Dominion > Puzzles and Challenges

Gray's Sim Challenge 2

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Graystripe77:

This time, six cards:

Lighthouse
Shanty Town
Scout
Horse Traders
Mountebank
Duke

Who can create the best strategy using Geronimoo's sim?

WanderingWinder:
Question for Geronimoo: if your sim has Horse Traders-estate-copper-copper-shanty town, (or some other such hand where the shanty town can't draw and the extra actions are superfluous), what does it do? The best thing is obviously to HT the estate and shanty town, but is your sim smart enough to come up with that?

Geronimoo:
Since Shanty Town is a Village type effect its play priority is very high and will get played before most other cards. This is obviously far from ideal. There might be some easy fixes for this behavior which I'll add in the next release.

rinkworks:

--- Quote from: Geronimoo on August 24, 2011, 02:37:18 pm ---Since Shanty Town is a Village type effect its play priority is very high and will get played before most other cards. This is obviously far from ideal. There might be some easy fixes for this behavior which I'll add in the next release.

--- End quote ---

I have a bot of my own that seems to do pretty well with Shanty Town.  In case it helps you out, the rules are basically:

(1) If you have no other action cards but Shanty Town, play Shanty Town.
(2) If you have exactly one action left, no non-terminals, and at least two terminals, play Shanty Town.
(3) If you have exactly one action left, no non-terminals, and one terminal that draws cards, play Shanty Town.
(4) Play Shanty Town if Horn of Plenty is in your hand and no Shanty Towns have been played yet.
(5) Otherwise, don't play Shanty Town.

This isn't a rigid formula, because the priorities of these rules would have to be integrated in with your other play rules, but basically the idea is not to play Shanty Town unless you need its actions and/or cards.  Because there is a benefit to not playing it, that benefit ranging from "Don't let your opponent know you've drawn and discarded it" to something more substantial, like "Make sure it's available as fodder for Salvager/Forge/Hamlet/Horse Traders/etc if it's not needed."

Note that rule #3 not only enables actions not to be drawn dead but also makes sure Library and Watchtower get to draw an extra card.

Also note that determining what is a terminal vs. non-terminal is tricky (although a crude approximation will still be very good), as some cards (like Conspirator, Throne Room, King's Court, Nobles, Pawn, and Trusty Steed) can be either.

Graystripe77:
If anyone would like, just make up a strategy without the sim and it can be critiqued by others.

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