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

[Kragroth]

By the by, that would (presumably) be phenomenally easy to change. I don't think it's important, but I can do it if necessary.

Something like cycling through the available songs in a predetermined order would preserve the feature but let it ignore the RNG. I agree that it's not important, though.

It's extremely important.

[Qgqqqqq]

By the by, that would (presumably) be phenomenally easy to change. I don't think it's important, but I can do it if necessary.

Something like cycling through the available songs in a predetermined order would preserve the feature but let it ignore the RNG. I agree that it's not important, though.

It's extremely important.

Only if you assume your opponents will grab on every chance they can to cheat.

[Kragroth]

By the by, that would (presumably) be phenomenally easy to change. I don't think it's important, but I can do it if necessary.

Something like cycling through the available songs in a predetermined order would preserve the feature but let it ignore the RNG. I agree that it's not important, though.

It's extremely important.

Only if you assume your opponents will grab on every chance they can to cheat.

You don't have to assume that. At the same time, it's better to remove temptation. Removing the button seems like an easy fix.

[Northstar1989]

You don't have to assume that. At the same time, it's better to remove temptation. Removing the button seems like an easy fix.

No, don't get rid of the button! Just make it cycle through a predetermined list so it won't affect RNG results!


Anyways, I don't think you guys have a truly firm grasp on the odds involved in the traits mix I got. Which probably isn't surprising considering the human mind has a hard time grasping really big numbers...

I got a traits-mix that had 1 in 165 odds of occurring- and that was objectively inferior to *every single other* possible mix of traits I could have gotten.

If I had gotten 1 or 2 useless traits, and 1 useful trait, I wouldn't have suspected cheating- that actually has decent (better than 1 in 20, in fact) odds of occurring.

But to get the only 3 useless traits available, our of a pool of 11 traits. That just doesn't happen by chance. Hardly ever. If every single game player thus far in RB had been with Insane leaders, you might have seen it happen once, in the entire history of PBEM games...


So, we're left with three possibilities that are even remotely likely:

(A) Mardoc was cheating. Requires low level of confidence in Mardoc or high confidence in probabilities + statistics.

(B) The RNG hates me. Requires an animistic belief that Random Number Generators have "feelings", like some people believe dice do.

( C ) Divine Intervention or Fate. Requires belief in a higher power.


If I don't choose A, I have to choose B or C. Because the odds of it being simply random were so small they can be effectively neglected...

I already decided to trust Mardoc, and stick with C. I've seen enough incredibly-unlikely bad stuff happen to me in my life already (like the less than 1 in ten-thousand odds housing lottery result) or good stuff as well, to know I either have very bad "luck" (B), or there's some kind of reason/pattern to it ( C ).


Regards,
Northstar

[Qgqqqqq]

See, 1/165 isn't unbelievably small by any stretch of the imagination. 165 is not *that* big a number, especially give there's no way you'd have brought it up if it was much smaller. I've definitely see people get - for example - worse combat odds than that. Certainly not enough to make me think there was divine intervention into your game...


See, neither of those two is what I'm considering. If I do anything it will be to make it flagged as a spell, and only usable once per turn.

[Kragroth]

I would not call the traits you got useless at all. I don't think God cares about a random pbem on the Internet.

[Kragroth]

See, neither of those two is what I'm considering. If I do anything it will be to make it flagged as a spell, and only usable once per turn.

Why leave open a door to cheating at all?

[Northstar1989]

OK, so in other news...

Yes, I did accidentally forget to move the citizen when re-genning the save for Mardoc like he asked...



You'll notice I have 6 turns left on the Warrior when I should have less, as a result of having worked the Rice tile to the southwest instead of the Remnants of Patria for one more turn this time around.... Some preliminary micro-calculations reveal this is not going to get me to either of the next 2 growth-thresholds any sooner, so this is actually a net disadvantage for me...

In the interests of time, though, I'm not going to ask Mardoc to let me play the turn over again. Besides, though this will cost me some turns until the Warrior is done, looking at the growth-pattern ahead has convinced me it won't really matter- the city will reach size 4 (when I want to start on my next Worker or Settler) on the same turn the Warrior completes anyways...



