A new low.

[capnvonbaron]

No.

In that game, France was an AI civ and Paris is the capital, i.e. the starting location. Just run a sample of world maps in the editor and tell me if you come across a starting location on a hill.

I've seen it, without question. I've even started on a hill. Even more rediculous, I once started an OCC where my capital started (I did not move) on a hill that ALSO happened to contain iron, and horses were just outside the fat cross. Needless to say, that was an exceptional game from start to finish

Explain THAT one with numbers

 

[Lord Emsworth]

No.

In that game, France was an AI civ and Paris is the capital, i.e. the starting location. Just run a sample of world maps in the editor and tell me if you come across a starting location on a hill.

No need for any editors; I just need to look at shots from my current game (15 civs):

But maybe that has been changed in C3C ...

 

[TheOverseer714]

I just played a game where regular pikes in a capital on grass mowed my cavalry down. I know there is no defensive bonus for a capital, but that was some battle. Fortunately, I got about 40% retreats, so I backed off. Some turns, you are not going to win. Several turns later, I won 8 straight to take the city. You gotta roll with the punches with the combat system of this game. Of course, it is human nature to protest when somethng fails to meet our expectations, and I'm no exception. Several times a game, I will verbally express my anger, and someone will think there is a problem. It's like, "nah, just . .. .. .. .. .in' about the game" None of them play, so I don't bother explaining how a guy with a pointy stick beats another guy who has a machine gun. Quirks of the game that I love, imperfections notwithstanding.

 

[Spoonwood]

No.

In that game, France was an AI civ and Paris is the capital, i.e. the starting location. Just run a sample of world maps in the editor and tell me if you come across a starting location on a hill.

Pretty sure that I've seen capitals on hills in Conquests before also. We also don't know if Paris comes as the original capital either.

Furthermore, I've known Darski a long time, and she has never stooped as low as to deliberate falsehood.

Her report only gives us so much information.

The rest of your post, we can leave without comment apart from one thing: You make a claim based on a sample of three, yet derides a sample of 25 as being "*far* too small". Now, that's what I call cognitive bias!

And that's *NOT* cognitive bias. First off, I didn't actually make such a claim. I put together a sophism like yours. I knew it as a sophism, and only used it to show your reasoning as flawed. Second, I meant a sample size of 2 (now 2). It had a standard deviation greater than 6, which comes out greater than the rounds given by the cavlary and the samurai *inidividually*... and they had larger sample size. Third, even giving you a sample size of 25 (instead of 23) for your *overly presumptive* example, that's still *very small* compared to a mere million. It's much smaller compared to a billion. And much, much smaller compared to a trillion. So, a sample size of 25, 23, 3, or 2 qualifies as *far too small* to make any sort of rational conclusion about the game in general.

Again, I said

Popping two consecutive SGLs with a scientific tribe comes out as having a probability of .0025. We have a variance of .095 here (.05*2*.95) and an expected value of .1. So we have a standard deviation .3082207 here. So, we have a statistical deviation greater than 6 here (.1+.3082207*6<2)!!!!! By the reasoning you used above, we have an event that defies the laws of mathematical probability! Since I've seen threads where people do that, the game must clearly have a bias in the human's favor.

No... the sample size simply comes out as *far* too small.

In other words, I've called the sample size of 2 *far too small*. The sophism there uses the same "reasoning" you used in your sophism Pyrrhos. In other words... a sample size of 25 comes out *far* too small.

If you still don't think that's *far* too small, then even if you do some calculations here and there... then you really don't understand the mathematical basis of probabilty theory... particualrly the parts which say things like "as the sample size approaches positive infinity" (usually you see n->oo... the meaning comes out basically the same).

VMXA still thinks it flawed, but at least he understands that proving such requires a heck of a lot more information than a mere 25 samples.

 

[vmxa]

My problem is with the idea that they should make it so obsolete units could win with some magical roll of the die. In 1.22 they were going to make it less of a radical swing, but ran out of time to test the fix, so they pulled that out.

That means they agreed it was flawed. If you run test you can see things like first combat unit A beat unit B and lost no HP. You can get all out comes to the other extreme where unit B wins and lost no HP.

That seems too wild for my taste. I am fine with the concept, if it has a means to keep the results narrow. I am ok with A beat B closely and repeated B beats A close. I am not fine when you can have a swing of 0 for 5 or 5 for 5.

