on your turn, and neither can opponent B. But Opponent A has in hand.

If you play card with "your opponents take Miserable", then opponent B goes down to 4 points. Opponent A will buy Province and end the game in a win.

If you play the same card except without "your opponents take Miserable", then opponent A can't buy the last Province without losing due to the tie breaker. When it comes back to your turn, you can buy the last Province and win.

[segura]

Diadem forces you to convert all your Actions to .

This is not how Diadem works. You don't lose the Actions (which would matter in Villa Kingdoms). So more Actions are always betters than less.

[Gubump]

Diadem forces you to convert all your Actions to .

This is not how Diadem works. You don't lose the Actions (which would matter in Villa Kingdoms). So more Actions are always betters than less.

It's because playing Diadem with Storyteller would force you to draw cards per unused Action that you wouldn't always want +Actions. It's the combo of Diadem + Storyteller that makes +Actions not strictly better.

[Gubump]

I think we need a new term for what people often mean (or least what I do) when they say a card is strictly better than another -- that is, having a similar effect while being better enough of the time that it ought to cost more than that card. For example, Noble Brigand is "comparatively better" (that's the term I'm using now) than Thief, hence part of why Thief isn't in 2E, even though it's definitely not strictly better.

Likewise, cost reduction is comparatively better than +, even though yes, it is not strictly better. (And therefore Bridge is comparatively better than Woodcutter, even though there are situations where one might prefer Woodcutter.)

[GendoIkari]

Diadem forces you to convert all your Actions to .

This is not how Diadem works. You don't lose the Actions (which would matter in Villa Kingdoms). So more Actions are always betters than less.

I didn't mean literally "convert" as in lose the Actions; I just meant that you are forced to get the .

[GendoIkari]

I think we need a new term for what people often mean (or least what I do) when they say a card is strictly better than another

[hhelibebcnofnena]

Can anyone come up with something not on the list so far?

- Adding "you win"
- Adding "your opponent takes Miserable/Twice Miserable/Deluded"
- Adding "take the Horn/Lost in the Woods"

I'm mostly talking about effects which exist. "You win" doesn't exist on any Dominion card. I also don't want to include card-specific things like "take the Horn".

Coffers can be bad if you want to play Swashbuckler without getting the treasure chest.

Okay, I will move Coffers to the one-card-exception section.

[Gubump]

I think we need a new term for what people often mean (or least what I do) when they say a card is strictly better than another

Well, according to this discussion, a Lost City without its on-gain effect isn't actually strictly better than a Lab and (ignoring the existence of Lost City) therefore doesn't actually need to cost more, but it clearly does.

[segura]

Diadem forces you to convert all your Actions to .

This is not how Diadem works. You don't lose the Actions (which would matter in Villa Kingdoms). So more Actions are always betters than less.

I didn't mean literally "convert" as in lose the Actions; I just meant that you are forced to get the .

So? Ignoring for the moment who totally fringe Diadem-Storyteller is, if you don't want to draw, nobody forces you to play Diadem (or Venture which might draw into Diadem) while you play Storyteller.

Storyteller doesn't undo that more Coins and more Actions are always better. All that Storyteller does, once it is in your deck, is potentially change virtual Coins into card draw.

[GendoIkari]

I think we need a new term for what people often mean (or least what I do) when they say a card is strictly better than another

Well, according to this discussion, a Lost City without its on-gain effect isn't actually strictly better than a Lab and (ignoring the existence of Lost City) therefore doesn't actually need to cost more, but it clearly does.

Something doesn't have to be strictly better in order to have to cost more. Lab isn't strictly better than Woodcutter but it has to cost more.

[Gubump]

I think we need a new term for what people often mean (or least what I do) when they say a card is strictly better than another

Well, according to this discussion, a Lost City without its on-gain effect isn't actually strictly better than a Lab and (ignoring the existence of Lost City) therefore doesn't actually need to cost more, but it clearly does.

Something doesn't have to be strictly better in order to have to cost more. Lab isn't strictly better than Woodcutter but it has to cost more.

Yes, but Lab would need to cost regardless of Woodcutter's existence. Before Poacher existed, most people agreed that a pure Peddler would be balanced at , and a pure Peddler would almost certainly be balanced at if Poacher didn't exist. Yet because of Poacher, a pure Peddler cannot exist since it would be strictly worse than Market and comparatively better than Poacher (Tunnels and draw to X might make you want to discard cards).

My point is, if an extreme edge case like Diadem + Storyteller is enough to disqualify a card from being strictly better than another, strictly better doesn't really mean anything because you could disprove a lot of "strictly better/worse" pairs with enough mental gymnastics.

[GendoIkari]

I think we need a new term for what people often mean (or least what I do) when they say a card is strictly better than another

Well, according to this discussion, a Lost City without its on-gain effect isn't actually strictly better than a Lab and (ignoring the existence of Lost City) therefore doesn't actually need to cost more, but it clearly does.

