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[Dakaran]

Hello! Dominion is one of my favorite games. I've been working on a little passion project to create a Dominion randomizer tool in my spare time over the past 5 months with a friend: http://www.islaythedragon.com/dominion/. We've put a lot of time and effort into coming up with a "smart random" algorithm in an effort to avoid generating sets that are lack-luster (too long, too slow, and other various issues) as well as creating a smooth, easy to use user-interface. We're finally ready to go to beta and open things up publicly so that we can get some much desired feedback from the gaming community at large. We'd love for you to give it a try and let us know what you think. (It's mobile friendly, too!)

Thanks!
Derek

[Drab Emordnilap]

What conditions does your "smart random" algorithm use?

EDIT: Also, does this randomizer include the promo cards?

[Dakaran]

What conditions does your "smart random" algorithm use?

EDIT: Also, does this randomizer include the promo cards?

I'll answer your promo question first: not yet. For the beta we wanted to get the functionality out there and start getting feedback before entering the next round of feature development.

As for your first question, I'm going to copy/paste a little from our "About" section, because what my partner wrote sounds way better than what I could write to answer your question:

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We've played a lot of Dominion, and we noticed something about completely randomly generated sets: much of the time, they're a lot of fun. But sometimes, perhaps too often, you get a set of 10 kingdom cards that just doesn't work as well. Maybe there aren't enough +actions so you can't really use the cards out there. Maybe there are too many attacks, or so many +actions that the game really drags to a halt. Maybe there are plenty of funky, unique cards but not enough cards that actually help you get the treasure you need to win the game.

Enter the Dominion Smart Randomizer. Our randomizer doesn't just pick 10 random cards for you. We developed a special algorithm to generate sets of cards that will always be fun to play. No more "dead" sets of cards where you'll just end up buying the basic treasures. No more insanely long games due to far too many attack cards slowing everything down. Our smart randomizer aims to give you sets of cards that still draw from all the expansions and give you wildly varying sets, but in the end will be more balanced for fun, exciting gameplay. We aim to give you Dominion at its best. And if you feel like going completely random anyways, you can always select the "true random" option below.
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Thanks for taking a look and responding!
Derek

[Jimmmmm]

Hmm. I like what you're trying to do. My biggest complaint with Dominion is how often a randomly-generated kingdom results in an uninteresting game (for me at least). But I'm not sure how you'd objectively quantify the "interestingness" of a kingdom without excluding some potentially really interesting ones that say just don't have a Village. Any chance of more detail on how the algorithm actually works?

[Dakaran]

Hmm. I like what you're trying to do. My biggest complaint with Dominion is how often a randomly-generated kingdom results in an uninteresting game (for me at least). But I'm not sure how you'd objectively quantify the "interestingness" of a kingdom without excluding some potentially really interesting ones that say just don't have a Village. Any chance of more detail on how the algorithm actually works?

That's our biggest complaint too. While my initial thought was to try and create a network of links between cards that work well together or correlate, that's actually a super time consuming and ultimately horrible idea. Instead of trying to connect/limit individual cards we set limits (some mins, some maxes) on a handful of categories, like +actions or card draw for example. There's a couple of individual card cases to ensure that certain cards aren't "dead" cards given the rest of the set, but that's really rare. We didn't want to hamper the possibilities that come with Dominion, just provide some light-handed guidance to avoid junk like every card giving +actions and drawing cards.