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[JW]

A thread in the Adventures Previews forum has featured a lot of discussion of kingdom selection methods, so I thought I'd give it its own thread. How do you select kingdoms when playing in real life? What smartphone apps or websites do you use, if any?

Irl, I mostly play multiplayer and own almost all the sets. I use full random using Randominion app for iPhone but exclude the boringly strong cards (aka. Cultist and Rebuild), about 10 extremely weak cards (e.g., Scout, Feast, Adventurer, Pearl Diver), and cards that are too slow to resolve (Spy). If there was an option on Randominion to have certain cards show up less frequently, I'd use that for many of the borderline weak cards.

I very rarely use Colonies because it makes the games longer and more complicated. Shelters are a smaller change, so I use them when there are 4 or more Dark Ages cards. If I owned Alchemy, it would probably have multiple cards excluded for taking too long (Scrying Pool, Philosopher's Stone and Possession), and Transmute would presumably be excluded for being too weak.

[werothegreat]

Given that I'm usually the one who owns the Dominion sets, I usually just handpick the cards I want to show off or play with.

[jaketheyak]

I use Dominion Shuffle for Android, full random.
Dominion Shuffle automatically calculates whether the game should have Colonies or Shelters.

Usually, after each game, we take turns to pick a card to keep and a card to remove, starting with the winner.
The cards that players before you have chosen to keep can't be removed (and vice versa).
We also usually remove any stack that ran out (other than the base cards, obviously).

Dominion Shuffle has a handy feature where you can remove individual cards from the shuffle, so those we have already removed don't come back in.

This means we have plenty of variety without having to replace all ten stacks every game.
It also gives players a little bit of control over keeping cards they love/vetoing cards they hate, without completely removing cards from circulation like a pre-game veto does.

Given that I'm usually the one who owns the Dominion sets, I usually just handpick the cards I want to show off or play with.

Man, I seriously hope you're not like that guy who plays the same kingdom over and over so that he can thrash newbies.

[enfynet]

I have all the Kingdom Cards sleeved in sets of 10 and sorted only by expansion. Before playing we decide which expansions we wish to play from, then just pull out 10 sleeves. Each player gets to suggest a veto, which is agreed by other players or not, and if needed a new sleeve is drawn.

I am still trying to figure out how I'd like to manage Events in this system.

[Awaclus]

I always design a kingdom.

[Emeric]

I have all the sets with sleeves, and I use the randomizers cards to hit 10 cards. Old process but I like it.

[Asper]

We use a half-democratic group thing with real cards that i mentioned several times in the last weeks. Each player draws a random card, decides whether it's in, and then, if there are less than 10 cards, the next player goes.

I also wrote my own Shuffle App, which can exclude and favourize cards and can be populated with fan cards. Currently i set it to exclude Saboteur (which my friend hates) and Rrebuild (which i hate). I'd have to rework it for Events, of course.

[pacovf]

I pick 10 random cards with the randomizers of whichever boxes I have with me. Then we bicker a bit to add or remove cards, which we do if everybody agrees on a change quickly enough. This does mean that we tend to have engine-y decks more often than full random, and attacks are slightly less common. We usually play 3p-5p, so I don't mind smoothing out the kingdom.

[pst]

I have each pack of 10 or 12 cards in a sleeve and then we just draw ten random sleeves from that, using official rules for determing Colonies by first pick and Shelters by last pick. I don't think it's that noticeable that some sleeves have two more cards. Ten extra rats are on the side, together with Prizes, Madmen, etc.

Rebuild is usually excluded for not being fun, but it's actually close by, so sometimes it happens to be mixed in with the other cards.

I think we will handle events by randomizing them separately, maybe always playing with two of them, or maybe determining a random number of them in some way.

[Lekkit]

We use some app. Not sure of the names of the apps we use, we sometimes use different apps. During our leagues (which is sadly pretty much the only time we play IRL nowdays) we don't include Black Market, since we use the same board for every table, and managing a Black Market is a hassle.

My parents randomize three sets and then use an app to randomize 3-5 cards from each set, or 1-3 cards if the set is Promo.

[TheOthin]

The gaming club at my college has Base, Intrigue, Seaside, and Alchemy, which is how I got introduced to the game; I ended up getting the Big Box with Base/Alchemy/Prosperity myself although I also intend to get Adventures. Out of whichever sets are available, we pick any number of them to use and then either take turns picking cards to add or decide on a number of cards to draw from each set's randomizer deck since they're separate. Sometimes we replace cards we don't like if the board doesn't look interesting enough. If there are any Prosperity cards in use, we add Platinum/Colony; we like Platinum/Colony.

Not that we've done that in a while. At some point other people started losing interest while I started reading strategy articles and well that got kinda lopsided.

[Dingan]

It depends who I'm playing with.  If I'm playing with experts (well, I only know 1 other person in real life who know's their stuff), I'll just make it random, maybe swapping out some lame cards (Secret Chamber) here and there.

If it's with novices, I like to

• only include up to 1 attack card, with no brutal ones (Torturer, Cultist, etc.)
• only include up to 1 duration card because it can be hard for people to keep track of what they've played the previous turn vs. this turn if they've played >5 of them
• completely eliminate cards that require you to remember to do something at a time other than when you played them (Treasury, Scheme, etc.)

