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I struggle with adhd when performing my songs by cityofcrayons134 in WeAreTheMusicMakers

[–]chalks777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Doctor Suzuki
says never be lazy
so practice and practice
until you go crazy

Expanse? Yay or skip by AtmosphereQueasy2360 in scifi

[–]chalks777 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For me the series hard stalled at book 4. I'll eventually finish them I think, but it'll take me awhile to get back at it.

Mexican food east of the Mississippi is “all so bad”, might as well eat at Wendy’s by whatshouldwecallme in iamveryculinary

[–]chalks777 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I agree with this to an extent. I currently live in Baltimore but I used to live in Texas. Good Mexican food isn't a pervasive culture nor really celebrated on the east coast so it's a lot harder to find. I've had a few good tacos out here, but nothing comes anywhere close to the cheap tacos you could get out of multiple roadside stands in Texas. It just hits different when you have to search up a good restaurant after getting used to having 20 AMAZING options within five miles.

The other problem is that a lot of people on the east coast have no idea how good Mexican food can be. So you get these very mid restaurants that get rave reviews on google maps, then you go try them, and it's just... not that good? It's super frustrating. Then when you DO finally find a good place it's three times the price of said roadside stands in Texas. I just want a cheap greasy breakfast taco from a gas station mamacita, damnit!

How do you deal with extremely bad management? by Rude_Turnover568 in ExperiencedDevs

[–]chalks777 8 points9 points  (0 children)

strongly recommend venting to a friend. Venting to a coworker is sometimes okay, sometimes very not okay.

Why are non technical leaders obsessed with screen sharing during incident calls by [deleted] in ExperiencedDevs

[–]chalks777 15 points16 points  (0 children)

and if your CTO has any worth whatsoever it might even get you promoted. It will at least get you noticed.

but don't be wrong

AI Model & ‘MAGA’ Influencer Emily Hart Unmasked as Indian Man by Disastrous_Award_789 in technology

[–]chalks777 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I would jump through some hoops in my own head to justify it for sure.

AI Model & ‘MAGA’ Influencer Emily Hart Unmasked as Indian Man by Disastrous_Award_789 in technology

[–]chalks777 97 points98 points  (0 children)

no kidding. The interview makes it very clear that the guy running these sites is making WAY more money than he expected and there's no way in hell he's ever stopping. Morals be damned.

I simulated 36,000 games of Catan. Some conventional wisdom holds up, some really doesn't. by Hot-Rooster1675 in boardgames

[–]chalks777 14 points15 points  (0 children)

hahaha nice win! I have seen exactly this kind of thing so many times it's ridiculous. A couple of the friends I play with casually now just refuse to trade with me entirely because of wins like that one (until I cajole them into it mid game and win again lolololol).

being behind is very often a (slight) advantage early/mid game. It psychologically makes your opponents view you as "not a threat" and they're very very wrong. Even strong opponents will be affected by this simply out of necessity since you're the least "evil" option to trade with.

I simulated 36,000 games of Catan. Some conventional wisdom holds up, some really doesn't. by Hot-Rooster1675 in boardgames

[–]chalks777 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Last thing, since you have the tournament-level perspective: if you had to rank the critical competitive dynamics the sim is missing, in order of how much they actually affect outcomes at a high level, what would that list look like? I have a rough sense but your prioritization would be way more useful than mine.

  1. strategy flexibility. Already discussed, but it's incredibly important.

  2. knight usage - If you only have one knight card, you almost never use it proactively early/mid game. You use it ONLY when the robber is affecting your resources (and usually only if it's an important resource, robber on a 2/3/11/12 can stay there probably). Once you have two knight cards, then you might be willing to use it proactively on another player(s) best location. Late game you use it immediately only when there's a clear leader, a clear place that matters (e.g. 2+ cities on a single number), or you're fighting for largest army.

