Secrets of the Deep: Northstar (Lanun) vs. Mardoc (Svartalfar)

[Northstar1989]

OK, so a random event- but one that we're too Good to benefit from! I guess we've been doing too much raiding and looting on the high seas before we settled down!



And... More ice and snow to the north:



Also, I'm researching Calendar now- Agrarianism and cotton plantations should both prove useful in the long run...

I've changed my mind about where to plant my 2nd city, though- it's better if I settle to the northwest so I can still be in range of the Remnants of Patria and get the +3 happy bonus... (the northeast location may benefit from having a water tile in its BFC, but it will hit its happy-cap quite quickly...) This also incentivizes me to research Calendar instead of Fishing...


I do hope that I get a trait switch-up from Insane soon! I'm really looking forward to having 3 traits instead of 2...


Regards,
Northstar

[Northstar1989]

Arghh matey, we've discovered Agriculture!



Next up- a Warrior. Sinister Scouts with Combat I promotions are *not* to be trifled with, and I want to make sure I run no risk of Mardoc choking me with them... Warriors also make decent explorers, even if they're not as fast as Scouts (the primary advantage of Scouts is better lair/village yields- which is a lot less of an issue when the only lairs on the map are the named ones...)




Oh yeah, and my Scout continues to uncover vast swathes of nothing up to the north...



The elves might enjoy it, though- seeing as they have a natural affinity for Hunting (as it's en-route to Fellowship of Leaves) and can at least plant farms beneath Tundra Forests... (and Bloom barren Tundras with their Priests of Leaves if the game goes on long enough...)


Regards,
Northstar

[Northstar1989]

My Scout continues to explore...



Meanwhile, my Worker has begun farming the Rice:



My capital continues to work Remnants of Patria and has begun on a Warrior. I expect Warriors to be the limiting-factor on my early growth, as I will want quite a few of them to defend my cities and Workers with Aggressive Sinister Svratalfar Scouts on the prowl... (and I will want multiple Workers fairly early with this start) So it makes sense to get another one out as soon as possible.

I'm also churning out Warriors now because I never know when Insanity might strike and remove my Raiders trait (and the free Commando promotion for my Warriors along with it). Plus, if I'm lucky, my Chaos palace-mana might kick in and give one of my early Warriors a beneficial mutation- which would be great...


Regards,
Northstar

[Northstar1989]

Break out the rum! Inform the women it's time to hold a party! We have ourselves a new band of Warriors to defend our glorious civilization!




Also, here's a view of my exploration so far...




Regards,
Northstar

[Northstar1989]

Well, Insanity struck...



And provided me with 3 new, COMPLETELY USELESS traits- in fact worse ones for this point in the game than those I started with (because Raiders, at least, provides a free Commando promotion...)



Organized, Charismatic, and Arcane...

Let's see, where should I begin?

Organized is useless because at this point I don't have Civic-maintenance costs, I can't build Lighthouses (no coastal cities yet), and I don't have the tech for Courthouses...

Charismatic is useless because I don't have any civics or buildings that provide enough free XP to get more promotions from Charismatic yet, there are no AI's for it to improve my relations with (if this effect even persists in EitB), and my happy-cap is already a massive 9 without the bonus thanks to the Remnants of Patria feature being right next to my starting-location...

Arcane is worthless because, well, I'm nowhere near getting Knowledge of the Ether...


There are, in fact, the *ONLY* 3 traits I could have gotten at this point in the game which would be entirely useless to me... Aggressive and Raider have obvious military benefits. Spiritual could be used for quick civics-changes. Creative helps with early border-pops. Industrious gives cheaper Workers. Expansive gives cheaper Settlers. Philosophical gives cheaper Elder Councils. Even Financial improves gold-production. Summoner cannot be awarded with Insane so it's irrelevant.

The fact that I got ONLY the useless traits for this point in the game is incredible unlikely. In fact, the chances are:

(3/11) * (2/10) * (1/9) = 1/165 = 0.61%


So unlikely is this turn of events that, in fact, I may even have reason to suspect Mardoc of cheating!

How, why you might ask?