Here I ignored the units involved, if A is say att 16 and B is defense 4 with no bonus, I can still handle it if B wins once in a while in a close one (read redlined). I am aghast, if B wins and suffers not even a single HP lost. Mind you I would not have coded that much of a mismatch.

This is where I liked to have seen something like fire power used to smooth out those battles. Then old units would not be totally useless, but nearly so. It is the sea battles which I found to be the worst.

Galley sinks Frigate or Destroyer, made me pull out my hair. In any event it is a moot point now.

 

[Jokeslayer]

Galley sinks Frigate or Destroyer, made me pull out my hair. In any event it is a moot point now.

Frigates are by far the dumbest unit going, because no distinction is made between a 17th century wooden version and a modern one. I hate frigates.

 

[capnvonbaron]

Frigates are by far the dumbest unit going, because no distinction is made between a 17th century wooden version and a modern one. I hate frigates.

Man. You're just a ray of sunshine aren't you, Jokeslayer?

Not to say I disagree. I might build one or two in a game if I think they'll be useful to sink incoming AI wartime galleys, and esp. those damned barb galleys that appear from nowhere and just buzz around annoyingly for centuries. Besides that, they suck and at very least should upgrade to ironclads (since IRL most "ironclad" ships were just standard frigates lined with iron and with a steam engine dropped in them). But since they don't, nuts to them.

 

[Jokeslayer]

Man. You're just a ray of sunshine aren't you, Jokeslayer?

Yes, yes I am

 

[NickyH]

(The probability of winning the lottery is given as a chance of between 1 in 5,200,000 to 1 in 100,000,000.)

I'm not good enough at maths to say anything about probabilities of certain outcomes of battles, but I think the comparison with winning the lottery is misleading.

You'll probably never win the lottery, even if you spend lots of money on it, but the number of lottery tickets (is that the correct word?) you'll buy in a lifetime is probably small compared to the number of battles you do in a few games of Civ. So the likeliness of unlikely events is greater in Civ, so to speak.

 

[Turner]

I think the lottery ticket example is a valid one. And it relates with civ very much. You may only have a 1 in umpteen chance of winning a ticket, but that applies to everyone. Obviously given the number of lottery ticket winners out there, it happens. The odds are much smaller the more tickets go into play.

And it's the exact same thing here. You may only have a 1 in 155 million chance of that happening, but given the number of games being played, and the number of battles that happen each game, and the number of people out there playing the game....someone, somewhere, is going to have that extremely improbable event happen. And given the popularity of this game, and the fact it's been around for seven or so years, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that it's happened more than once. A lot more than once. It would surprise me to find out that it's not happening a lot to be honest.

 

[NickyH]

In one way you're right, Turner. What I mean is that the probability that once in your life you'll experience an extremely unlikely battle result in Civ is bigger than the probability that you'll win the lottery. I don't know how many battles you do on average in a standard map size, war mongering game, but the number of battles in a single game is probably higher than the number of lottery tickets an average person buys in a lifetime. And thats just a single game. (I guess that we underestimate how many battles we have done during our career as civ-players, and that would be an important factor to take into consideration.)

If the chances are 1 in 155 million for booth the lottery and for a battle, it will be the same thing if you do only one Civ battle and have only one lottery ticket. But Pyrrhos uses the lottery as an argument that you'll virtually never experience the unlikely event in Civ, since everyone "knows" that you'll never win the lottery, and that's where I think it becomes a little misleading.*

There's a difference in how you personally experience the things, even if the probabilities are the same.

*At least that's how I interpret what Pyrrhos is saying. Pyrrhos may disagree.

 

[Turner]

We're just looking at it from different perspectives, is all. You're looking at a singular event, involving one person. And I think that's how most people look at things. Nothing wrong with it at all.

I'm just saying that given the size of the community, it doesn't surprise me at all that this happened. Just like I'm not surprised when someone hits the lottery...(although with the lottery I just wish it was me!)

 

[Spoonwood]

I think NickyH has a good point. Even if you buy 2 tickets a day for a whole year, that's just 730 probabilistic events. Since each *round* fought and each tech researched counts as a probabilisitic event, I'd think that most individual players have far more probabilisitic events in a month than someone who buys two lottery tickets a year... 10 battles in a single turn even seems low for an upper level game.... especially when you consider artillery. So, individually each of us *will* see more rare events than we would from our own lottery results.

 

[Turner]

Guy's, you're missing the point.

We're just looking at it from different perspectives, is all. You're looking at a singular event, involving one person. And I think that's how most people look at things. Nothing wrong with it at all.

