Print

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

[Davio]

The opening 2 Turns can easily be condensed as we're so used to seeimg them in the form of Card1/Card2.
From this we can infer the opening hands as well.

Buying a Silver first with your $4 and the $3 you wanted on turn 2 is so common it doesn't deserve its own entry.

Examples:
Opening:
Bob: Masq/Silver
Lucy: Silver/Baron

I like the shorthand for reshuffles, but I would prefer an alternative character to the asterisk. I use it for so many different things (mainly searching and regexes) it confuses me. Maybe pound (#)?

Example

Opening:
MMM: Silver/Silver
theory: Silver/Baron

Turn 3:
MMM: Silver
theory: Silver

Turn 4:
MMM: Apprentice with $7 #
theory: Gold #

Turn 5:
MMM: Silver
theory: Gold

Turn 6:
MMM: Apprentice with $7 #
theory: Gold #

----

Here I've left out almost all but the essentials.
The key is to convey the feel of the game and the strategies both players are pursuing.
Any notation should do that as good as possible.

Leaving out some of the ... with $4 makes it a bit cleaner.
I've left in the "Apprentice with $7" entries, because they signify a very important choice by that player to skip Gold.
I don't think passing up a Baron for a Silver is such an important choice, Silver is kind of the default move, much like Gold is with $6.

[Deadlock39]

Leaving out some of the ... with $4 makes it a bit cleaner.
I've left in the "Apprentice with $7" entries, because they signify a very important choice by that player to skip Gold.
I don't think passing up a Baron for a Silver is such an important choice, Silver is kind of the default move, much like Gold is with $6.

I'm not sure this is a good idea.  The problem is, the question of whether buying a cheaper card is an important choice is subjective.  I'm not saying you are wrong here, but it creates an inconsistency.  as you say "I don't think passing up a Baron for a Silver is such an important choice..." but perhaps sometimes it is, and there will be situations where players will disagree on what is an important choice.

I would actually prefer to see the buying power every turn.  Buying a Duchy with $7 in the end game is pretty automatic, but seeing that a player got $7 4 turns in a row is information that says something about the game.


I also think that, while it is pretty uninteresting to those of us regularly posting here, showing things like opening Sliver with $4 is potentially interesting for newer players who don't regularly contemplate Dominion strategy.  I still occasionally space out and grab the shinny 3 I want to get when I could have delayed revealing my strategy by opening Silver. 

[GenericKen]

I agree with you now that columns and abreviations are too cumbersome. I was trying to mono-space the format, but it looks like that's a lost cause given the very nature of the game.

A couple of points:
1. Nitpicky: "deals out a curse to" is functionally the same as "deals a curse to".
2. The VP differentials can be confusing because the context of +VP vs -VP changes depending on which line it's on. I think posting both VP totals is less ambiguous.
3. I think "with $4" is important for consistency. While buying a $4 card is usually terrible, it's still an option that the player declined.

4. I think we need to resolve how to denote shuffles that occur as the result of actions. The nice thing about using a symbol like '*' (or '#', whatever, but I find '#' more visually distracting, and it tends to denote checkmate or script comments rather than something that happens regularly, but I digress) is that it visually separates when bought cards become available in the draw deck.

If you buy a card, the '*' nicely tells you that it becomes immediately available for draw on the next turn:
    Silver *

HOWEVER, if you shuffle as a result of actions, where should the * go?
    *Smithy draw, Silver
    Smithy draw*, Silver
...imply different things. If a draw action causes a reshuffle, should the * go before the action (because previously gained cards were not available when choosing to play that action), or after the action (because those previously gained cards can now be drawn by the action)?
I'm not sure what the right answer here is.