Well since this is a mirror-map, he already KNOWS what my start looks like, and that Charismatic (normally a useful trait for the happy-cap) would in fact become a useless trait. Meanwhile, since his turn comes first, and the Insane trait is, as I understand it, applied at the BEGINNING of my turn, before he passes off the save to me (in fact I reloaded the save after already taking my turn- just to check that the traits had already been determined...) he could have re-simmed his turn as many times as he wanted until he got a set of traits for me that most benefited his chances of victory... He would then have passed this save, and only this save, on to me...


I'm not pointing any fingers or saying that this happened for sure. Only that a 1 in 165 probability of this combination of traits, with literally ANY other outcome being objectively superior to this one for me, it's highly suspicious- which is a fact... It could have happened by chance- but the odds are incredibly unlikely...


I have no way of possibly proving it if this *did* happen though (LURKERS- do I? Is there a way to prove if extensive save-scumming had occurred? If so, I want to know- so I can either prove Mardoc guilty or ease my conscience and not have to suspect him...), so I may have no other option than just to try and trust him for the meantime, and keep an eye out if any more suspiciously-convenient changes happen to my traits (if this keeps happening, I'm going to have no choice but to report him for cheating... Once the odds drop below about 1 in 5000, of this outcome- which would only require one more incredibly-unlikely set of trait changes- such as 2 of my traits re-genning and coming back up entirely the same, but in different order and thus clearly re-genned, on my next attack of Insanity... I can safely conclude that there is no other rational explanation... In fact, a statistician would normally say that once the odds drop below 5% I can consider the outcome statistically-significant, but obviously I'm not going to use THAT loose of a standard with something as serious as officially accusing another player of cheating in a ranked tournament...)



Anyways, my Scout came across a Wolf while exploring:



And I noticed, entirely by accident, that Bradeline's Well lies just off the map to the east. I was already heading this way anyways (I had decided that it was starting to get too dangerous out in the wilderness to keep my Scout exploring for much longer, and wanted to discover what lay closer to my border before safely sticking my Scout on Worker-defense or garrison-duty...) but I guess that means technically I have some only semi-legitimate knowledge of what lies there. Of course, there's nothing I can do about this as it was entirely by accident, and I was already heading that way anyhow. I wouldn't be telling you guys this if I had intended to use edge-reading to cheat: I would have just kept moving this way and be keeping my mouth shut about it...

I'm only taking the time to explain this is such detail, of course, because I just explained why I think my trait-gens were suspicious, and it's incredibly likely that Mardoc was cheating... (if I understand the point in the turn-order at which leader traits are generated for Insane correctly, anyhow- LURKERS, correct me if I'm wrong about this as well- there should be plenty of old PBEM's you can refer me to where there are screenshots of a rival NOT seeing an Insane leader's trait-change when he took his turn in the same round but earlier in the turn-order if that should be the case...) and I want to be open with you guys concerning anything that might have unfairly favored me considering the suspicions I just raised...


Regards,
Northstar

EDIT: It's even worse than I though, actually. I just went back and fixed my math because I forgot to include Philosophical on the possible traits-list. The probability of getting these 3 traits (which are the ONLY traits that are entirely useless at this point in the game) is 1 in 165, not 1 in 120...

[Qgqqqqq]

Tested, you're wrong. The decision of what traits will change is affected by the random seed (as in, I pressed explore on a scout and the traits that the next player received were different), however, what these new traits will be is impossible to tell from the previous players save (it is triggered at the beginning of your turn, hence it is not visible in their save which shows only the end of their own turn) - it straight-up doesn't tell you that their traits have changed until after they see the event pop-up. (I can provide saves if you want, btw.)

So, unless he used technology to crack your password, and loaded up your save after each of his own ad infinitum to check what the result would be, there is no way for him to have cheated in this method.


How did you see Bradeline's Well, sorry? If it's cause the sign is visible even if you can't see the tile it's precisely on, that's perfectly legitimate. (In general, there's no way for you to cheat in these games without pretty clearly intending to - very few people regard even flying camera tricks as dodgy.)