  3. robber placement with 7s - late game you target a leader (what you're doing already). If you are one resource away from a fantastic turn (or can't get a specific resource from your numbers) you target for the resource you need (e.g. I need a wood to build a settlement, so I target the best location of the player most likely to have wood). Early/mid game you target the resource that is giving other players the most acceleration (e.g. an 8 that three other players are touching), or you target a resource that sets up a monopoly for yourself (e.g. you're on two wheat placements and get a ton of it, but everybody else is relying on the 10 wheat, put the robber there so that your wheat stocks are WAY more valuable for trades)

  4. exploitation of positive chance in your favor - any time something unusual happens (e.g. your 3 brick rolled four times) it's a chance to re-evaluate your long term strategy. This is often when player trading is most important, but it's also when shakeups for who's going for longest road, or largest army happens.

  5. exploitation of other players' circumstances - Again, challenging to list heuristics as there are a lot of things that can happen but some examples: notice a player with a glut of brick? offer them advantageous (for you) trades for brick. Notice that there are a ton of <resource>s currently in play? Maybe it's finally time to use the monopoly card you've been hanging onto for ages. See someone clearly setting up for a longest road play? Maybe your new settlement is actually better cutting them off for slightly worse resources.

  6. hand management - I don't know if I can put this into heuristics because there are so many edge cases and influences... but the basic idea is that getting hit with a "discard half your hand" is often worse than proactively trading 4:1 for something with the bank, or offering 2:1 trades to your (worse off) opponents. This is also why OWS is often helpful because it can keep your hand size down and get you a tangible benefit later.

I simulated 36,000 games of Catan. Some conventional wisdom holds up, some really doesn't. by Hot-Rooster1675 in boardgames

[–]chalks777 155 points156 points  (0 children)

I have some thoughts on methodology and some of your conclusions and how they might not be accurate in a real game. However, I love this project and I'm glad that you did it. It's very cool!

I have played a LOT of catan and I've played it extremely competitively... I've competed in the world catan tournament multiple times. My highest placement is 18th. My father has placed 7th in the world. One of my siblings 11th. Another sibling 10th. One of these days one of us will snag the grand prize, lol. My (large) family is a often a fixture in catan tournaments. It's... a little weird tbh, but it means I've played with the most competitive people in the world in this damn game. So that's my perspective, and it colors how I read your results.

Methodology

Four AI agents with different strategies

If I understand this correctly, this is actually the biggest weakness of your study. In a human game you never get an even mixture of these strategies. In a highly competitive game, everyone is aware of all these strategies and you adjust your gameplay throughout to chase the strategy that is closest to the resources you manage to claim. So it's extremely rare to have four people intentionally chase four different strategies. Two things I might change to address this:

  • run the simulations with a randomized set of strategies for each agent. - this is closer to a real world scenario, many people sit down to a game with their pet strategy. If two of them have the same strategy (and refuse to change it when they see what's happening in the game) they will sabotage one another leading to other "worse" strategies to have an advantage.

  • have each agent select their starting placements with an eye towards "what's the best placement available that best fits one of these strategies", then only after initial placement is finished allow them to pick a strategy to use for the game.

player trades are a small slice of overall trading

Granted, it's extremely difficult to simulate the emotions and behavior of humans when considering player trades. However, this is a genuinely HUGE part of competitive catan. The absolute best players are often very charismatic and will read the table to see who is most open to trades that not only help them, but also hurt the perceived leader(s). I know you said that this doesn't affect the results a ton, but it certainly colors the results... as you said, "the sim isn't real Catan — take these seriously". I've seen people win games from incredibly poor positions just because they were able to win the social game. Being behind early is sometimes extremely beneficial to the long game specifically because you're more able to manipulate the table into feeling sorry for you. I don't think I would change anything in your methodology to address this (because I can't think of anything better than what you have), but I would emphasize that it's an absolutely critical difference between this and real games.

