Cognitive error?

[ ;) ]

Oh give over Eldar and Padma! The AI fiddles and diddles. In my current game (continents, 60%, huge, monarch), my Romans have now one continent to themselves, a foothold on the other (where the Persians used to be) around 200 towns and cities. Rome is well into the modern age whereas the top rival, Spain has only just gotten to railroad. Now how come:

* In spite of having only one metro (pop 14) with MTS and RC in every core city, I still get 2 - 7 pollutions every turn?

* Those pollutions strike my core and - except three or four instances over some 40 turns - not the periphery where the pop 12 cities have only just built or are building factories and have no MTS or RC?

* In the space of eight or nine turns (I think it was four turns between the first and second instance, but it may have been five) one particular tile was "hit by pollution" no less than three times. Since this tile was a mountain with iron, does or does not the AI "attack" selectively with pollution?

* In taking Persian Arbela (pop7, on a hill) which was defended by two musketmen, one vet one reg, a veteran spearman and a treb, I lost two veteran Modern Armor. Five more were redlined (two won their contests, three retreated) and it wasn't until my eight MA attacked that I finally took that town. So, the AI with 2-4-1 at best and, what, 150% def bonus - lets call it 200% making it 2-8-1 - wins 23 battles against the 13 wins of the 24-16-3 units?

Well, I too see cognitive bias at work here my friends. Perhaps it is that you in your games and tests simply are not far enough ahead to come across these effects? :mischief:

[ Just in case someone missed it -> ;) ]
 
Quintillus said:
At this point I decided it was extremely likely that eldar had the "Preserve Random Seed" option checked

Probably should've un-checked it. D'oh.
 
I belive that theoreticly it is so, but to go as far as to plan tactics based on the pure math would be risky, mostly i would say that to attack would will ned to outnumber the enemy with atleast 3-1
 
In spite of having only one metro (pop 14) with MTS and RC in every core city, I still get 2 - 7 pollutions every turn?

* Those pollutions strike my core and - except three or four instances over some 40 turns - not the periphery where the pop 12 cities have only just built or are building factories and have no MTS or RC?

There is no point in building mass transit in anything smaller than a metro. Towns and cities which don't have any pollution-producing buildings won't get polluted.
 
I belive that theoreticly it is so, but to go as far as to plan tactics based on the pure math would be risky, mostly i would say that to attack would will ned to outnumber the enemy with atleast 3-1

Yes, of course this is what we humans do, and the AI mostly does not. And the fact that we try to stack the odds in our favour, both in terms of sheer numbers, and in terms of unit quality, is one of the reasons that we feel cheated when the results go against us. Great results in the AI's favour are noticeable, but the equivalent great results in our favour get masked within overwhelming odds.
 
Pollution ramps up due to many factors, with population only being one of those. Factories, Coal Plants, and just being industrialized. Rail your empire and clean the crap up. Just think of pollution as an incentive to win sooner. P.S. The AI isn't picking on you.
 
P.S. The AI isn't picking on you.

Are you sure about that?:dubious:

Why, when the AI hasn't got a chance, do they go to war with the biggest colour blob on the planet (aka me :eek:) when they might have a chance to take out some other small guy if they just want more land?
 
Pollution ramps up due to many factors, with population only being one of those. Factories, Coal Plants, and just being industrialized. Rail your empire and clean the crap up. Just think of pollution as an incentive to win sooner. P.S. The AI isn't picking on you.


Right, evidence of that is - if you are able to build Shakespear's Theater before building factories, that city now growing past 12 citizens gets pollution every now and then.

Plus other over-populated cities.
 
That's because the AI not so much programmed to win as it is programmed to keep someone else (human or AI) from winning. WHOEVER is currently top dog in any given game is going to have more problems with the other AI civs.

Also, another point on this topic: random does not mean "even distribution of results", which is what most people expect random results to be. Random means "equal probability of any of the results over a sufficiently large sample."
"Sufficiently large" in this case might not even be all such events within a single game.
 
Frequently, when I'm about to attack a Spearman with a Tank, I'll make a save just in case I lose. That way I could upload it here and be famous for ever.
 
Sweetchuck, disregarding the whole AI thing which I think has yet to be proven either way, all you need to do for your original question is download the Comabat Calculator in the utilities forum and it will immediately tell you the exact percent chance of winning any given battle on any given terrain. The only thing it might not tell you is the chance of enslavement.
 
Frequently, when I'm about to attack a Spearman with a Tank, I'll make a save just in case I lose. That way I could upload it here and be famous for ever.

:lol::lol::lol:

Yep! That would do it.
 
I lost a modern a modern armor to a Swiss mercinary but I don't have the save. :( No fame for me. :cry:
 
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