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[SirPeebles]

Hey all.

What are some interesting strategies you've seen bots follow?  For the most part, I'm impressed.  Obviously the AI isn't perfect, but they generally tend to follow actual, well-known strategies.  Sometimes they'll go for big money + wharf. Sometimes they'll fight to buy up all of the minions.

I just played a game where the bot built a golden deck.  Unfortunately, the golden deck was two bishops and a workers village.  Each turn he trashed two coppers and bought two more, netting only two points.  He could have at least bought an estate and copper, netting three points per turn.

I've also noticed bots seeming to ignore embargoes.  Earlier today I opened 5/2 and decided to embargo gold while using bandit camps for spoils.  The bot seemed unphased and bought a gold anyhow.  I dropped a second embargo on gold and he still bought another.  I even dropped a third embargo, and he bought yet another gold.  A total of three golds accompanied by six curses.

[ftl]

The bots are terrible with trash-for-benefit in general; they trash the wrong things at the wrong times. With Bishop they can end up trashing their whole deck like that. I've seen the bots make some brutal chapeled-down engines though.

[DG]

The bots tend to have some good strategies based on cards pairings and some poor strategies when things get more complicated. Some bots do recognize the embargo and this led to the only occasion that I've seen a bot buy a masquerade.

Unfortunately the bots only reach a golden deck by accident and usually try to accumulate too many green cards. The best they can do is typically to play out all the actions from hand with the bishop last, trashing whatever else is in hand. This might still let a bot trash a gold and buy a gold, say, which can mimic a good strategy.

[LastFootnote]

Some of the AI for specific cards is just blatantly sub-par. The biggest example I can think of is Salvager. The bot will always prioritize salvaging Copper over Estate, which is just awful.

[brokoli]

I've never seen the bot buying a cultist. It's frustrating because I would like to know what is the effect of ruins in my deck ! ^^

[DG]

The bots do buy cultists but they are not always top of their priority list. Since the bots always try to purchase the most expensive card possible, if you only have one 5 cost card in the kingdom then the bots will probably buy it: cultist, outpost, counting house, whatever.

[aaron0013]

Some of the AI for specific cards is just blatantly sub-par. The biggest example I can think of is Salvager. The bot will always prioritize salvaging Copper over Estate, which is just awful.

It depends on the kingdom.

[jotheonah]

Some of the AI for specific cards is just blatantly sub-par. The biggest example I can think of is Salvager. The bot will always prioritize salvaging Copper over Estate, which is just awful.

It depends on the kingdom.

Baron/Crossroads deck?

[aaron0013]

Some of the AI for specific cards is just blatantly sub-par. The biggest example I can think of is Salvager. The bot will always prioritize salvaging Copper over Estate, which is just awful.

It depends on the kingdom.

Baron/Crossroads deck?

And Silk Roads when you are randomly masqueraded a Salvager from an unsuspecting opponent.

[SirPeebles]

Wouldn't it be better to simply not play the Salvager at all in the Silk Roads example?  Unless maybe you aren't rushing them, but rather planning some sort of megaturn instead.

[jotheonah]

Wouldn't it be better to simply not play the Salvager at all in the Silk Roads example?  Unless maybe you aren't rushing them, but rather planning some sort of megaturn instead.

You just played some Apothecaries or a Counting House and you have 9 coppers in hand. You're trashing one with the Salvager in order to buy 2 Silk Roads.

[aaron0013]

As I said, it depends on the kingdom.

[SirPeebles]

That's more than depending on the kingdom.  It's depending on a particular predicament along a specific oddball strategy.  How frequently does one purchase apothecaries or counting houses while pursuing a silk road strategy, while your opponent is sending you a salvager with a masquerade?  Even with all of those cards in the kingdom...

[jotheonah]

I might snag a Counting House in SR game.

[aaron0013]

Hooray for being overly technical

[Toskk]

I've been playing against the various Goko bots quite a lot, although just with base + Intrigue, so I haven't had the chance to see their behavior with many of the trash cards mentioned.. however I can definitely say that most of the bots play Masquerade very poorly, passing Coppers over Estates in most cases. A few of the higher-rated bots do it correctly, though.

In my opinion, probably the area the bots are weakest on is when to go for Duchies and Estates. They generally start too late. For example, most of them will spot a Workshop/Ironworks + Garden combo, and play it perfectly.. up until it comes time to finish out the Estate pile.. but when they see that they're tied on points, with just a few Estates left, they switch to Silver to try to grab a Duchy or two, and it's too late for that.

Similarly, they tend to continue buying cost-5/6 cards over Duchies sometimes even with as few as four Provinces left (occasionally even fewer than that).

[DG]

I've actually just come across the best play I've seen yet from the bots. It started with masquerade, buying spies then peddlers, adding a ghost ship and then a few king's courts. It seemed to play the masquerade well and was able to get consistent heavy attacks going with province buying hands from king's court on peddlers.

[aaron0013]

That would be an interesting strategy. Kings Court a Peddler or Spy, play Ghost Ship, then Kings Court another Spy in case he put good cards back on top. It would probably force him to always top deck bad cards, which could be profitable most cases. Of course, there are a lot of other things you could be doing with your KCs.....

[timchen]

I've actually just come across the best play I've seen yet from the bots. It started with masquerade, buying spies then peddlers, adding a ghost ship and then a few king's courts. It seemed to play the masquerade well and was able to get consistent heavy attacks going with province buying hands from king's court on peddlers.

Isn't the good strategy here is to pin you to death?

[DG]

I'll be very glad if the bots are not coded with masquerade pins.

[thirtyseven]

(Base only) game where Warlord Bot uses TR/Workshop to help him piledrive Moneylender!

[aaron0013]

Bot:  What's wrong with moneylender? I like it!

[SirPeebles]

With a hand of 5 Moneylenders you can buy a Copper.  This is what we call synergy.

[thirtyseven]

Buying nothing with opening $2 and Chapel and Cellar on the board I thought was interesting:

------------ Game Setup ------------
Supply cards: Cellar, Chapel, Moat, Village, Workshop, Moneylender, Spy, Throne Room, Council Room, Library, Copper, Silver, Gold, Estate, Duchy, Province, Curse
guest8769.0000 - starting cards: Estate, Estate, Estate, Copper, Copper, Copper, Copper, Copper, Copper, Copper
Lord Bottington - starting cards: Estate, Estate, Estate, Copper, Copper, Copper, Copper, Copper, Copper, Copper
guest8769.0000 - shuffles deck
Lord Bottington - shuffles deck
guest8769.0000 - draws Copper, Copper, Copper, Copper, Copper
Lord Bottington - draws Estate, Estate, Estate, Copper, Copper
 
---------- guest8769.0000: turn 1 ----------
guest8769.0000 - plays 5 Copper
guest8769.0000 - gains Silver
guest8769.0000 - draws Copper, Estate, Copper, Estate, Estate
 
---------- Lord Bottington: turn 1 ----------
Lord Bottington - plays 2 Copper
Lord Bottington - draws Copper, Copper, Copper, Copper, Copper

[ftl]

Yeah, Cellar+Library would seem like the obvious right opening to me there, they go well together.