New player here and some thoughts

sssetz · 2014-12-12 00:04:01

Hello everyone, (and Jason)

Just played my first two games, as well as watched the intro video by Jason. I am just getting grips with the game and what the heck I am even trying to do. It seems a little hard to me right now what kind of strategies to try and imply. I understand I am extremely new to the game and strategies always begin to show themselves over time. Right now I am feeling kind of stuck though.

It seems like I dont have much choice in my score?? I mean I understand that I ultimately make the choice of which column I pick but I'm having a hard time figuring out what to really do and what kind of advanced moves I can do. Anyway, I am hoping I am not coming off totally negative cause I am honestly just trying to figure out and talk with the rest of you all about this interesting game.

When I was attempting to first play Diamond Trust and Castle Doctrine I could kind of instantly see that there were going to be lots of advanced techniques in the future. Right now I am just having a hard time understanding what I can "really" do affect the outcome of the game.

Best,
Seth

jere · 2014-12-12 01:49:35

There are a few tricks to it, but generally the name of the game is reading your opponent's mind. If you can predict with any likelihood what they will pick, you can easily get a high score and give them a low one. And even if you don't get a high score, there's the betting game. Do not underestimate the betting game. It's huge. You can bluff yourself out of a bad situation, use cognitive biases to get your opponent to sink in more money than they should, and avoid losing money in most cases.

It's actually very similar to The Castle Doctrine. And you may remember certain bewildered players on the TCD forums asking how can I hide my safe if there has to be a route to it? There was a common trap variant in TCD that went like this: create several hallways and put the safe (or another hallway leading to it) down one of them. This might seems like a random choice, but alas... we're all human. There are "logical" reasons not to put the safe down the first hallway or the second or the last, right? But if you know that, there's the second order reasoning that maybe it's more likely to be in one of those places. And so on and so on. Even if people were picking randomly, there are ways to exploit that behavior.

Some people pick numbers rather predictably. They will give you the row with the lowest high number or they will give you the a row with a lot of low numbers.

Then like I said, there a few advanced things that you can try. If they bet very high, you might want to assume they have the row with the highest number possible and you can pretend that this row is no longer an option. Which lets you pick much better in later rounds. Similarly if the opponent normally bets and one time they abstain, they might have a low number.

During the second and third rounds, you will want to remember that your opponent doesn't know that your columns aren't available for them. These are not something you think of as a beginner, but it helps a lot.

Don't worry about being negative, but realize that there are indeed a big skill gap between the least and most experienced players.

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-12 03:17:13

One kindof interesting thing about this game is that "good play" is hard to pin down and define. There is a huge skill gap between a beginner and an expert (I pretty much never lose these days, and have stopped playing because I feel bad for new players), but I can't put what a skilled player is doing into words the way that I can with League of Legends or even The Castle Doctrine. I can't list techniques to try like I could for TCD.

I think the same thing is true for Poker. You get advice like "fold more." But that's not very concrete. How much folding is enough? How much is too much?

In CM, there are some more concrete advanced things that you can do in terms of which information you're taking into account, but I'm not sure how much that stuff helps compared the the more basic mind-reading skill that is harder to spell out.

mzo · 2014-12-12 03:59:48

I could list a few specific tricks/strategies that have been pretty successful, but without knowing the actual skill level or common strategies of your specific opponent its hard to get anywhere near perfect. I wouldn't mind discussing strategy, but with so few players right now I kinda worry that they would be used against me...although that could work to my advantage too...

Maybe ill start up a thread about some and see where it goes.

a_fiendish_thingy · 2014-12-12 04:09:41

One thing that helped me get into the mindset/skill of trying to read my opponent is to imagine I was playing myself. Look at the rows and think which one I would have given my opponent, and then pick the column with the highest number in that row.

After seeing which row was *actually* given, think "why would they have chosen that row"? Does it contain the 1? Did they assume you would go for the 36 and try to give you the lowest number in the 36 column? Is it the row with the most single digit numbers? Whatever they did, keep it in mind for the rest of the round and particularly the next games. Its not foolproof (a skilled player will make their moves very difficult to predict), but you will find yourself starting to get higher scores overall.

sssetz · 2014-12-12 14:56:14

Awesome! Thanks so much everyone for the replies. Like I said I am just getting into this game and just wanted to put forward some immediate thoughts. I'm so glad to hear back from everyone and like I expected it seems like the game does a great job of opening up the more you play, like Castle Doctrine. I am still learning the in's and out's and look forward to more conversations with everyone about strategies in the future.

