TL;DR: 8 point agenda self protecting agenda suites are broken.
Morning folks, today I have been examining Agenda composition in Palana, specifically the split between TTTG 2222 & TGGG 2222 where T =The Future Perfect and G = Global Food.
I did the usual construct of assuming X accesses out of a 49 card deck (so assuming all accesses are equivalent to random pokes on a full rnd – in reality HQ/remote accesses are more highly valued). Using this we know that the traditional 2222 2222 211 suite needs 17 accesses to generate a 50% chance of getting to 7 points. The renowned Foodcoats suite of GG 222 2222 requires 22 accesses on average to get to 8 points (17 accesses to get 6pts and then play notoriety).
Adding TFP perfect into the mix does two things. Firstly the chances of stealing it under normal circumstance is reduced to 1/3 – the chance of winnng the psi game. Secondly however, there is a drawback, namely if the runner can steal it, they only need 3 agendas to win. With this in mind I analysed the results assuming various psi success probabilities simulating various in game scenarios (e.g. psi = 1 if runner has a film critic). Given that in the TGGG case its far more likely the runner will need 8 points to win, I skewed the results to look for the expected number of accesses = 7.75pts to represent this whilst in the TTTG case I looked for 7.25pts.
Description | P(Psi)= | TTTG | TGGG
Yomi master | 0 | 40 | 28
Expectation | 0.33 | 27 | 26
I never bet 2 | 0.5 | 24 | 25
I suck at psi | 0.67 | 22| 24
Film critic | 1 | 19 | 23
The results are not unexpected, TFP protects itself and its expected points you get on access is 1 (3 * 1/3) vs GFIs 2, so in the base/expected case, TTTG is the optimal suite. However, it also comes with significantly higher variance. If the runner does manage to nab one (or has film critic) then their chances of winning increase dramatically. TGGG is the lower variance option, and is quite stable requiring somewhere around 23-26 accesses for the runner to win vs 19-27 for the TTTG version.
However there are some other considerations
Influence – the additional influence buys an Eli over say, an enigma, which is decreasing the probability of access in the first place.
Silver bullets –
a. if the runner is packing notoriety then they can get away with scoring 3 agendas in either case.
b. If the runner is running film critic you probably want TGGG.
HQ/archives accesses – here TTTG is stronger
Remote accesses – in the event you lose the caprice games, its better to give away 2pts than 3, so TGGG
Mental stress – playing multiple psi over a tournament can be very stressful and lead to tilt.
Turntable - if the runner steals a TFP and wants to turntable it for a Nisei counter, you are pretty happy about that trade, at least more happy then them swapping a GFI.
Both are great to be honest – the runner needing 25 or so random accesses on average vs glacier and remote they have to win multiple psi to get into is just stupid.
What do people prefer, better expectation (and better ice), or lower variance?
Aside from proper ICE placement, this deck basically pilots itself. Don’t mind the 1 Snare. It’s actually won me a quite a few games, but if you don’t like the variance it comes with that slot should be either subliminal messaging or the 2nd fast track.
My general theory on Snare! is that you shouldn’t really play three anyway (my preferred number is two). If you include three you can end up in the situation where it isn’t doing work because the Runner has seen all three and can now discount it. The threat of Snare! is always there anyway but especially if they’ve already seen one in the deck, and you want them to always be worrying about the other ones that could be out there and playing accordingly!
I like the idea of Clones in Palana. I often end my games at 20+ credits and have nothing to spend all that money on. I think it is the one Jinteki ID that could really afford just to throw out Clones a turn or two before a score and just grab some extra points. I’d pack the full 3x if I was going to include it at all.
Is anyone working on a list that incorporates Political Dealings to build a FA Palana, possibly using the Agroplex to accelerate card draw and increase the chances of drawing (and installing) a clickless agenda that can be scored?
Yes! It’s great having a solid econ id as it allows you to devote more card slots to your concept cards over econ, which really opens up design space imo. There’s just so many directions you can go in with building in this ID.
Having watched and reviewed other Palana builds, I’ve gotten on the Rush bandwagon now and have tuned mine for the GG2222222 agenda suite and have been very happy with it. I’m still in love with agroplex, card feels so powerful in creating tempo while being efficient value when played in this ID. I generally lean towards a turtle style with my corp play, but with this new suite together with agroplex I found I wanted/could fire out agendas more often since a larger part of my agenda density is useful agendas (ie corp sales and nisei). It could be a crutch though and 8 agenda + Fast Track is better and I just don’t play it aggro enough. Those access numbers for the suite looked really nice, something like GGTT2222 would be solid here as well. My thought though is that the extra copies of corp sales team make up for the extra agenda slot the agenda suite uses up by reducing econ slots needed. The econ from CST is particularly nice since it furthers our gameplan of scoring out quickly by combining econ with getting 2 of our 7 points needed like some kind of click compression.