I've also experienced times having an engine deck and playing a bunch of cards per turn where you choose from different options (Steward, Pawn, etc.).  It can be annoying to have to remember all your choices from the turn if you've played a lot of them.  I won't eliminate these cards from the kingdom, but I will simply not buy too many of them even if it would be the best play to do so.

[Chris is me]

If I have a friend with an Android phone, I use Jack of All Dominion.

I use Randominion on iOS, I swipe away cards I don't feel like playing with.

Usually fully random, occasionally we'll "draft" sets by hitting random, each of us picking a card to keep, shuffling, etc. until it's done.

I kind of want to write a script or something that does everything the way I want to for a randomizer.

[theJester]

I own three sets (Base, Intrigue and Prosperity) and whether I'm playing with familiar people or introducing them to new players - the method is the same: randomly draw 10 cards, discard ones which are unsuitable to multiplayer or take forever to resolve (basically just Torturer and Spy) and draw new ones if necessary. Often we play in veto mode where we draw more cards, and each players vetoes exactly one until 10 remain.

I never found it necessary to hand pick cards based on opponents' level - most random sets of 10 are fun and interesting to play with.

[Witherweaver]

I have a wall on which I have pasted all the Dominion randomizer cards in a grid.  I then throw darts at the well to select the cards for a Kingdom. 

[Dingan]

I have a wall on which I have pasted all the Dominion randomizer cards in a grid.  I then throw darts at the well to select the cards for a Kingdom.

But isn't that not truly random because the dart will tend to hit the board in a 2-d bell curve around where you aim (usually the center)?  You could aim at 'random' places, but that's not really random.

[Witherweaver]

I have a wall on which I have pasted all the Dominion randomizer cards in a grid.  I then throw darts at the well to select the cards for a Kingdom.

But isn't that not truly random because the dart will tend to hit the board in a 2-d bell curve around where you aim (usually the center)?  You could aim at 'random' places, but that's not really random.

Selecting from a Gaussian distribution sounds random to me!

Plus, my precision could be so bad that the distribution is almost uniform.

[pacovf]

I have a wall on which I have pasted all the Dominion randomizer cards in a grid.  I then throw darts at the well to select the cards for a Kingdom.

You would need a spherical (or toroidal) room for this to be truly random.

[Witherweaver]

I have a wall on which I have pasted all the Dominion randomizer cards in a grid.  I then throw darts at the well to select the cards for a Kingdom.

You would need a spherical (or toroidal) room for this to be truly random.

P(x_1) = 1, P(x_n) = 0 for n=2,3,..., N, is a probability distribution on the space {x_1, x_2, ...., x_N}.

[werothegreat]

I write the names of every kingdom card on a ping pong ball, and throw them all into a bingo rolling thing.

"B-9!  *ahem*  I mean, Beggar!"

[pacovf]

I have a wall on which I have pasted all the Dominion randomizer cards in a grid.  I then throw darts at the well to select the cards for a Kingdom.

You would need a spherical (or toroidal) room for this to be truly random.

P(x_1) = 1, P(x_n) = 0 for n=2,3,..., N, is a probability distribution on the space {x_1, x_2, ...., x_N}.

...I meant uniform. You know I meant uniform.

[LibraryAdventurer]

I wrote my own kingdom chooser on my computer (not from scratch because I'm not that good a programmer).  It doesn't do completely random (I made with a couple options and so that some cards are more common than others, etc).

[JW]

• only include up to 1 attack card, with no brutal ones (Torturer, Cultist, etc.)
• completely eliminate cards that require you to remember to do something at a time other than when you played them (Treasury, Scheme, etc.)

For multiplayer games, I'll substitute out Torturer if there's +Actions on the board.

When there are relatively new players, I similarly try to avoid complex cards. For example, if someone has only played a few games, I might substitute Smithy instead of Journeyman, and I wouldn't include Hermit or Urchin.

[Willvon]

I have all of the expansions and base. It is almost always just my wife and I playing. So I shuffle all of the randomizers and deal them out in groups of ten (except for the group that needs a bane.) I then look through each group to see what is in it. If a group has numerous buys or villages, I will swap some cards with another group that has none. If a card like Gardens is in a group with no extra buys, I will switch to bring in something with buys. Otherwise it is hardly worth playing. I may also adjust a kingdom that is really unbalanced due to numerous attacks. I want it to be random, but also at least somewhat enjoyable to play. If there are no buys or trashing, I will often switch out a card.  Or if Lighthouse or Moat are in a set with no attacks, it is such a waste. So I will put it in a set that has an attack.

I then gather all of my finished sets and play each one as we slowly go through the entire randomizer deck. Of course, this way it can be a while before we see some cards again, but nothing gets ignored totally. We often use Colonies unless there are no Prosperity cards. Still, if there is good drawing or engine components that will allow for big hands, we will use Colonies even without Properity cards being present. We have gotten a feel for what is a good Colony deck and what isn't.

[Eran of Arcadia]

When it's my wife and me, we take turns choosing all 10 kingdom cards (plus colonies/shelters.) When I played a 5p game with some friends the other day, one of them dealt out 4 cards to each of us and we chose 2 from the set of 4 to use.

Events are going to require a slightly new strategy, but it's going to be fun.