[Dreylin]

I'd say that you are underrating the XP effects of Charismatic seriously here; it's not about the free starting XP, it's about the build-up you're going to get very soon from animals and Barbs (this isn't a no-Barbs game, right?). One Barb victory is going to provide more XP than you'd get from freebies, and roughly equates to the difference between a defensive victory and an offensive victory.

i.e. a Charismatic player who positions troops to allow incoming barbs to attack can accumulate promotions at roughly the same rate as a non-Charismatic player who attacks out at the Barbs ... and there's generally less risk.

[Bobchillingworth]

The fact that I got ONLY the useless traits for this point in the game is incredible unlikely. In fact, the chances are:

(3/11) * (2/10) * (1/9) = 1/165 = 0.61%


So unlikely is this turn of events that, in fact, I may even have reason to suspect Mardoc of cheating!

How, why you might ask?

This... this is satire, right? Like, you're parodying yourself?


Seriously, get a fucking grip dude. Sometimes, when things don't go your way, it's just bad luck (or your own damn fault) and not the machinations of a vast, sinister conspiracy.

[Ellimist]

I think you're underrating charismatic. It's easy to forget how important promotions are in FFH. Arcane and Organized are useless for now, but you'll either lose them soon-ish or keep them long enough to get KotE and/or Military Strategy. If you keep these traits for awhile they could be quite powerful.

Tested, you're wrong. The decision of what traits will change is affected by the random seed (as in, I pressed explore on a scout and the traits that the next player received were different), however, what these new traits will be is impossible to tell from the previous players save (it is triggered at the beginning of your turn, hence it is not visible in their save which shows only the end of their own turn) - it straight-up doesn't tell you that their traits have changed until after they see the event pop-up. (I can provide saves if you want, btw.)

Furthermore, the RNG for the event actually takes place at the end of your previous turn, so any potential manipulation would have had to be done by the Insane player, who wouldn't be able to see the traits that resulted until the turn came back to them.

So, unless he used technology to crack your password, and loaded up your save after each of his own ad infinitum to check what the result would be, there is no way for him to have cheated in this method.

I can actually confirm the fact that Mardoc doesn't know how to do this, since he very recently asked for my assistance to crack one of his own passwords. I wouldn't suspect anything from him even if he did know how, either.

I would be extremely reluctant to suspect Mardoc of anything underhanded even if the evidence was better than this. The guy has extensive history on RB and is held in high regard. A LOT of people have played against him or spectated his games, and I don't recall anything even slightly suspicious ever being talked about. He's a very skilled player, and I've seen him go out of his way to do the right thing even when it's inconvenient and nobody would know otherwise.

But seriously... Stop assuming the worst of your opponents.

[Ellimist]

The fact that I got ONLY the useless traits for this point in the game is incredible unlikely. In fact, the chances are:

(3/11) * (2/10) * (1/9) = 1/165 = 0.61%

It's even worse than I though, actually. I just went back and fixed my math because I forgot to include Philosophical on the possible traits-list. The probability of getting these 3 traits (which are the ONLY traits that are entirely useless at this point in the game) is 1 in 165, not 1 in 120...

It's even worse than that when you consider that the odds of having a trait change at all is 2/100 each turn. So instead of 1/165 it's 1/8250. Or maybe cumulatively 11/8250 on turn 10.

Now, the simple answer is that improbable things happen. These odds apply to you getting any three specific traits. However, I think you're overlooking the fact that these odds actually exonerate Mardoc more than they create suspicion.

Why? Well, think about how he would have to go about giving you these traits intentionally. First, he would need a way to affect the RNG. The easiest way is by doing something that uses a random number, such as combat or telling a unit to explore. This only allows him to potentially get a couple extra RNG attempts per turn, and he would still have to jump through additional hoops before he could figure out what effect they would have.

Could he edit a new RNG seed into the save itself? I doubt even T-Hawk knows how to do that. And even if that is possible, he'd still have to do trial and error to determine what effect a new RNG seed could have. So even in the unlikely scenario that Mardoc was willing to do it, capable of doing it, and wanted you to have those exact three traits, the odds are so wildly ridiculous that he'd have to make over 8000 attempts to pull it off.