I’ve still been fiddling with ICE suite, and especially with a move towards faster score out I wanted to stream line the curve. Got good ideas from a bunch of difference lists and ended up at something similiar to TheBigBoy’s list above. I’ve been astounded at the value of komainu and have been overall dissapointed by assassin. Once I started dropping assassins I just dropped them all as well as crick in order to make D4vid a dead card. This list now scores really quickly and feels very efficient, it was so quick in testing that I didn’t want celeb gift because it slowed down scoring too much–hence subliminal which creates just enough clickless bonus econ to keep everything paid for. I just edited my list (so untested change) by going from 3 pup to 2 and adding 1 fast track in order to score out even faster–I think it’s correct, but I’m not sure since having 18 ICE felt really nice, and since I play agroplex I draw into agendas reasonably quickly anyways.
I wanted to play the 9 agenda suite, since it guarantees the runner needs to score 4 of them. The problem is universally worse than TGGG based on the analysis above (9 agendas needs 22 accesses, TGGG is 23 even in the film critic case). This is because evn if they find film critic, they still looking for the singleton TfP, akin to the needle in the haystack meaning they probably have to score 4 anyway, and in the 8 agenda composition its just that little harder than the 9 version.
Well but as with any analysis, it’s limited by assumptions. I view your analysis as showing that the two are close, with the 8 agenda suite needing only a small % more accesses. From there, many other factors can push it one way or the other. For example, 3 GFI means fewer Eli which means more accesses. Also, my argument is that a 9 agenda suite is functionally faster–we end up winning earlier because we can chain out our 4/2s more efficiently. This means that the game is shorter on average, so the runner gets fewer access opportunities and therefore fewer accesses. So I don’t see one option as being universally better–we need to balance “how many accesses they need” versus “how many we allow them to have” so (imo) the math can’t do much besides pick out clear cases of crap suites, or try to compare very functionally similar suites like TTTG2222 vs GGTT2222 vs GGGT2222.
Also, I think your naive analysis of TTTG vs GGGT might be off. Here’s a post from @jrp that has some of the access numbers:
There’s a python script there, I’d like to see exact access number/variance for GG222222 as I couldn’t seem to find it when searching Stimhack. Maybe later I’ll try to learn how to run the script
This appears to be the best composition to me as well, especially with FC coming back into the meta a little bit. At least if they do find TFP, they are ceding tempo to score it right away.
I will say that, the more I think about Clones, the more I like it. I’m just thinking 1 of these allows you to win in two 5/3 scores, whereas 2 allows you to win with a 4/2+/5/3. If things come up right it just allows you to close the game that much quicker. Plus, you’re not upping density at all, which seems pretty good.
This is an excellent link, but the results are the same - his assumption is tfp is stolen 40% of the time whilst i used 33% in the base case. In the film critic case i didnt work to an expectation of 7pts, rather a little higher 7.25/7.75 because i wanted to skew the results a little to the make the runner hit 8pts, rather than 7, as he will often need to score 4, is he cant find a T. In my numbers i also got 21 accesses needed for TGGG vs film critic for a 7pt expectation, but that does miss something in that you MuST hit the singleton T to close the game kn 7, hence i used 7.75 to reflect that which pushes us up to 23 acceses. Note in the 9 agenda suite case the expectation of 8 points is always 22 (no psi)
I think the stats would also be quite meta dependant as well. I took my palana to the last SC in my area, and faced two Hayley that locked R&D and installed film critic quite early. The TFP quickly turns into a viability. Then the game comes down to if you could find the scoring window or your caprice early.
Maybe. It would be pretty cool if theirs was an ICE that converted to points, although I’m not sure of how the flavor would work there. Also, might be broken.
Seriously, though, Clones is the easiest condition to meet and it is the safest of the current three to put on the table because it can’t be trashed just by running it. I think it is worth testing at the very least. The 8 agenda density mix also makes it seem like it wouldn’t be removed too often either.
I think jrp’s formula looks about right as a rough guide, if you expect more than 50% film critic meta than TGGG else TTTG.
At the moment im expecting about 30-40% of the cut to be hayley/kate, which to be honest is enough for me. 3 pointers are just caviar to the runner and pretty much the only way you are going to lose as stealing 4 is just such a low probability ask, minimising the risk of losing one seems most prudent to me.
I like the idea of clones in GG + the 7 3/2s in jinteki. This alongside the jinteki sansan with agroplex/dbs, biotics and trick of lights, seems like a decent starting point.