I'm just saying that given the size of the community, it doesn't surprise me at all that this happened. Just like I'm not surprised when someone hits the lottery...(although with the lottery I just wish it was me!)

 

[NickyH]

Yes, it's just different perspectives, we're basically saying the same thing. My way of seeing it is more focused on the experience of feeling cheated by the game when your tank loses against a spearman, even though the game doesn't cheat with the combat system.

 

[darski]

Just for the record ... I checked when everyone was dying ... Paris was not on a hill and it was not across a river. And believe me or not, that bloody reg spear did not even have the decency to promote. France was a little nothing Civ in this game. Because they were poor and out of the way, they were not well defended in any of the towns. Joanie was coasting on the rep of her Super Spears. (One more turn theatre anyone :lol )

OK, there is an element of personal luck in this game with the RNG and I have developed a reputation for having really (incredibly) bad luck. This example was extreme even for my bad luck but the point is that it is all about luck and does not involve complicated formulae. It is all a crap shoot each and every time.

 

[Turner]

And believe me or not, that bloody reg spear did not even have the decency to promote.

That's weird, it should promote after the second win in a turn....was this spaced out over several turns? That's also going to change the equation a bit, as it'll heal IBT.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

As a regular spear has three hit points, it cannot have lost more than (two plus promotions to vet & elite) four rounds of combat whilst winning at least 19 rounds of combat (Darski is not an inexperienced player and would have used at least vet units). Since it was Paris, an AI capital, there would be no defensive bonus from terrain. But the spear was fortified and, for arguments sake, let's assume that Paris was a town, which is what it sounds like from the description given by the mil adviser. This gives the spear a total bonus of 50%, or a defensive combat value of 2+(2x50%)=3. Furthermore, let us assume that the four rounds won by Darski's first four units was divided 3-1 in favour of her cavalry over her samurai. This gives us the following maths:

Per round of combat
Cavalry vs Spearman 6/6+3 = 66.7% cav win, 33.3% spearman win
Samurai vs Spearman 4/4+3 = 57.1% samurai win, 42.9% spearman win

The whole sequence until the 4th cavalry attacked:
Vs cavalry, 14 rounds in all 3 of which was won by the cavalry and 11 by the spearman. This gives an overall ratio of 21.4% against 78.6%, a statistical deviation greater than 3!

Vs samurai, 9 rounds in all of which the samurai won 1 and the spearman 8 which gives the ratio 11.1% vs 88.9%, a statistical deviation greater than five!

The mathematical probability of the spearman winning all those rounds works out at 0.000000006424696131 or 1 in 155,649,627. (The probability of winning the lottery is given as a chance of between 1 in 5,200,000 to 1 in 100,000,000.)

Science tells us, provided of course that Darski's recapitulation is factual, that the PRNG of Civ III is not working properly, that is, it does not obey the laws of mathematical probability.

You and Padma would do well to remember the following - even Nobel Laureate level science starts with a hunch or as you like to term it, "cognitive bias"! When you dismiss it they way you do, it says A LOT about yourselves and your cognitive abilities...

These numbers are just wrong.

You get a 10% bonus for flat land, 25% for fortification and 50% for size 7 or walls, which is 85% bonus, not 50% bonus, or 3.7 defense. Across river would give an additional bonus, of course.

That gives 38% for cav and 48% for samurai.

 

[Pyrrhos]

These numbers are just wrong.

You get a 10% bonus for flat land, 25% for fortification and 50% for size 7 or walls, which is 85% bonus, not 50% bonus, or 3.7 defense. Across river would give an additional bonus, of course.

That gives 38% for cav and 48% for samurai.

Of course they are wrong since you don't like the results...

No, really, it is YOUR nubers that are wrong:

* A town is not flat land
* A fortification is not the same as being fortified
* A TOWN is pop 1-6
* If you have pop 7, it's a CITY

Just open the editor and go into edit rules and you'll see the correct numbers, no need to invent them!

How you arrive at the probabilities for Cavalry (attack 6 = 38%) and Samurai (attack 4 = 48%) is, err...., amusing...

 

[Optional]

But maybe that has been changed in C3C ...

I think it HAS changed. Settlers cannot start on a hill in Conquests. And there's more terrain where you never start off. I've never seen a mountain, jungle or marsh start. I'm not so sure about tundra.
I don't know WHEN they changed it, but those pictures you posted couldn't come from the most up to date version of civ.