## Analyzing Slay the Spire and Sharing the Analysis

So, I have played about 300 hours of Slay the Spire since I got it on July 26.  It’s a turn-based deck building game.  Many of these deck building games have interesting mathematics, so I have been devoting a fair amount of time to analyzing the game and writing about the game.

The most interesting theorem about the game is

D = h (( d – c b + w)/a + b/alpha)

where D is the total damage that you take, h is the total amount of damage that you give to the enemy, d is the average attack per turn from the enemy, c is the average number of cards you play per turn, b is the average block per blocking card played, w is the average amount of waisted block per turn, and alpha is the average attack for the attack cards you played.

The nice thing about the formula is that h, d, c, b, and alpha are often precisely known or easy to calculate.  Also, a large portion of the reasonable strategies have w=0.  If you know h,d,c,b, and w and they are constant, then the correct strategy is simple:  if (d-c b + w) is positive, then don’t block.  If it’s negative, then block a lot.

There are other analysis techniques that were mentioned in the Sept 27, 2020 reddit post “Simplified Spire Puzzles“.  My favorite is looking at the ratio of damage received to damage given.

Also, I wrote a computer program that computes the best possible strategy for just about any Slay Spire combat situation.  The drawback is that if you have over 20 cards and 10 different types of cards, the program needs about 10 terabytes of ram and 3 years of cpu time to computer the answer.  It is much quicker if you have only 10 cards the are all strike or block cards in which case it takes less than one cpu second and only a few kilobytes of ram.

I have been wondering how to present this information to the world.  Today, I showed the formula and my program to my friends Cat and Chuck who are both a) fans of Slay the Spire, and b) programmers.  Additionally, I created about 10 power point slides and a 16 page document mostly describing simplified Slay the Spire problems and their solutions.

Additionally, I would like to document all the card combinations that result in either an infinite sequence of actions (resulting from hyperbolic growth) or another kind of growth.  Growth in this game seems to be limited to quadratic (1 4 9 16 25…), cubic (1 8 27 64 125…), or exponential (1 2 4 8 16 32…).  I have never seen any other kind of growth in any game except dominion which  can have polynomial growth where the exponent is a fraction.

I don’t mind writing, but I do mind rewriting and combining my short essays into a larger, more useful work especially if no one is going to read it.

Cheers, Hein

## “Category Theory for Programmers”

I’ve been reading “Category Theory for Programmers” which was suggested to me by Mark Ettinger.  This book presents many examples in C++ and Haskell.  It teaches you some Haskell as you read the book.  It uses almost zero upper level mathematics and it skips almost all of the mathematical formalities.  If you decide that you want to read it, then you might want to read the first six chapters of “Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!” and write a few small Haskell programs first.  (I also would suggest trying to solve the first three problems in Project Euler https://projecteuler.net/archives  using Haskell.)

I find the book to be easy to read and informative.  When the author makes a statement like   A*(B+C) = A*B + A*C where * means categorical product, + means coproduct, and = means isomorphic, I find myself trying to figure out the categories where the statement is true and the categories for which it is false.  (It is true for the Category of Set and the Category Hask.  The book is mostly about those categories.) That type of thinking improves my understanding of category theory.  The book is also reawakening the parts of my brain that had forgotten parts of category theory and Haskell.

Interestingly, in category theory, $A*(B+C) = A*B + A*C$ can be translated into the following theorems :

1.  A*(B+C) = A*B + A*C  is true for all positive integers A,B, and C,
2. max(A, min(B,C)) = min( max(A,B), max(A,C))  for all real numbers A, B, and C,
3. lcm(A, gcd(B,C)) = gcd( lcm(A,B), lcm(A,C) )   where  lcm means least common multiple and gcd means greatest common denominator, and
4. intersection(A, union(B,C)) = union( intersection(A,B), intersection(A, C)).
If you don’t believe the four theorems, here is some Mathematica Code which tests each theorem:
Unprotect[C];
test[ funcRandChoose_, prod_, sum_, i_] := Tally[ Table[
A = funcRandChoose[];
B = funcRandChoose[];
C = funcRandChoose[];
prod[ A, sum[B, C]] == sum[ prod[A, B] , prod[A, C]],
{i}]];

test[ RandomInteger[{1, 1000}] &, Times, Plus, 100]
test[ RandomInteger[{-1000, 1000}] &, Max, Min, 100]
test[ RandomInteger[{-1000, 1000}] &, LCM, GCD, 100]
test[ RandomSample[ Subsets[ Range[5]]] &, Intersection, Union, 100]

## Cute math, $\exp(x)\cdot\exp(-x)=1$

$$\exp(x)\cdot\exp(-x)$$
$$=\sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{x^n}{n!}\cdot\sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{(-x)^n}{n!}$$
$$=\sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{x^n}{n!}\cdot\sum_{n=0}^\infty(-1)^n \frac{x^n}{n!}$$
$$=\sum_{n=0}^\infty\sum_{i=0}^n (-1)^i \frac1{i!}\frac1{(n-i)!}x^n \quad\mathrm{collecting\ coef\ of\ } x^n$$
$$= 1+ \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{ (1-1)^n}{ n!} x^n = 1$$
using the binomial theorem on the second to last equality.

