Talisman, a card that duplicates cheap cards is in the Dominion set with all of the super expensive cards.Talisman is not a meme.
There is a meme there somewhere.
Talisman is not a meme is a meme?
Idea for another checkbox in the top-right: Include at least 1 card that provides at least +2 cards.
Do you think it's really that hard to make user AIs possible? rspeer basically did it in his hobby time in a few days.
If you design the system well, a human player is just some thing that takes a (rendered) game state and makes a decision. A user AI is a thing that takes an (encoded) game state and makes a decision.
However, I think a better use of your time would be to actually tell us something - anything - about what we can expect and when.The people making the online version wish to control that flow of information. Since I am working with them I would like a friendly relationship with them, so I am respecting that!
So, no, not a better use of my time.
(also, *never* take the cards on the mat off early.. I've tested it extensively.. it's always bad).
But if you find yourself in the position (from incorrect buy priorities or just bad luck) where most of your NVs are on the NV mat, perhaps it might be a good idea to take the mat into hand and then play all those stored NVs at once to move a bunch of OTHER stuff onto the mat?
No matter how many times I try the NV/Bridge strategy, my mat invariably gets filled primarily with NVs, forcing me to empty my mat in order to avoid a choked deck.
So provided we can get an accurate average for hand size for the deck, calculating the probability of events like Baron and Estate or Copper and Moneylender lining up shouldn't be an issue.I would not expect that using an average handsize in the formula for fixed handsizes to give you anything meaningfull. The formula is highly non-linear, so you can't just use an average in the formula. If you want to calculate the expectation value of a function, you usually can't just evaluate the function at the mean value. Except for linear functions, which you will not have here.
:e What you should do is I think is to calculate the probability that your handsize will be m (because you played m-5 Labs), use the formula to calculate the probability of collisison given you drew m cards, and than sum the weigthed average. Calculating the probability i started above, formula is not complete, but I don't really want to do the formula again.
Ultimately, though.. any method of dealing with calculating the percentage distribution of various hand sizes is also going to need to take into account terminal draws and the possibility of drawing actions dead. 
With that added complexity (especially with +card/+action chains), I don't see any reasonable method of calculating the percentage distribution of hand sizes.
Your deck consists of d cards, m of type M and d-m of type not-M. You can easily substitute d for the number of cards remaining in the deck at the turn you start calculating and m for the type of card that you want to draw every turn (remaining in the remaining deck). IE if you actually want to draw the cards of type n, then just call m = d-n, or if you want to draw not n, then call m = d-(d-n) = n.
So you draw a single card and you want it to be M. The odds are m/d. Lets assume you succeed. The deck is now d-1, and the number of viable cards is now m-1.
Then you want to draw a second card and you also want it M. The odds are (m-1)/(d-1). The odds of you succeeded both times is the first times the second.
Repeat k times, and the problem is that k can be a non whole number (but its no greater than m).
So the overall equation is generalized as
(m*(m-1)*(m-2)*...*(m-k)) / (d*(d-1)*...*(d-k))
Note that
j*(j-1)*...*(j-k) = j!/(j-k-1)!
Fortunately, any scientific calculator can do non whole number factorials. So the overall equation is
((m!)*(d-k-1)!)/((d!)*(m-k-1)!)
My mind went to Mine and other cards that deal with treasures (Venture, Bank, treasure-based attacks...). But after I look at the list of cards, I don't see many that conflict. One could empty the IGGs then want to buy others; or buy one and only one Contraband before moving on; playing Horn of Plenty last wants variety, even in treasures...
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't see ones that work *well* together, but that isn't what this tool is for. More importantly, I don't see many that conflict with each other.
I think the conceptual question without reshuffle can be read this way: suppose we draw 5 cards from the deck and play the labs. In the end if the moneylender is in hand, what is the chance for a moneylender to pair up with a copper? Note that we escape from the question of reshuffle by just draw from the deck randomly again and again.
So with the starting deck and a lab and a moneylender, the chance is
(chance to start with 5)*(chance to have a moneylender and a copper in 5)/(chance to have a moneylender in 5)+(chance to start with 6)*(chance to have a moneylender and a copper in 6)/(chance to have a moneylender in 6)
So basically the conceptual question of how to calculate the probablilty of collision with some non-integer hand is that you calculate the probability of collision of each hand with integer cards then average over them.
There's definitely going to be some error built into it.. but if it's going to attempt to do more than just encompass non-terminal draws, I don't see any feasible way around it.
Redundancy filter items that I might not want lumped in:
- Only allow Quarry if there is at least one Festival, Market, or an Action card costing 6 or more. (you mentioned this earlier)
- Don't allow more than one cost 3-5 card that provides +2 actions.
- Don't allow more than one cost 5-6 card that provides +2 actions.
- Don't allow both Market and Grand Market.
- Don't allow more than 1 cost 5 Treasure card.
Also, I think that the following...
- Only allow Reaction and Lighthouse cards (other than Watchtower and Fool's Gold) if there is at least one Attack card.
...should add Horse Traders and Trader to its list, as they can also be pretty useful. (I recently learned about the Horse Traders/ Duke combo
Another possible feature, in the realm of "Only allow Attack cards if there is at least one Reaction or lighthouse card.": You could change it to "...at least one *relevant* reaction...", since some defenses are useless against some attacks. For example, Watchtower and Trader are useless against Bureaucrat, Spy, Thief, etc.
The program actually divides attacks and reactions up by type (e.g. hand-reducing, curse-giving, deck-affecting, etc.). The redundancy filter will ensure that any available reaction will be 'useful', and the the 'always include a reaction/defense if there is an attack' filter will ensure the types on the two match. Does that help? I would have thought the best way to solve this is via simulation.
Calculation is going to get really complicated.
My calculations say that you will shuffle your deck during the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th hands etc and that 11/28th of hands will be 6-card hands, with the rest being 5-card hands.
But as blueblimp pointed out, Lab misses the shuffle MORE often than other cards -- that's why you need to account for it. It misses more often because it draws cards. It gets even messier when you stack multiple labs, since chaining them could trigger a reshuffle that causes all of them to miss, if you aren't careful.
I actually have a partially-finished v1.1.3 in progress, that already addresses a few of the points you mentioned. Same with the 'Don't allow more than 1 Reaction' filter. I've looked into methods for pre-selecting 'partial' Kingdoms, however these end up producing an opposite effect.. increases the frequency of multiple cards of a selected-for type appearing in the set. I'd definitely be open to considering other methods for selecting cards, if you can think of one that would have less of an effect on card frequency.
For example, with a deck of 13 cards including one Laboratory, you will go through your deck in 2.4 turns, or have an average hand size of 5.4167 cards.
This seems wrong to me. First, if I have a deck of 12 treasures and 1 cantrip, then it takes 12/5 = 2.4 turns to get through my deck. A lab cycles faster than a cantrip, so 2.4 can't be right.
A naïve modification to this would be to have the lab subtract one from your effective terminal count (since it draws 2), so we'd estimate that with a deck of 12 treasures and 1 lab, it'd take (12-1)/5 = 2.2 turns to get through the deck. This is wrong too, though, because a lab is going to miss the reshuffle more often than a typical card: if the lab is in the bottom 6 cards of the deck, it misses the reshuffle, whereas with a normal treasure, it needs to be in the bottom 4 (unless it's in a lab hand).
HP is also a much much better enabler for MB, or any non-drawing strong attack. Get one MB first and then pound the HP's looking to play MB every turn. I think your opponent would have done even better to ignore most other buys until he had 5-6 HPs. Then get a Gold, then a Plat, Then colonies with 11 and more HPs with less than 11.
