German UA and difficulty level

[Varanid]

Sonereal; at what point would you say it was worth investigation? If someone played 50 games split between settler and prince and noticed this occuring across them all?

Both of the events he mentioned are very improbable. The odds of hitting both are even longer. It's not fallacious to wonder if this is something other than chance. It'd be fallacious to start assuming it is without further investigation. It's also wrong to just assume it cannot be anything other than pure chance; weighing events and RNGs according to difficulty levels isn't unheard of.

 

[Sonereal]

Both of the events he mentioned are very improbable.

I'm going to stop you right there.

Because you said improbable. Not impossible.

 

[Varanid]

How about answering the question rather than just avoiding it?
If we only investigated invents believed to be impossible, where would be from a scientific standpoint? That's just a silly stance to take.

This hits me in my pocketbook because I breed exotics (hence the username) and genetics plays a major role in pairing animals up for mating; if I have 2 animals that are both supposed to be heterozygous for a recessive trait, how many clutches do I have to wait without getting visuals before I say the seller screwed me? And how long, how many clutches of eggs and different pairings do I do to decide if a visual abberency is reproducible and genetic?

What kills me is you're acting like it's not even worth floating the possibility that there's a weight on the RNG.

 

[Sonereal]

How about answering the question rather than just avoiding it?
If we only investigated invents believed to be impossible, where would be from a scientific standpoint? That's just a silly stance to take.

It's silly to take two random games, compare them, and try to draw conclusions from that.

This hits me in my pocketbook because I breed exotics (hence the username) and genetics plays a major role in pairing animals up for mating; if I have 2 animals that are both supposed to be heterozygous for a recessive trait, how many clutches do I have to wait without getting visuals before I say the seller screwed me? And how long, how many clutches of eggs and different pairings do I do to decide if a visual abberency is reproducible and genetic?

It's still chance. The difference between a seller potentially wanting to screw you and difficulty-scaling UA is that there's no reason why they would want to lie to you about what the UA does.

What kills me is you're acting like it's not even worth floating the possibility that there's a weight on the RNG.

Ok. I'll pretend there's a weight in the RNG and test a game on setter and watch as I get (shockingly) a radically different result than the OP. Then I'll do another settler game and watch as I get a (not so surprisingly) shocking different result that time.

Again, it says 50/50. Not "50/50 on Prince". So unless you're saying the interface is lying to us and trying to rely on anecdotal evidence, that's you prerogative. I don't have the time to test out whether or not there's any merit in the OP's claim because I don't have time when I'm pretty sure it's 50/50.

I just looked in the handicapinfo XML and Trait XML, there's nothing to indicate there's anything but a straight 50/50 conversion rate throughout all difficulties. If it isn't in the handicapinfo, where else would the conversion modifier be?

 

[Varanid]

I have 0 clue about software code, so I can't help you there. But if your reasoning is that the tooltip is accurate...how many times have tooltips been incorrect? It's not accusing them of malice, just a minor mistake. You're acting like someone shot your dog or something. And, you're still not answering the question. Would 20 games (split between Price and Settler difficulties) with similar results be enough? There's no reason to get snarky with the OP because he's wondering about a (very improbable) pair of events.

 

[Sonereal]

I have 0 clue about software code, so I can't help you there. But if your reasoning is that the tooltip is accurate...how many times have tooltips been incorrect? It's not accusing them of malice, just a minor mistake. You're acting like someone shot your dog or something. And, you're still not answering the question. Would 20 games (split between Price and Settler difficulties) with similar results be enough? There's no reason to get snarky with the OP because he's wondering about a (very improbable) pair of events.

I know that tooltips can be incorrect (given that "the interface lies to you" is one of my favorite sayings from Civ4 commentary) so I looked into the two files to find anything about difficulty-scaling UAs.

I didn't get snarky with the OP. I got snarky with the people who thinks something improbable happening is a bug.