Best,
Seth

Tei · 2014-12-12 17:09:32

I just registered. I have absolutelly no idea. I only have watched the video (withouth sounds). I was slighly disapointed that seems a puzzle game (I have hunted animals and monsters in many planets, and the most dangerous creature: the men, with any weapon you can imagine, guns, firearms, plasma pistols, bombs, galactic airpools, you named it). What I like a lot is the colours. The colours are very right for this setting. Thats a 11/10 right there.

The setting is potentially cool, but maybe need a setup, maybe one that start with like a interview in a dark room where you are offered to be part of the Ultimati.

sssetz · 2014-12-12 19:13:55

One thing I was doing for the first 5 games was solely looking at the little number/odds on the right side of the board almost exclusively. It seemed like I would want to always just make my decision based on the best odds for myself. ANYWAY, my last 5 games I realized that I should maybe try to not look at that at all and just be more tactical with my decisions based on the game board. I have now won 4 out of my last 5 and although there is always many factors in to why I might be winning (new less-skilled opponent, luck, etc.) I think this greatly helped. I started to realize the strategy more when I didn't worry about the odds and just worried about the number tiles.

a_fiendish_thingy · 2014-12-13 04:04:13

sssetz wrote:

One thing I was doing for the first 5 games was solely looking at the little number/odds on the right side of the board almost exclusively. It seemed like I would want to always just make my decision based on the best odds for myself. ANYWAY, my last 5 games I realized that I should maybe try to not look at that at all and just be more tactical with my decisions based on the game board. I have now won 4 out of my last 5 and although there is always many factors in to why I might be winning (new less-skilled opponent, luck, etc.) I think this greatly helped. I started to realize the strategy more when I didn't worry about the odds and just worried about the number tiles.

This is absolutely the best way to go about it, in my experience. The side graph is a tool, all of the strategy comes in with the actual board. I honestly dont pay much attention to the side graph until the end game when it clears out mostly; before that it is just too populated to be too much help in my opinion.

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-13 19:42:26

Yeah, the graph really exists specifically for the end game where it is crucial for decision making without a calculator. But, since it's there, might as well leave it there all the time.

.. · 2014-12-14 06:19:16

I wouldn't agree that the graph is too 'dense' on the 2nd round to be useful, however making decisions based on it is very dangerous because that's what others expect you to do.

The setting is potentially cool, but maybe need a setup, maybe one that start with like a interview in a dark room where you are offered to be part of the Ultimati.

I also wish that there was more to the theme than the webpage and graphs and magic squares, but if you asked me what I would add I wouldn't have any good ideas. Well, I guess that I agree that some kind of intro (even just a title screen) could work

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-14 19:13:12

Yeah, I've thought about this....

sssetz · 2014-12-18 15:48:54

Well I just want to say that I started this thread about a week and a half ago and have been playing everyday since. In that time I have become extremely well acquainted with the game and have definitely started to pick out some advanced techniques. (at least to me) It is awesome how this game slowly opens up.

I just played a match and was able to guess my opponents score, to the number, after the second round of picking. Felt pretty good, even though I lost.

CORDIAL MINUET ENSEMBLE

#1 2014-12-12 00:04:01

New player here and some thoughts

#2 2014-12-12 01:49:35

Re: New player here and some thoughts

#3 2014-12-12 03:17:13

Re: New player here and some thoughts

#4 2014-12-12 03:59:48

Re: New player here and some thoughts

#5 2014-12-12 04:09:41

Re: New player here and some thoughts

#6 2014-12-12 14:56:14

Re: New player here and some thoughts

#7 2014-12-12 17:09:32

Re: New player here and some thoughts

#8 2014-12-12 19:13:55

Re: New player here and some thoughts

#9 2014-12-13 04:04:13

Re: New player here and some thoughts

#10 2014-12-13 19:42:26

Re: New player here and some thoughts

#11 2014-12-14 06:19:16

Re: New player here and some thoughts

#12 2014-12-14 19:13:12

Re: New player here and some thoughts

#13 2014-12-18 15:48:54

Re: New player here and some thoughts

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