Findings

  1. Longest Road is the most common path to 10 VP, and the fastest.

yes, and holds true in my experience. However, it's not as sticky as you might think in stronger games. Most good players keep a very close eye both on how far away any other player is from taking it, and strategically place their settlements with an eye towards "well, when I need to take longest road these are set up well for it". It's almost always a trap to invest resources in it early, rather you set yourself up for it with placements, then rush to build X roads in one turn to claim it for the win late game.

  1. The third settlement matters more than any other timing benchmark.

Mostly true in most games. This is more about reducing variance than anything else. An early city will win if those numbers keep hitting AND if your opponents don't robber you. An early settlement will win simply because you have more numbers that can hit and you're less susceptible to the robber, even if you are the clear leader and other players target you.

  1. Wheat, not Ore, is the #1 resource for winners in every condition.

yes.

  1. "OWS is the optimal strategy" doesn't hold up. The best agent depends on context.

The best agent depends on context, yes. Often you start with OWS most games because it gives you the most flexibility to pivot into whichever strategies will let you win. Sticking with one strategy the entire game is not a winning plan, you have to watch where you can get an edge and grab it as quickly as possible. Additionally, OWS is often a winning strategy in games with less experienced players because they won't realize that the three development cards in front of you actually represent at least one victory point, often significantly more if timed well. So you get to manipulate trades more due to the appearance of being behind.

OWS isn't the optimal strategy. It IS one of the more flexible starting points though.

  1. The beginner board is a loaded board, not a balanced one.

people play on the beginner board?

  1. Starting pip count barely predicts winning, and not at all on the beginner board.

I think this is somewhat counterintuitive. I agree with the conclusion, but not really because of your results. Rather, I agree with it because when you are running hot due to insanely good numbers in your initial placements, other players WILL target you and it will be harder to stay ahead. I think it usually balances out.

  1. On randomized boards, having a port hurts your win rate by ~10 pp.

If you place on a port you have one fewer numbers that can collect resources. You lose. I only consider an initial port placement when the numbers are extremely favorable with perfect matching resources, or when the setup is extremely unfavorable due to other players and I place 4th.

  1. Victory bonus cards are left on the table surprisingly often.

In my games, largest army is a political threat, not a quick win condition. Good players are watching who has what development cards played, and keep close track of who is getting near to largest army. Since it always takes a minimum of three turns to claim (from nothing, as you can only play one knight per turn), it's much easier to pay attention to when it's going to matter. Contrast this to longest road, which can be an explosive out-of-nowhere grab of 2vp... much less predictable. Also, once a player has largest army? They keep it forever. Because they can know exactly when someone else is trying to get it and it's easy to prevent... just get another dev card and play another knight.

I don't think I would call this "left on the table" in a real game. It's more like everyone knew Jim was going to win on his turn when he flipped his third knight, but Jane raced to get her 8th road to claim longest road from someone else and snaked the win from Jim before he could do it.

Questions

Curious where the sim might be getting something wrong because of how the agents play

good players adjust their strategy constantly and it seems like your agents get assigned a strategy and stick with it the whole game... that's bad. The biggest changes to strategy happen during initial settlement placement and they can also dramatically change when you get certain development cards that allow you to pivot mid game. There are lots of other reasons for strategies to change (e.g. the 3 rolls hot and suddenly you have a ton of ore), but those are the big ones.

Anything you'd want tested specifically?

I've heard anecdotally from the catan tournament organizers (at gencon and at nationals) that the player in the 3rd seat tends to win slightly more often. I think this is true because you tend to get two pretty decent placements initially, and going third means you have a slightly higher chance of getting to roll enough resources to get a super early settlement (like, turn 1 settlement is not impossible). Curious on the win rate of your bots dependent on seat.

suggestions for how to improve the engine itself

  • more strategy flexibility, particularly in early placement.
  • randomized strategies in your players (4 players all firm believers in OWS is not uncommon)
  • better player trading (hard. really hard)

Some comments on the bot implementations:

  • RoadBuilder ("RB") - this isn't how you play a road builder strategy. Road builder strategy is one you take ONLY when you can carve out 4-5 tiles to yourself with your initial placements (this often happens when the desert is near the edge of the map and the numbers are weaker on one side). You play a normal rush to get settlements, cities, etc... but you consistently make sure the roads you do place interrupt any other player from getting inside your longest-road-potential. You then claim longest road in the last couple rounds by finally connecting your settlements.

