Has anyone else played the same game twice?

A couple weeks ago I played a Zulu game where I decided to try out PedroElm's Honour/Commerce/Autocracy strategy. I had a really good map for it; production-heavy start with gems and silver, mountain, two stone, river. Ethiopia and USA close by with accessible capitals, and a bunch of other warmongers (Askia, Gustavus, Dido, Suleiman) to keep the rest of the world busy. I started strong, bllitzing Ethiopia and USA, taking on Brazil, before running into Caroleans and the Great Wall, which took me some 50 turns to get through. I eventually won though.

Anyways, today I start up a game, and get Zulus with gems and silver. On river. On a mountain... with two stone. Feeling a very strong sense of déja vu, I click retire and see what other civs are in the game. USA. Ethiopia. Sweden, Brazil, Songhai, Carthage, Ottomans. Even the relative positioning was the same; Ethiopia to my immediate NE, USA to my SE. Brazil north of Ethiopia, Sweden farther north still, etc.

Has anybody experienced this before? I get maps have some kind of seed or something but I figured the odds of playing the exact same one would be incredibly low.

Pretty sure seeds are several digits long, I.E.
121452
or more likely quite a bit longer
885942951274
so the odds of getting the exact same number is incredibly slim, and the seed
123475
would not be at all similar to
123476
despite being only a single digit higher.

Point is, it's quite the coincidence.

Check Advanced Setup. Do you have hand-picked civs from an earlier game? Those settings carry over.

Yeah I think it's hand picked settings that would make sense

Nope. It was several weeks and games apart.

Well I rolled the exact same map again. I attached the save this time as proof. it's a pretty fun map if you want to play around with it.

Seriously, what are the odds of getting the same exact map three times in a couple of months?

TheGuineaPig said:

Well I rolled the exact same map again. I attached the save this time as proof. it's a pretty fun map if you want to play around with it.

Seriously, what are the odds of getting the same exact map three times in a couple of months?

Click to expand...

Think if I told you I flipped a coin and it landed on it's side. Now, in addition I flipped a second coin and it bounced and then landed on it's side too, on top of the first coin.

You couldn't tell tell me that it is impossible, but you would be skeptical.

OK, I got this start for the fourth time today. I think my civ is cursed.

You have to go to play now. It sounds like you're loading the autosave 4000 bc start over and over again. Either that or the advanced setup that makes sense.

TheGuineaPig said:

OK, I got this start for the fourth time today. I think my civ is cursed.

Click to expand...

You have to go back to Advance Setup, (1) manually change everything back to random, and (2) then launch a game from the Advance Setup screen without leaving that screen.

Everything in the UI makes it appear that the default setup game launch screen is using the default standard settings -- when it actually reuses the last settings from the Advance Setup. There is no visual indications that this is how it works. It is very poorly designed. The fact that your are getting the same civs 3/4 times in a row demonstrates that the settings are not random.

The next game after that can use the default simple setup screen if you like.

Trust me, I'm not doing either of those things. I've got random settings on, and I've played a bunch of random games in between each of these instances.

TheGuineaPig said:

OK, I got this start for the fourth time today. I think my civ is cursed.

Click to expand...

Now recall when you bought the game. Did you buy the game from a man at a car boot sale and was it on an old cartridge wit the words 'Satan Meier's Sinilization DCLXVI'.

If so I recommend calling your local vicar for an exorcism.

TheGuineaPig said:

OK, I got this start for the fourth time today.

Click to expand...

TheGuineaPig said:

I've played a bunch of random games in between each of these instances.

Click to expand...

Well, which is it? Trust me, it only looks like you have random settings on.

beetle said:

Well, which is it? Trust me, it only looks like you have random settings on.

Click to expand...

What do you mean? I'm not getting these games consecutively. These all have been several weeks apart. I've played around with settings a bit (was playing some low sea level games, some tilted axis games...) and then going back to my normal Pangaea setup and getting this game again.

Okay, I miss understood, I thought you were saying the fourth time in one day, not that today was the forth time you saw the same AIs as you had two months ago!

Ah, I see where the confusion was, my wording wasn't clear.

I wonder if anyone can tell if the games are actually identical, or if there are small differences in code?

When you say the games are identical, do you mean you get the same set of AI opponents, or do you mean the map is exactly the same (exact same spawning location, same resources on the same tiles, same river touching the same tiles, same mountain over that way, coast exactly the same, each AI spawns in exactly the same position, with the same map details -- same, same, same)?