playing two Contrabands against Lord Rat

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santamonica811

Game: 33813003, Turn 13

I was playing 2 Contrabands that turn.  LR, of course, picked Gold with the first one (this online game has refused to fix this bug for years).  But, with Gold now selected, LR picked Gold AGAIN with my second Contraband.  I cannot even think of an edge case where it would make strategic sense to do this. I actually think LR played against Contraband so poorly that I think you could eliminate that card from games against LR.  Or, at least, for solo games against LR.

SkyHard

An edgecase where it does make sense: you play against/with your girlfriend/mother and don't want to block her from getting the last Province to win end the game. (She would otherwise buy Gold, because she likes jewelries!)

Ingix

One of the many shortcomings of Lord Rat is that he always chooses Gold. He has to choose something for the game to continue, and analyzing the game state to find the best choice was maybe deemed to complicated or not worth it at the time of creation. So it is stuck at that, unfortunately.

JKRich

Quote from: Ingix on 19 December 2019, 10:40:18 AM
One of the many shortcomings of Lord Rat is that he always chooses Gold. He has to choose something for the game to continue, and analyzing the game state to find the best choice was maybe deemed to complicated or not worth it at the time of creation. So it is stuck at that, unfortunately.
Actually, at the time of creation the bots were programmed to block buys of Curses with Contraband. There were a lot of complaints, so after some months it was changed to block Gold. One has to guess that there was maybe some reason they didn't choose what would appear to be the more logical and functional option of Province.

santamonica811

Yes, it would be incredibly difficult to program LR to play Contraband 'correctly.'  What I suggested a year or two ago was, "Block Gold always, UNTIL a Prov has been bought.  Block Prov always from that time on."  Would be a million times better than the current "always always Gold."

But there should be no problem (even if one is too lazy or unwilling to change the "always always Gold" current rule.  Merely add, "For any second playing of Contraband, block Prov."  Or, for a 2nd playing, block Colony if available, and if not, block Prov."  Or, even, "for 2nd playing of Contraband, block silver."  For God's sake, ANYTHING is better than the current idiocy of picking the same card to block 2 times in the same turn!!!!!!!  Of course a computer program will not be as sophisticated as a human player.  But let's fix the situations where the computer plays as a brain-dead idiot with an IQ of 12.

(If I were working with Stef, I would tell him, "Hey, let's try to fix the 10 most complained-about LR moves.  So, for example; let's tell LR, "You can buy Counterfeit up to, say, 3 times.  But CANNOT buy that card after you reach that limit."  Things like that.)    :)