I still believe strongly that there's much profit to condensing the format to be readable without scroll. This is still possible without mono-spacing for a 22 turn game. Tweaking Geronimoo's log:

(I used the * for reshuffle)

MMM - Apprentice Chain
        theory - Mine Platinum, into panic
   
1. Silver with $4
        Silver
2. Silver *
        Baron *
3. Silver
        Silver with $4
4. Apprentice with $7 *
        Gold with $7 *
5. Silver with $4
        Gold
6. Apprentice with $7 *
        Gold *
7. Apprentice an Estate Gold with $7 (2-3VP)
        Mine with $7
8. Apprentice an Estate Apprentice * (1-3VP)
        Platinum
9. Gold
        Embargo with $3
10. Apprentice an Estate and a Copper Gold with $7 * (0-3VP)
        Embargoes the Platinums Mine with $10!?
11. Apprentice a Silver and a Copper Gold with $7
        Apprentice with $8
12. Apprentice a Silver Colony * (10-3VP)
        Mine Gold into Platinum Apprentice with $9 *
13. Apprentice 2 Silver Colony * (20-3VP)
        Apprentice an Estate, Mine Copper into Silver Embargo with $4 (20-2VP)
14. Apprentice a Gold Colony (30-2VP)
        Mine Silver into Gold Tactician?
15. Apprentice an Apprentice and a Gold Colony * (40-2VP)
        Apprentice an Estate Colony with $16 (40-12VP)
16. Apprentice a Colony Colony *
        Province with $10 (40-20VP)
17. Apprentice a Colony Colony *
        Embargoes the Colonies Province with $11 (40-28VP)
18. Apprentice a Colony Colony (Curse gained) * (39-28VP)

[Kirian]

Like Davio, I wonder if the underlines are actually needed; in many turns, it's the main thing that has happened, so half the log or more is underlined!

I'm going to past one of my own logs, which is longer and has more going on with it, in a style hybridized between Geronimoo's, Davio's, and GenericKen's, along with further abbreviation that I don't think harms anything.  The game is here:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120427-192224-4b43b626.html

Greystripe77:  Horse Traders / Silver
Witch-BM with Philosopher's Stone support
       Kirian:  Silver / Silver
       Witch-BM with Bishop support

3. Silver
       Witch
4. HT ($6) Witch + Copper #
       Bishop #
5. Silver
       Gold
6. HT Potion + Estate? [4]
       Silver #
7. Witch (Hit) # : ($7) Gold [3]
       Witch (Hit) : ($7) Gold [2]
8. Silver
       Gold
9. ($4P) Philosopher's Stone
       Venture
10. HT : Potion + Estate?? [3]
       Witch (Hit) : ($8) Gold
11. Gold
       Bishop (Curse) : Gold # [4]
12. Stone ($4) : ($9) Province? [9]
       Platinum
13. Witch (Hit) : ($5P) Philosopher's Stone #
       Gold [3]
14. Witch (Hit) : ($7) Gold [8]
       Witch (Hit), Venture : Colony # [12]
15. Stone ($5) : ($9) Province [14]
       ($12) Colony [22]
16. HT : Philosopher's Stone, Estate [14]
       Witch (Hit) : ($9) Province [28]
17. ($2P) Estate [15]
       Bishop (Copper) : Province [35]
18. Stone ($6) : ($12) Colony # [25]
       ($7) Gold #
19. Stone ($6) : ($9) Province [31]
       Estate [36]
20. Witch (Hit) : ($1P) Copper
       Colony [45]
21. ($9) Province [37]
       ($12) Colony [55]
22. Duchy [41]
       Bishop (Curse, *Curse) : Bishop [57]
23. Stone ($7) : ($10) Province [47]
       Witch (Hit), Venture : Colony # [67]
24. ($3P) Estate # [47]
       Witch (Hit, *HT) : ($12) Colony [77]
25. HT, Stone ($7) : Colony, Estate [57]
Greystripe77 ends the game on Colonies rather than hoping to get nearly all the remaining VPs

[DG]

All these abbreviations still miss the details and the details are important. Sometimes the difference between a gold and copper in hand compared to two silvers can be significant. A beginner might never realise that an expert player has discarded actions cards with a cellar just so they can be all drawn again with a scrying pool. This leaves me wondering who these abbreviated logs are for. If these are for the casual player then they need to be longer and easier to read. If they are for the expert player then they need as much detail as possible. The fact that it is abbreviated offers no advantage in itself and becomes a disadvantage when you can't see how decisions are made during play.

