Originally published at: What is to be done? – by SimonMoon - StimHack
Discuss the latest article by @SimonMoon here.
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I’m loving the recent influx of articles / series. I know they’re a lot of work to produce, so a huge thanks to all the authors!
edit: After reading, some thoughts:
- The upgrade cannot be a Crisium as it already has a Breaker Bay. Though it just makes it seem even more likely it’s an Ash.
- It’s possible to run the remote when starting the turn with only 2c (or 1c if ELP is not in play yet). If you run first click, you can click through one Eli and only break one with Paperclip. This does not change the fact that there doesn’t seem to be an agenda in HQ on turn 3.
- I think it’s reasonable to not go for a NA 3/2 score on turn 5 without an Ash, though if there’re more agendas in HQ, you might take the risk. But even on turn 7 you’d likely try to score a 3/2 rather than a 4/2 (so there’s more money to put into Ash), so it’s pretty safe to assume there’re no 3/2s in HQ (and it seems it’s like those are the only agendas still missing). A 3/2 could be in HQ if it was the mandatory draw and the 4/2 on the remote is an NAPD, though. This does potentially help against tricks like Stimhack.
- “If we try to run HQ, we can unfortunately only Run HQ twice” - Shouldn’t this be three times? There’s plenty of stealth credits, Viktor 1.0 is cheap and you could even take a brain every time. ELP only adds an additional cost to the first run. You can also possibly trash any assets you access. This does up the odds of finding an agenda from HQ somewhat if there is one there.
- Loving the R&D play. There doesn’t seem to be a way for the corp to prevent this. Shows the value of ETR ice quite well.
Looking forward to the next in the series. 
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This is a fantastic article (and concept for a series of articles)!
I hope you’re able to do more of these. Really nice analysis, @SimonMoon
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Great analysis.
Just one side note. Since there is a BBG in the remote, the other upgrade can’t be a crisium (regions) so there is even more chance it is an Ash.
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It’s important to note if they install in Server 5, the question now if we can get into Archives (as the remote Agenda is presumably not in Archives).
I am deeply confused by this sentence. Is it possible that there are a couple typos here? It would make sense to me if it said:
It’s important to note if they install in Server 3, the question now if we can get into Archives (as the remote Agenda is presumably now in Archives).
Or am I missing something obvious here? As written, I just can’t follow the logic at all. Maybe I need caffeine…
Other than that, this is a great article. I really like how @SimonMoon spelled out how all the little bits of information you can gather during the game can come together.
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Great analysis, although possibly slightly heavy if it’s aimed at newer players. Love the idea of more articles like this.
Can we get some corp ones? When to bait Midseasons and how much to boost is a good basic one. Also any play to potentially set up a kill. I’ve recently been playing Boom Blue Sun and it’s crazy how many lines I miss or don’t take efficiently (these are often mid-game decisions though).
I have now had caffeine. I still think the sentence likely has the typos I described, but now I also think it should have an “is” added after “the question now.”
yes this is correct. Thanks for the find!
I fixed this in the article. Thanks for pointing it out 
Good point! should have trashed the Breaker Bay grid to sell the bluff XD
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Yeah moving forward I both want to have some corp ones, and also scenarios where we aren’t in the end game so there are more lines with merit and things are more abstract.
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A suggestion for folks who want to see more articles like this: if you find yourself playing games where a really interesting or difficult decision arises, screenshot it and message @SimonMoon, @Hermit, myself, or any of the recent stimhack article writers and editors (and if you’re on slack, join #stimhack-articles). This article arose naturally from an actual play session, and the more people play and think about it, the more opportunities there will be to write this kind of in-depth analysis.
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Love this. Super awesome analysis.
One note, not on analysis, but on presentation: If you do one of these in the future it would be cool to see this in the form of Socratic Dialogue (ex: CRITO) - I know it seems weird but it is a good way of presenting differing, complex lines of thought on a subject, also it has the added benefit of being similar commentary of a game which is something people are familiar with.
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Brilliant article, I love these sorts of puzzles. I look forward to reading more.
One small comment, the screenshot is a bit small, might only be me but I struggled to focus on the stake of cards in the remote servers. But still thank you for writing a brilliant article.
-Seeds
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Unfortunately the original screenshot got lost somewhere and this was all we had. I tried to sharpen the image up as much as I could to make it easier to read. In the future I will link a larger full size screenshot along with the smaller picture!
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Loved it.
Can you explain your final odds calculation? With 14 cards in R&D, you need to see two agendas in the top 4 cards:
((4 choose 2)*10/(14 choose 3) = 16%)
I have a pretty good instinct on such things but math is better.
Yeah I have know idea what ‘choose 2’ and ‘choose 3’ mean in an equation?
This is for determining the number of ways you can choose an unordered combination from a set. 4 choose 2 means the number of ways you can choose a combination of two elements from a set of four elements. Generally this is as expressed as n choose k and equals n!/(k!(n-k)!).
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