The city-growth will look like this (if I am recalling the amount of food necessary for each growth correctly)

Turn 12: 12/14 --> 3/16 food (SIZE 2! Surplus grows to 6/turn from working Flood Plains. Worker moves towards next tile to farm...)
Turn 13: 3/16 --> 9/16 food (Worker arrives on Flood Plains tile and begins farming...)
Turn 14: 9/16 --> 15/16 food
Turn 15: 15/16 --> 4/17 food (Size 3! Surplus grows to 7/turn from working another Flood Plains)
Turn 16: 4/18 --> 12/17 food (2nd Farm completes before end of turn- surplus grows to 8/turn)
Turn 17: 12/18 --> 3/19 food (Size 4! Surplus grows to 9/turn from working a FP tile... Warrior completes! Worker begins farming 3rd tile...)
Turn 18: Calendar completed! (or earlier- depending on events and commerce-growth) Growth freezes due to Revolution to Agrarianism (1 turn)- city begins on a 2nd Worker...
Turn 19: Revolution over! Worker #2 accumulates 10 food, 5 hammers by working Remnants of Patria...
Turn 20: Worker #1 finishes another Flood Plains Farm! Progress towards Worker #2 is now 17 food+hammers/turn (12 surplus food, 5 hammers with Remnants of Patria)
Turn 21: Worker #2 accumulates another 17 food+hammers (for 39 food/hammers plus any overflow from the Warrior)
Turn 22: Worker #2 completes! City growth (from 3/19 food) dependent on which unimproved tile capital chooses to work (Flood Plains or Remnants of Patria)

LURKERS, let me know if I have the growth-thresholds correct here (14 to size 2, 16 to size 3, 17 to size 4, 19 to size 5) or if there are any other issues with my predictions...


And... Demographics, just because:



Thankfully, at least I still retain a slight economic advantage over the Elves thanks to my Workers being faster, even if I don't have their Creative trait and don't have any useful traits of my own whatsoever... Still, the snowball of that trait-gen is going to hurt me bad in the long run...

Also, Mardoc's Soldier-count remains at 5000, which means he hasn't produced any additional military-units yet... (and most likely either started on a 2nd Worker immediately, or is building a Granary...)

Speaking of Creative- why is the Elven GNP the same as my own? One would think that it should be 2 greater simply due to the free Culture points... The only reasonable explanation is that tech-prereqs (which is a system that I still don't fully understand how it affects GNP calculations, LURKERS a little help with the general concepts of that would be helpful!) means he's getting 2 less Science/turn than I am. I don't understand how the tech-prereq influence of Science/turn works yet, though, so I couldn't really say what techs this means he could possibly be working... (now that he's likely already done with Calendar- having a head start on this thanks to his free Agriculture starting-tech...)


Regards,
Northstar

[DaveV]

A few quick thoughts on the bad luck/cheating/divine retribution discussion:

1. There are many, many ways to cheat in a PBEM. If you don't trust the other players in the game, the whole thing is kind of pointless. I hope none of the players here have such an empty life that they feel the need to cheat so they can claim superiority to random internet guys.
2. Once made, an accusation of cheating cannot be unsaid. Tainting another player with the suspicion of cheating could make that player leave the site (I think this may have been what happened to Serdoa), or be uninvited from future games. There's really no way to prove that you're playing fairly, and it's very easy to start looking at every dice roll in the worst possible light.
3. Bad things happen. It's been said many times before, but people have a tendency to remember that time they lost at 99% odds, and forget about the times they won at 15% odds. If one bad roll causes you to lose a game, that's too bad, but the player who wins almost always does it by playing better than the other guys, rather than by sheer luck.
4. Games should be fun. If you take it so seriously that game results are causing you deep distress, you need to find a new perspective (or a new pastime).

I hope this doesn't sound preachy. I've been as guilty as anyone of taking in-game events too personally, but I've been able to shrug it off eventually, and hope I haven't offended anyone.

[Northstar1989]

Thanks for the input DaveV.

I'll be a careful eye on future die rolls in this game, but I never officially raised an accusation of cheating against Mardoc.

However this discussion has gone on for too long (more than 2 pages!) Can we just get back to the game at hand?


Regards,
Northstar