[PSGarak]

I think we collectively have skipped an important step in coming up with a notation system, and so we're trying to do 2 things at once. The goal of a notation system is to display relevant information and filter out unneeded information. But we jumped straight into discussions of syntax, without first talking about which information is relevant or not! Thankfully Geronimoo's system, which closely resembles plaintext, seems to have focused the discussion back to this important topic. I suggest we explicitly focus our efforts on that topic before we deal with anything about style.

I think we've all implicitly agreed about one thing that needs to be included in the gamelog: Whenever the player makes a non-trivial decision. However, in order to include this I think a gamelog needs to include not just what actions were taken, but what alternatives were available, as well as significant data gained. This will sometimes require going beyond what actions were taken, and explicitly call out actions that were not taken.

For example, I want to know if terminals collided. This is a big deal when it happens: the player has to make a decision of what to play, they gain knowledge about what actions are still available in their deck, and in general it has a big impact on their mental state. Same thing with, e.g., wasted (targetless) King's Courts, or electing not to play a trashing Action card due to lack of a good target, or not playing 3 copper to buy a Grand Market when Platinums are available. These are player actions available that were not taken, which are as significant as actions that were taken.

I think the hardest thing to include is deck state, and how players manage their reshuffling. Top-level players will be making decisions to play or not play drawing cards based on how many cards are in their deck, and what they know those cards are. It's hard to reconstruct this information without card-by-card breakdowns of all hands since the last reshuffle, or including deck state annotations where it might be relevant. I honestly have no idea what to do about this.

[GenericKen]

PSGarak> I agree that showing alternatives is important for a notation system - that's why I feel strongly about showing "with $4" on silver buys. Additionally, my original notation had a section for discarded cards (#C, #Joat) precisely to capture clashing terminals, but there're two serious problems with it.

1. It's painfully time consuming to figure out what the two clashing terminals were. You generally have to walk backwards through a turn to reconstruct what was played and what wasn't.
2. Warehouse. It's not actually possible to know what was drawn and what was discarded with a large number of cards - Isotropic simply doesn't log them. If I discard a clashing terminal to warehouse, there's just no way to know from the logs.


Herein lies the beauty of using '*' to delimit shuffles. You can't precisely know what cards were available for a turn or what cards are left in the deck from the logs, but by tracking gains and trashes, you can know what cards are in the deck between two shuffles. If a player buys three swindlers and only plays two between two shuffles, that should tell you what you need to know most of the time.

In particular cases where a subtle trick cannot be captured by notation (say, not triggering a shuffle with a draw card while buying a gold, or re-drawing discarded estates for Baron), I think it's best to concede that it cannot be captured by notation. Just briefly describe the trick in parentheses: "(discard Smithy)". There's a blog-full of neat tricks in the game, and I don't think there's enough commonality between them to warrant encoding them.

[Deadlock39]

I would like to comment that developing a notation system should also not be limited by the information currently available in isotropic logs.  You shouldn't exclude potentially useful information from your system just because it isn't currently available.  These are the type of things that would be nice to get added to isotropic logs, but they won't be because it is going away... which is another good reason not to design your notation around its limitations.

[chogg]

On the occasions when you do want to go over a game, the log does a reasonable job.  Apart from adding the missing information (what was discarded? what was passed with Masquerade?), for me the biggest improvement over a log would be a log "player", that allows you to step through the game turn by turn and action by action, displaying the information you get during a game plus extra details of the game state such as deck/discard pile contents for each player (along the lines of that currently provided for the logs on Council Room).

A "log player" is an excellent idea.  Unfortunately, it's impossible with the present version of isotropic.  The game state cannot be reconstructed from the logs -- a limitation I hope will be absent from the official app.

[rrenaud]

You could still have a "buys" log player.  You don't get to make the action choices, but you do get to make the buys decisions.