Something doesn't have to be strictly better in order to have to cost more. Lab isn't strictly better than Woodcutter but it has to cost more.

Yes, but Lab would need to cost regardless of Woodcutter's existence. Before Poacher existed, most people agreed that a pure Peddler would be balanced at , and a pure Peddler would almost certainly be balanced at if Poacher didn't exist. Yet because of Poacher, a pure Peddler cannot exist since it would be strictly worse than Market and comparatively better than Poacher (Tunnels and draw to X might make you want to discard cards).

My point is, if an extreme edge case like Diadem + Storyteller is enough to disqualify a card from being strictly better than another, strictly better doesn't really mean anything because you could disprove most "strictly better/worse" pairs with enough mental gymnastics.

There's a reason that the other thread is in the puzzles subforum... because if being technical and pedantic, then determining what is strictly better or not includes thinking of ridiculous and obscure edge cases; an exercise that constitutes a puzzle.

If on the other hand we are simply talking about a very general list of when it is appropriate to use the term "strictly better", then that's just a question of terminology, and not one of listing out different Dominion effects. For example, I recently responded to a fan card in the Weekly Fan Card Contest thread by saying it had an effect that was strictly weaker than another card because it required you to discard. I and the person I was responding to know that technically, discarding a card can be an advantage. But that wasn't relevant; we knew that it's normally a disadvantage; so there's no issue with using the term "strictly better" there.

I guess my point is that there's 2 different discussions you could have. One is about a general terminology use, which it seems like this thread was intending to do. But in that discussion, there's no reason to list out the specific possible things you can add to a card to keep it strictly better. That sort of lists belongs in the other discussion; the one about puzzles.

[Gubump]

If on the other hand we are simply talking about a very general list of when it is appropriate to use the term "strictly better", then that's just a question of terminology, and not one of listing out different Dominion effects. For example, I recently responded to a fan card in the Weekly Fan Card Contest thread by saying it had an effect that was strictly weaker than another card because it required you to discard. I and the person I was responding to know that technically, discarding a card can be an advantage. But that wasn't relevant; we knew that it's normally a disadvantage; so there's no issue with using the term "strictly better" there.

And that's exactly what I've been arguing about the whole time here and in the argument that started this thread to begin with. What started that argument was my claim that + is strictly worse than reducing costs by , because the latter is normally a bigger advantage, so there shouldn't have been any problem with my statement.

[hhelibebcnofnena]

I guess my point is that there's 2 different discussions you could have. One is about a general terminology use, which it seems like this thread was intending to do. But in that discussion, there's no reason to list out the specific possible things you can add to a card to keep it strictly better. That sort of lists belongs in the other discussion; the one about puzzles.

I think my original post is unclear on that front. It sort of seems like it wants to talk about the general terminology use, but then it goes into the specifics somewhat pedantically. I think my original intent was the second one, but I didn't think the puzzles subforum was a good place for it, given that I started with a list that I thought at the time was complete (or close to it). If I had just asked people to come up with stuff from scratch, I would have put it in the puzzles subforum. I could be wrong about that, but I'm not sure how to move the thread anyway.

[GendoIkari]

If on the other hand we are simply talking about a very general list of when it is appropriate to use the term "strictly better", then that's just a question of terminology, and not one of listing out different Dominion effects. For example, I recently responded to a fan card in the Weekly Fan Card Contest thread by saying it had an effect that was strictly weaker than another card because it required you to discard. I and the person I was responding to know that technically, discarding a card can be an advantage. But that wasn't relevant; we knew that it's normally a disadvantage; so there's no issue with using the term "strictly better" there.

And that's exactly what I've been arguing about the whole time here and in the argument that started this thread to begin with. What started that argument was my claim that + is strictly worse than reducing costs by , because the latter is normally a bigger advantage, so there shouldn't have been any problem with my statement.

Yeah and I was completely with you on that thread... I think it's fine to use "strictly better" in a casual context meaning "close enough to strictly better that it's bad card design to make it cost the same".

[hhelibebcnofnena]

So? Ignoring for the moment who totally fringe Diadem-Storyteller is, if you don't want to draw, nobody forces you to play Diadem (or Venture which might draw into Diadem) while you play Storyteller.

Storyteller doesn't undo that more Coins and more Actions are always better. All that Storyteller does, once it is in your deck, is potentially change virtual Coins into card draw.

Storyteller does undo the coins, because there are some cards which may force you to play it, such as e.g. Herald, when you would play that card anyway hoping for something else.
In terms of the actions, I'm a little unclear on it, but I guess the idea is that you might play the Diadem to get more coins, then maybe buy Villa and then play Herald or something? I'm not sure.