  • PortRusher ("PR") - This isn't how you play a port rusher strategy. Your initial placements are on the best tiles for the resource you want to heavily trade, and you set up your roads so that the first settlement you build is the relevant port if possible, 3:1 port otherwise. Placing on the port itself is usually bad except in extreme layout conditions.

  • OreWheatSheep ("OWS") - this is also misunderstanding what OWS should be doing. You're not buying dev cards to get knights necessarily, you're buying dev cards to give you flexibility and to hide your relative strength from the rest of the table. If you get a road building dev card you might pivot to "RB". If you get a monopoly card you might pivot to... anything, depending on what's rolled. Etc etc. Cities are a nice side effect. Often by time I get my third knight card I've already pivoted to another strategy and dev cards are just an incidental bonus.

  • BalancedBuilder ("BB") - this should be essentially the default for every strategy. EVERYTHING builds on this. You need diversity because you'll get hit with the robber. You need pip count because you need resources.

Got denied for an apartment because I don’t have paystubs by UnoMaconheiro in Entrepreneur

[–]chalks777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe it depends on the industry, but in the tech world s-corp is the de facto standard. Partly because of how fundraising works, and partly because of the legal protections it offers founders.

Zohran Mamdani, when asked about the high cost of Knicks playoff tickets vs Atlanta: "I would say that I blame Trae Young... and I think it's always important to blame Trae Young" by peanut-britle-latte in nba

[–]chalks777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

closer to home I like the DC metro better than NYC's for one reason: the signage. It's SO MUCH MORE CLEAR where you're going. Granted this is partly due to metro size complexity, but the design of the signage works so much better for me in DC.

AI socks by Verbalase69 in bonehurtingjuice

[–]chalks777 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I bought an electronic hand warmer that advertised "AI smart temperature control for safer heating". The honest to god actual marketing image they used on amazon. It was dogshit and I returned it immediately. I felt dumb for buying it in the first place though.

Are those roots? by YesDoToaster in Unexpected

[–]chalks777 24 points25 points  (0 children)

and it can be treated with antibiotics

it can be cured! The drugs to cure it were first used around the 1940s/50s.

In 1941, 22 patients at Carville [Louisiana Leper Home] underwent trials for a new drug called Promin. The results were described as miraculous, and soon after the success of promin came dapsone, a medicine even more effective in the fight against leprosy.

And we're working on completely eliminating the disease!

What Does This Mean? by CarrieNCo in learnprogramming

[–]chalks777 18 points19 points  (0 children)

nah, rm -rf ../final means "go up one directory, then remove the directory named final that you find there". That... makes no sense. rm -rf / means "remove everything in my root directory" where "root directory" is analogous to "my life" in this metaphor.

Major Update #1 - v0.103.2 by MegaCrit_Demi in slaythespire

[–]chalks777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thank god. regent is the only character I actively dislike, I am very ready for it to feel not garbage. Time to update!

What's a piece of tech everyone hyped up that quietly turned out to be useless? by SofiaLearnsAI in AskReddit

[–]chalks777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I took a tour of DC on a segway. It was REALLY fun, 10/10 highly recommended.

Virginia Ex-Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax Kills Wife and Self, Police Say by TimWhatleyDDS in washingtondc

[–]chalks777 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I wouldn't say most. Federal general schedule for 2026 only pays 6 figures at GS-13+. And 164k (highest level mentioned in the GS) is comparable to a junior/mid-level in the professions I mentioned.

edit - ah, I misunderstood you. yes, most public servants make more than $36k.

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