Infinite game

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Marin

Hey everyone!
I just played a really weird game and I really don't know what are the rules for this case.
So there were Donate and Possession (arf, please Stef remove this card from the game! :p).
Quickly I bought some green but my opponent just did a second Donate to got only 3 cards in deck, one noble and 2 possessions. So I did exactly the same, but I kept 2 colonies and one possession.
We both have 0 money, and both have depth so we were actually totaly stuck, we could not even buy any copper or curse...
My opponent resigned cause we were like "game is over", and I had more VP than him... But what are the "real" rules for this case?

SkyHard

There is a possibility for infinite games.

Why couldn't you by copper? It doesn't cost anything if I remember correctly...

Marin

You can't buy anything when you got depth, not even copper...

Stef

google translate to french says:

depth = profondeur
debt = dette


Anyway, the rule is apparently that both players starve to death.
Most sensible resolution would be to agree on a draw, but the interface doesn't support that yet.
There is no rule that says the player with more points should get the win (and rightfully so).

SkyHard

Ah debts. Now I get it :)

Marin

Ah ok, don't know why I thought it was depth and not debt... Sorry for my english...

SkyHard

Quote from: Marin on 06 March 2017, 04:11:06 PM
Ah ok, don't know why I thought it was depth and not debt... Sorry for my english...

No problem. We all make mistakes ;-)

Hertz Doughnut

Quote from: Stef on 06 March 2017, 03:43:09 PM
Most sensible resolution would be to agree on a draw, but the interface doesn't support that yet.

I'd be very cautious about introducing draws-by-agreement.  It hasn't gone well for competitive chess.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CL9Mwfch4XH5QrBU1ne8a5xTSWycEqY7-H5CLLntLRs/edit?usp=sharing


Maybe make it conditional... like only if both players have debt and no gains have been made for 5 turns.

Kind regards,
HD

werothegreat

Quote from: Marin on 06 March 2017, 03:35:36 PM
You can't buy anything when you got depth, not even copper...

This is why we need language support

jeebus

This is a problem with Possession, and when I realized it could lead to games like this, I also realized that the card is actually kind of broken. There have been discussions about it on the strategy forum.

Of course it only happens when both players are skilled, so for casual players playing Dominion IRL (or even online) the card is fine. But when both players are at a certain level, it will sometimes lead to this kind of game. It doesn't even have to be with debt; even if you could buy a card, you don't want to.

IRL it's not a problem per se, because you can just say, ok this game is fucked, let's play another (or just not play with Possession). But online one player has to resign, which is not good because of the rating. I fear the only solution is to drop Possession, but I don't think Donald will ever agree to that. It could be a setting for including Possession among the possible cards, and it's only included if both/all players have enabled it.

AdamH

Often Possession games will become degenerate. Possession is the only card where I've ever seen a degenerate game arise because of all players trying to pursue the best strategy. Still, it's pretty rare.

But regardless of how rare these situations are, there should be some resolution to it within the game. It could be considered a flaw in the game that in these situations you are supposed to play until you starve to death. Most reasonable people would choose something not in the rule book like agreeing to a draw. I think for an online game there should be a better solution (but I also think for a tabletop game there should be a better solution). Currently you're just sitting there slowplaying, trying to last until your opponent times out, which is pretty bad.

jsh

Is Possession the only card that can lead to these types of stalemates? (I guess both players trashing their decks to Donate willingly is a possibility too) Maybe there should be an "Offer a Draw" option that appears if certain cards are in the kingdom. I don't think I'd want people selecting that normally, so implementing it on a limited level seems okay in theory.

AdamH

It can happen with Pirate Ship too, Both players trash down to a deck with no treasures, but that can play multiple Pirate Ships per turn. They also don't have enough tokens to do anything meaningful. This one requires a lot more to get to this situation and Pirate Ship usually isn't that good of a card, so I've never seen this one happen before. It's probably on the same level as the "Chapel your whole deck and Coppers and Curses are empty" or the "Donate all economy and still have debt" where they only happen if all of the players misplay horribly and/or decide they want it to happen for the lolz.

In any case, it would be nice for the software to have a graceful way of handling these situations. I always thought DXV's ruling of starving to death was a joke because it's a board game -- it's obvious what you do when you can't do anything anymore, you stop playing. To a computer, though, it's not obvious. In fact, it's impossible to make a computer program that can tell you that you're in this situation (I believe this is a form of the Halting Problem if I remember this correctly).

JW

Quote from: Hertz Doughnut on 10 March 2017, 09:45:06 PM
I'd be very cautious about introducing draws-by-agreement.  It hasn't gone well for competitive chess.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CL9Mwfch4XH5QrBU1ne8a5xTSWycEqY7-H5CLLntLRs/edit?usp=sharing

Maybe make it conditional... like only if both players have debt and no gains have been made for 5 turns.

The Dominion league rules already prohibit agreeing to a draw. And a "draw" feature or lack thereof doesn't matter for whether players can cheat the league rules by agreeing to a draw. Players who wanted to break this rule could simply not play the match and report that they had achieved a 3-3 tie. Or players could simply agree, separate from the Dominion online results, to consider a game a tie. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=15509.msg601835#msg601835

QuoteVI. Playing Competitively

All players in the league are expected to complete all of their matches as competitively as possible. There are times when it may appear that your remaining games cannot effect your standings, but this is very seldom the case. The average points per player in a full group each season is 15, and 6 points are at stake in each match. In some groups, the difference between 1st and 6th place has been less than 2 points at the end of the season.  Even if your personal promotion/demotion status is guaranteed, it is still not acceptable to complete games non-competitively. It is possible for the result of any match to determine the fate of another player by way of the 2nd tiebreaker points. It is unfair to other players in your group if you do not complete your matches properly. Players who are found to have forfeited games or matches, colluded with other players, or posted results that were non-competitive in other ways may be banned from the league for up to 4 Seasons depending on the severity of the offense. Repeat offenders may receive a longer ban period or be permanently banned from the league.  If anyone suggests recording a result that you feel is in violation of this policy, please report it to your League moderator immediately.

markus

I think in practice these situations are rare enough to not warrant too much attention in the client. A simple fix would be to add a "suggest draw" button, once both players had 0 coins in their buy phase for 3 consecutive turns (or if coppers have run out, if you want). Of course, this should only result in a draw, if both players agree to it.