If you have two planets in circular orbits with semi-major axes $a_1$ and $a_2$, and periods $T_1$ and $T_2$, then the amount of time spent in retrograde is $$T_\mathrm{retro} = T_1\left|\frac{\cos ^{-1}\left(\frac{\sqrt{r}+1}{r+\frac{1}{\sqrt{r}}}\right)}{\pi\left(1-\frac{1}{r^{3/2}}\right)}\right|$$

where $r= \frac{a_2}{a_1}$. You can apply this formula to the planets in our solar system to get approximations for their time in retrograde as seen from Earth. (These approximations are often within 10% of the correct value, but sometimes the error is larger.)

$$\begin{array}{ccc} & \text{a in AU} & T_{\text{retro}} \\ \text{Mercury} & 0.387 & 23 \text{ days} \\ \text{Venus} & 0.723 & 42 \text{ days} \\ \text{Mars} & 1.524 & 73 \text{ days} \\ \text{Jupiter} & 5.204 & 121 \text{ days} \\ \text{Saturn} & 9.54 & 138 \text{ days} \\ \text{Uranus} & 19.19 & 152 \text{ days} \\ \text{Neptune} & 30.05 & 158 \text{ days} \\ \end{array}$$

It’s interesting to note that:

• $\lim_{r\rightarrow\infty} T_\mathrm{retro}(r) = T_1/2$,
• $\lim_{r\rightarrow 1} T_\mathrm{retro}(r) = T_1\cdot \frac{\sqrt{2}}{3 \pi }$, and
• $\lim_{r\rightarrow 0} \frac{T_\mathrm{retro}(r)}{r^{3/2}T_1}=1/2$. If people are interested, I can post a derivation.

If people are interested, I can post a derivation.

## When does the MGF of A-C exist?

On Math stack exchange, purpleostrich asked “Consider random variables A, B, and C. We know that A = B + C. We also know that A and C have an MGF. Is it the case that B must have a MGF?”

#### You Can’t Compute the MGF

In general, you can’t compute the MGF of $B$ if you only know the MGFs of $A$ and $C$. For example, consider two possible joint distributions of $A$ and $C$:

Case 1: P( A=0 and C=0) = 1/2 and P(A=1 and C=1)=1/2. In this case, the MGFs of A and C are $(1+\exp(t))/2$ and the MGF of B is 1.

Case 2: P( A=0 and C=1) = 1/2 and P(A=1 and C=0)=1/2. In this case, the MGFs of A and C are $(1+\exp(t))/2$ and the MGF of B is $\frac{\exp(-t)+\exp(t)}2$.

Notice that in both Case 1 and Case 2 the MGFs for $A$ and $C$ were $(1+exp(t))/2$, but the MGF for $B$ changed from Case 1 to Case 2.

#### You can prove the MGF exists

Although you can’t computer the MGF of $B$, you can prove that $M_B(t)$ exists for $t\in D=\frac12 (Dom(M_A)\cap (-Dom(M_C))$. Suppose $t\in D$. Then $||\exp(ta)||_1<\infty$ and $||\exp(-tc)||_1<\infty$ where $||g||_p=\left(\int\int |g(a,c)|^p\; f(a,c)\; da\; dc\right)^{1/p}$ is the $L_p$-norm of $g$ over the joint probability space and $f(a,c)$ is the joint pdf of $A$ and $C$. That implies $||\exp(ta/2)||_2 < \infty$ and $||\exp(-tc/2)||_2 < \infty$. By the Hölder’s inequality or, more specifically, Schwarz inequality, $||\exp(ta)\exp(-tc)||_1<\infty$. But, $||\exp(ta)\exp(-tc)||_1= ||\exp(t(a-c)||_1= E[\exp(tB)]=M_B(t).$ This proves that $M_B(t)$ exists for $t\in D$.

#### If A and C are independent

If $A$ and $C$ are independent and $B = A-C$, then it must be the case that
$$M_B(t) = M_A(t)\cdot M_C(-t)$$
whenever $t\in Dom(M_A)\cap(-Dom(M_C))$ (see e.g. Wikipedia). Here is a rough proof.

If $t\in Dom(M_A)\cap(-Dom(M_C))$, then
$$M_A(t)\cdot M_C(-t) = \int_{a=-\infty}^\infty \exp(t a) dF_A(a) \cdot \int_{c=-\infty}^\infty \exp(-t c) dF_C(c)$$
$$= \int_{a=-\infty}^\infty \int_{c=-\infty}^\infty \exp(t (a-c)) dF_A(a) dF_C(c)$$
$$= \int_{b=-\infty}^\infty \exp(t b) dF_B(b) = M_B(t)$$
where $F_A, F_B$, and $F_C$ are the cumulative distribution functions of $A, B$, and $C$ respectively.

## Removing 0 from a distributoin

An interesting mathematical problem came up at work today.  I had to find a formula for the standard deviation of a binomial distribution given that the random variable was not zero.  I put some notes below summarizing my results.

