Brainz!

[tracher]

 They fixed it!!!

I implemented the Dominion : Seaside Duration card mechanic, and the four basic/simple Duration cards.  THEY BEAT GoldDigger!!!

Test setup: 10,000 random 2 player games with random cards from the specified decks; MediumAI vs. pure GoldDiggerAI.
S = Seaside (5/26 implemented).  I = Intrigue (17/25 implemented). B = Basic Dominion (

Comments

[sonofzeal]

Impressive! And that's just an untuned Medium that now has access to the duration cards?

[tracher]

Yup. Just un-tuned Medium AI that can only choose from:
Bazaar,
Caravan,
FishingVillage,
MerchantShip,
Wharf

[sociowriter]

I've got an AI running now that beats GoldDigger at 6:1 ratios. It's basically just GoldDigger, but it will grab a Market if it has five coins, a Caravan if it has four coins, and has a little bit of logic to grab a duchy or an estate if there's only one province left.

GoldDigger can definitely be beaten, but I'm interested to note that I played the chapel strategy against it myself, and lost multiple times. It seems I must have been wrong about the strength of the strategy...

[sociowriter]

Note: that's a 6:1 ratio when both a Market and a Caravan are included in the cards. When the cards are completely random, it drops to a 2.5 : 1 ratio.

[zanfur]

After our recent talks, I've been playing the golddigger strategy against other strategies, and golddigger consistently loses against the folks I'm playing (who are all very good). This is true for basic, intrigue, and basic+intrigue.

[tracher]

I agree that it can be beaten, but we have yet to be able to outline a strategy that will consistently do so. That said, Seaside now makes Gold Digger outright inferior to an average player, which is great.

[tracher]

A trained PirateAI (Copied from MediumAI) beats pure GoldDiggerAI 89% of the time on Seaside.

B: 16%
B + I: 14%
B + I + S: 29%
S + I: 40%
B + S: 38%
S: 89%

[sonofzeal]

Pirate Ship is a fantastic card, and seems like it would be a particularly good candidate for an anti-Gold Digger.

How do you determine when the Pirate Ship should used to attack and when it should be used as money? I assume you have it be used as money if that would result in getting a Province, but there's a fair bit of room for variation beyond that.

[tracher]

For simplicity I told it to use it's attack whenever it couldn't use its Pirate Treasure to buy a Province.

It also doesn't buy any cards over cost 4 (except Provinces) until the Pirate Ships are gone.

[sonofzeal]

Aside: How do I access the repository?