### Removing 0 from any Distribution

Suppose that you have a random variable $X$.  What are the values of $\mu_0 := E[X | X\neq 0]$ and $\sigma_0 := \sqrt{E[ (X-\mu_0)^2| X\neq 0]}$?  After doing some algebra, I got

$$\mu_0 = \bar{X}/(1-p_0), \quad\mathrm{and}$$

$$\sigma_0 = \sqrt{ \frac{\sigma_X^2 – p_0({\bar{X}}^2+\sigma_X^2)}{\left(1-p_0\right)^2}}= \sqrt{\frac{\sigma_X^2}{1-p_0} \;-\; \frac{ p_0 \bar{X}^2}{(1-p_0)^2}}$$

where $p_0:=P(X=0)$, $\bar{X}=E[X]$, and $\sigma_X := \sqrt{E\left[\left(X-\bar{X}\right)^2\right]}\,$.

Notice that if $p_0=0$ then the right hand side reduces to $\sigma_X$.

### Bernoulli Distribution

If we apply the formulas above to the Bernoulli Distribution where $X$ is either 0 or 1 and $P(X=1)=p$, then $p_0 = (1-p)$, $\bar{X}=p$, and $\sigma_X^2 = p(1-p)$, so $\mu_0 = p/(1-(1-p))=1$ and

$$\sigma_0 = \sqrt{\frac{\sigma_X^2}{1-p_0} – \frac{ p_0 \bar{X}^2}{(1-p_0)^2}}=\sqrt{\frac{p(1-p)}{p} – \frac{ (1-p)p^2}{p^2}}=0.$$

That is to be expected because if $X$ is not 0, then it must be 1.

### Binomial Distribution

Anyway, I really wanted to apply these formulas to the Binomial Distribution.  For the Binomial Distribution, $p_0=(1-p)^n$, $\bar{X} = np$, and $\sigma_X = \sqrt{n p (1-p)}$.  So,

$$\mu_0 = n p/(1-(1-p)^n), \quad\mathrm{and}$$

\begin{align}\sigma_0&= \sqrt{ \frac{n p (1-p) – (1-p)^n(n^2p^2+n p (1-p))}{\left(1-(1-p)^n\right)^2} }\\&= \sqrt{ n p \frac{ (1-p) – (1-p)^n(np+ (1-p))}{\left(1-(1-p)^n\right)^2}.}\end{align}

Notice that if $n=1$ then $\mu_0=1$ and $\sigma_0=0$ which makes sense because if $n=1$ and $X\neq0$ then $X$ is always 1.  Also notice that $\lim_{n->\infty} (\mu_0 – n p) = 0$ and $\lim_{n->\infty} (\sigma_0 – \sqrt{n p (1-p)}) = 0$ which is to be expected because $\lim_{n->\infty} p_0=0$. (I am assuming $0< p<1$.)

## AlphaGo is changing how the Game is Played

In March of 2016, the computer program AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol, one of the top 10 Go players in the world, in a five game match.  Never before had a Go computer program beaten a professional Go player on the full size board.  In January of 2017, AlphaGo won 60 consecutive online Go games against many of the best Go players in the world using the online pseudonym Master.  During these games, AlphaGo (Master) played many non-traditional moves—moves that most professional Go players would have considered bad before AlphaGo appeared. These moves are changing the Go community as professional Go players adopt them into their play.

Michael Redmond, one of the highest ranked Go players in the world outside of Asia, reviews most of these games on You Tube.  I have played Go maybe 10 times in my life, but for some reason, I enjoy watching these videos and seeing how AlphGo is changing the way Go is played. Here are some links to the videos by Redmond.

Two Randomly Selected Games from the series of 60 AlphaGo games played in January 2017

Match 1 – Google DeepMind Challenge Match: Lee Sedol vs AlphaGo

The algorithms used by AlphaGo (Deep Learning, Monte Carlo Tree Search, and convolutional neural nets) are similar to the algorithms that I used at Penn State for autonomous vehicle path planning in a dynamic environment.  These algorithms are not specific to Go.  Deep Learning and Monte Carlo Tree Search can be used in any game.  Google Deep Mind has had a lot of success applying these algorithms to Atari video games where the computer learns strategy through self play.  Very similar algorithms created AlphaGo from self play and analysis of professional and amateur Go games.

I often wonder what we can learn about other board games from computers.  We will learn more about Go from AlphaGo in two weeks.  From May 23rd to 27th, AlphaGo will play against several top Go professionals at the “Future of Go Summit” conference.

Cheers,
Hein

## Counterfactual Regret Minimization

Gettysburg University has a nice webpage on Counterfactual Regret. Counterfactual Regret was used by the University of Alberta to solve the heads up limit Holdem poker game. (See e.g. the pokernews.com  article).

## Richardson Extrapolation

Dr Xu at Penn State introduced me to Richardson Extrapolation way back in the early 90’s.  We used it to increase the speed of convergence of finite element analysis algorithms for partial differential equations, but it can be used for many numerical methods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_extrapolation

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